instructables

How to Design and Build a 3D Printer

by EdChamberlain

This Instructable summarises the design, build, and will likely not be its nal form). My advice to the
calibration phases of creating a custom 3D printer by budding printer designer is to not take lightly the
outlining the key design decisions I made throughout challenge you are taking on; it will take many hours
the process. It is written to aid you in the design and and many failed ideas but push on!
build of your own printer. I have included con g les
and macros for Reprap rmware and STEP les for the As with any project, safety should come rst. This
various printer parts to allow you to draw inspiration project involves working with several tools, mains
from and be able to build my machine. Due to the electricity, and heaters that reach over 250 ºC. When
broad number of topics and depth of knowledge working with mains electricity ensure that the
required to build a reliable and high-quality printer workpiece is isolated from the supply and that your
this Instructable assumes a prior understanding of 3D breaker has an RCD. Ensure that cables are well
printers and their operation. connected and do not expose any conductor. Avoid
handling heaters while under power and remember
This Instructables takes a very linear approach to the that heaters will remain hot long after the machine
design process which is one of the caveats of writing has been shut down. Take care when working with
an article formed of steps. In reality the design tools and always use the right tool for the job. It is
process is much more cyclic and involves no end of your responsibility to make sure that you are working
iteration and repetition of the steps below. What you safely and understand the dangers present. Follow
see here is the design that I settled on and ended up this Instructable at your own risk.
building at the end of an almost two-year long
project and is iteration 52 of the original design (and

How to Design and Build a 3D Printer: Page 1

Step 1: Printer Specification

Spe e d, Q ua lit y, a nd Co s t - Pick t w o. lower quality or with a lower factor-of-safety.

It's a famous saying (cliché?) but it holds a lot of truth. Build Vo lum e
You can’t set out to achieve all three and so some
sacri ces must be made along the way. Setting a clear Most parts that I print are engineering prototypes
speci cation for what you want and where you are and typically fall into a small build volume. Having
willing to make sacri ces is essential to keeping you owned both a 300 mm^3 and 220 mm^3 printer for
on track and working towards consistent goals. several years and never having printed anything
Without a speci cation you run the risk of entering a larger than 100 mm^3 it seemed obvious to build a
never-ending design cycle or su ering from moving smaller printer and take advantage of some of the
goal posts. bene ts this can deliver such as shorter belt runs, a
more rigid frame, and most importantly a smaller
Q ua lit y & Co s t footprint! For that reason, the printer will be made
around a 200 x 200 x 200 mm build volume.
For me quality comes rst. This printer build is focused
on delivering high quality 3D prints that are Print e r Siz e
dimensionally accurate and reliable at the expense of
print speed, and cost. Desk real estate is a hugely valuable commodity in
o ces and workshops. With that in mind I want to
Another key requirement was reliability. I wanted to minimise the footprint of the printer. A maximum size
build a machine that I could con dently rely on to requirement is 450 x 450 mm. I also wanted the
create in spec parts, that look great, and wouldn’t electronics to be attached to the printer and safely
burn my house down. That means that this machine contained to prevent damage to them and to keep
wasn’t designed to cut costs wherever possible and so the machine tidy.
some of the parts could be sourced cheaper but at a

Step 2: Chassis

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The chassis is the fundamental structure that holds with minimal processing cost. Another huge bene t of
the printer together, mounts all of the sub systems, the aluminium extrusion system is the high number
and gives it the much-needed rigidity that is of sub-contractors willing to cut it to length for a
intrinsically tied into good quality prints. competitive price.

Alum inium Ext rus io n Aluminium extrusion can be anodised in a range of

colours but clear (silver) and black are the most
I wanted to create something easy to build with common and therefore cheapest. I initially ordered
relatively limited tools and equipment but without clear extrusions but due to a small mix up ended up
incurring high sub-contract costs for contract with black extrusions… queue quick colour scheme
machining / fabrication. The obvious answer to this overhaul. You can purchase plastic pieces that t into
was aluminium extrusion pro les which are popular the gaps of the extrusion which tidies up the look and
among the maker and engineering communities allow you to use the extrusion channels for running
thanks to their ‘lego-like' quick and easy assembly cables.

Despite the small target build volume of the printer I for a small fee whilst cutting the extrusions to length.
opted to use 3030 extrusions as they o er a signi cant By using blind joints throughout the entire frame
upgrade in rigidity (especially at the joints) and also there is no plastic that can introduce ex in the frame
make the design scalable up to a much larger size if creating an extremely rigid chassis.
that is ever required.
B a s ic Cube
Blind Jo int s
I stuck to a basic cube construction for simplicity and
Aluminium extrusion can be connected in a huge for how it lends itself to the CoreXY belt paths. I
range of ways including (but not limited to) various lowered the front cross member so that visibility of
angle brackets, hinges, pivots, extenders, and blind the print head (and the print in progress) is not
joints. Blind joints involve tapping (cutting a thread obstructed. I avoided removing it entirely as it
into) the end of the extrusion and using a button provides a signi cant amount of structural rigidity to
head bolt to clamp the two extrusions together at the frame.
right angles.
I added an extra space at the bottom of the frame
I chose to use the blind joints as they reduce the part used to store the electronics for the printer. This helps
count (reducing cost), reduce the number of to keep everything neat and tidy and attached to the
tolerances to control (meaning you can easily get a machine and by placing electronics on the bottom it
square frame with a strong metal-to-metal joint), and prevents me from having to increase the footprint of
allow you to easily connect frame members at almost the printer just for the electronics. Once installed the
any point. This type of joint does require a simple electronics will be covered with laser cut panels to
cross hole to be drilled to allow Allen key access for hide the mess of wiring!
tightening the button head bolts but fortunately
many sub-contractors will also drill these cross holes

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Step 3: Motion Platform

The XY motion platform is responsible for the XY CoreXY is a 2-axis kinematic system that features a
movements of the printer and so is fundamental to coupled X and Y axis. The main focus of the CoreXY
the printer’s performance. There are several di erent design is to reduce the weight that the print head has
popular motion schemes each o ering pros and cons. to carry by placing the motors on the frame instead of
The main kinematics are Cartesian, Delta, and CoreXY on the X and Y axis. This reduced weight allows the
each with their own subtle variants. head to accelerate much harder whilst still accessing a
square bed. The required belt paths are however
Co re X Y reasonably long meaning belt stretch becomes an

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issue at larger build volume sizes (>350 mm sqaure), CoreXY printer has two motors named A and B which
but this won’t be an issue at our target build size. are often connected directly into the CoreXY belts. I
Many pulleys are required and careful alignment and decided to connect the motors to the CoreXY belts
tensing to prevent gantry racking or irregular with a belt loop so that the motors could be placed in
movement is essential. The CoreXY belt path also a more convenient location. The belt loop also has the
requires a small margin around the bed to house the advantage of allowing a gear ratio to be introduced
various idlers, pulley and motors. Since CoreXY only between the motor and the CoreXY belts by varying
handles the XY axis a third Cartesian axis for the Z axis the pulleys used. A ratio between 2.5:1 and 1:2.5 can be
is required. achieved. I initially chose a ratio of 1:0.8 to slightly
reduce speed and increase resolution but this can
A full explanation of the CoreXY kinematics can be easily be changed at any time to ne tune to the type
found on the CoreXY website. of printing you want to achieve.

Line a r Ra ils B e lt Pa t h

The X and Y axis require a linear sliding element for For this machine I opted to use a GT2 belts which are
smooth motion. Linear bearings running on round ubiquitous in 3D printers thanks to their low cost,
rods are the most common setup for 3D printers, but easy sourcing, and good control. Implementing the
the rods are poorly supported along their length CoreXY belting successfully requires careful
thanks to only being mounted at either end and o er placement of the pulleys to ensure parallelism of the
poor rigidity. Linear rails like those available from belt. Any errors in belt alignment will result in poor
Misumi, HiWin, etc o er a signi cantly more rigid joint motion platform performance.
thanks to being mounted along its entire length and
also don’t roll like linear bearings and so I chose to use The original CoreXY belt path requires the two belts
some reasonably priced linear rails from Aliexpress. to cross to cancel a twisting force but this can cause
While the Chinese manufactured rails are certainly some odd pulley alignment and uneven wear on the
lower quality, they are still more than suitable for a 3D belts. Since the linear rails are capable of handling the
printer and come at a signi cant (10x) cost reduction twisting forces, I instead opted for a stacked belt style
over name brand o erings. that makes the belt routing much simpler. Since the
motors are not being mounted to the CoreXY belt
X a nd Y Axis path I was able to run the belts along the inside of the
frame, keeping them compact and out of the way.
I opted to mount my linear rails to the underside of Another pulley was added to the front idlers of the
the extrusion as it reduces the amount of XY space machine pinching the return path closer to the frame
required, ensures an even loading on the rails, and of the printer increasing the X-axis length without
helps protect them from dust ingress which will having to make the machine bigger. Belt tensioners
extend the rail lifetime. were added to the front of the machine for easy
tensioning of the belts.
A piece of 2020 extrusion is used to support the X-axis
rail. This provides a lightweight but rigid support with To o l He a d
a wide range of mounting options. The X axis is then
mounted to the Y axis with two printed pieces that The tool head holds the hotend, Z probe and part
also house the required pulleys to align the belts. This cooling fans together. I wanted the printer to be
is the only structural plastic part in the entire motion adaptable and open to other hotend and cooling
platform. options and so wanted to use a quick-change head.
Instead of reinventing the wheel here and
AB D riv e s introducing another competing standard I opted to
use the Voron quick change tool head since it o ers
In place of the typical cartesian X and Y motors a quick tool changes (2 screws) and already has heads

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available for the E3D V6 (in both regular and volcano
con guration), Slice Mosquito, and the TL Dragon. The
mounting plate only required minor edits to suit my
belt paths and to mount to a PINDA probe.

Step 4: Z Axis

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The Z axis is responsible for the ne positioning of the I opted for a hybrid cantilevered design which
bed to create the layers of the 3D print. One of the key supports the bed at the back to control X, Y, and
concerns here is the infamous “Z Wobble” e ect where pitching movements but then uses three lead screws
the axis wobbles from side to side as it travels creating equally spaced around the bed to control Z, Yaw, and
signi cant and repeated rippling patterns on the roll movement.
surface of prints. Key to overcoming this is careful
design of the Z axis so that it is not over constrained Using three screws makes sense since the three points
but is properly supported. at which it holds the bed perfectly de nes the plane.
Implementing independent control of the three
A lot of popular printers have a cantilevered bed screws would allow the printer to level itself but
where the bed is only supported and driven on one would require 3 independent drivers and motors
side. While this makes the mounting, assembly, and adding signi cant cost. For the initial build I instead
alignment much simpler it also doesn't fully support opted to save the cost and use a single motor and
the bed and so you get inaccurate movement the driver and connected all of the lead screws together
further away from the support column thanks to the with a single belt loop. At a later date the machine
bed drooping. Other machines support the bed at all could be easily updated to include independent
four corners which ends up over-constraining it and control.
requiring challenging rail alignment.
Aligning the lead screws to the bed is also essential as

otherwise they can apply a force to the bed causing Z To reduce the need for a central vertical column at
wobble. Each screw is mounted to a exible coupling the back of the machine and to increase the rotational
which will allow for a small amount of angular stability I chose to use one rail on either of the back
misalignment making assembly signi cantly more extrusions. As a consequence, these will require
forgiving. Each screw is mounted through the exible alignment, but this is much simpler than aligning 4
coupling to a shaft that holds a GT2 pulley and is held rails.
in place by two KFL08 bearing blocks mounted to a
housing.

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Step 5: Bed

The main construction of the bed is an 8 mm thick Aluminium tooling plates and silicone heaters come
aluminium tooling plate that has been machined at. with a signi cant cost so save a bit of money they can
The thickness of the bed makes it somewhat heavy be replaced with a much cheaper PCB heated bed.
but gives it signi cant thermal mass meaning it can These beds often have issues with atness, but this
maintain a very stable temperature. Its thickness also can be overcome with software mesh compensation
means that it is resistive to warping as it undergoes and will act as a suitable stopgap.
heating. A 20 mm margin is added around the build
area on the bed so that the additional cooling e ect I wanted to have an easy way to remove large prints
that the edge of the plate will see isn’t within the from the bed and the ability to quickly switch build
build volume. The tooling plate sits on a frame made plates to enable back to back print jobs. A removable
of 2020 aluminium extrusion which mounts it to the bed is the obvious answer and so I opted for a spring
linear rails and screws of the Z axis. The bed is steel sheet held down with magnets. This allows it to
mounted to the frame with 3 screws to prevent the be easily removed and reinstalled without the needs
screws from over-de ning the bed, but this will not for a complex clamping arrangement. A magnetic
scale well to larger machine sizes. sheet is bonded to the bed for a quick solution.

A 200 W DC silicone heater is bonded to the underside The print surface is essential for getting prints to stick
of the bed to heat the assembly and improve bed to the bed and preventing them from warping. I
adhesion. The 200 W heater was selected to limit the wanted to avoid surfaces like glass or bare metal that
heating power of the bed to an acceptable max require excessive attention such as the application of
temperature. An AC powered bed would o er a higher hairspray, glue or blue tape for adhesion. The spring
heating power but comes with the added risk of steel sheets are instead coated in PEI which creates a
having to run mains cabling and a grounding loop very good surface for adhesion when warm but will
through the printer while the increased heating release the part easily once cooled.
power could cause permanent damage to the printer
in the event of thermal runaway.

Step 6: Extrusion System

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The extrusion system of the printer is responsible for cold sides), and the hot side (formed of a heater block
the ow of plastic out of the nozzle and is comprised and nozzle). The key factor in hot end design is a
of the extruder, the hot end, and the connecting sharp hot-to-cold transition to get the best control of
parts. the owing lament.

Ext rude r I chose to use an E3D V6 hot end for its proven track
record and ubiquitous mounting solution. I upgraded
The extruder is the part of the extrusion system that the standard stainless-steel heatbreak to a titanium
pushes the lament into the hot end. There are many one for the reduced thermal transfer. For the nozzle I
options on the market, but I chose to go with the chose a standard 0.4 mm brass nozzle to start with
Bondtech BMG for its duel drive hobbed gears that due to its all-round performance. A big advantage to
nearly never slip on lament and the 3:1 gear ratio the E3D system is that it gives the option of
that gives ner control of the lament ow with less upgrading the hot end in the future to allow faster
velocity ripple. printing with a “Volcano” heater block, support for
abrasive materials with hardened nozzles, or a range
Ho t End of nozzle diameters for varying print requirements.

The hot end is where the plastic is heated and Other options worth looking at are the Hermera from
extruded out of the nozzle and is made of the cold E3D for a compact direct drive solution or the Dragon
side (typically a large heat sink to dissipate heat), the from TriangleLabs for quick nozzle changes and
heat break (responsible for separating the hot and improved heat break performance.

D riv e Sy s t e m places the extruder (and its motor) on the printer

frame and feeds the hot end via a bowden tube.
With both the extruder and hot end selected all that Whilst this reduces the amount of control over the
is left is to connect them together. The obvious lament, it allows the head acceleration to be
answer is a direct connection using the groove mount increased and reduces print artefacts.
connection, but this means that the weight of the
extruder and its motor must be carried by the head. To
overcome this a bowden system can be used which

Step 7: Electronics

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PS U electrical strain on it extending its life a little.

The rst obvious question is the supply voltage for The Duet Wiki has a great article on calculating the
the printer of which both 12 V and 24 V are common. required power for a 3D printer PSU.
24 V requires lower (half ) current to deliver the same
amount of power through your wires. This lets you use Co nt ro l bo a rd
thinner wires saving a bit of cost and making cable
routing easier. It also means you can use higher There is a wide range of suitable control boards on
powered heaters to reduce heat up time and increase the market. 32-bit boards o er a serious improvement
top temperature. This is particularly useful for your in processing power.
heated bed. Your motors are a high inductive load on
the printer and so having the increased voltage also The Duet 2 o ers a powerful 32-bit processor and the
means you can run them at higher steps per second built-in drivers implement excellent passive cooling,
(useful for 0.9 deg steppers) and at a higher torque but the key bene t is the tight integration with
which can greatly improve the quality of your prints RepRap Firmare (RRF) and its Wi-Fi interface which
as the motors can maintain better control. o ers very powerful printer customisation and setup.
RRF opens up a lot of possibilities and thanks to its
Overall there is no reason to opt for a 12 V supply at ‘GCode everywhere’ attitude it is easy to implement
the time of writing this. As the tech develops it is likely advanced features and con guration. Duet 2 Wi also
we will see the extinction of 12 V printer electronics in supports 12 V and 24 V input and supports 5 drivers
favour of 24 V and perhaps even higher voltages. For (capable of 256x micro-stepping) and 3 heater
this reason, I decided to pick up a 400 W 24 V PSU channels (2 for hot end tools and another for a heated
from SteppersOnline. I chose a 400 W PSU as it bed).
covered all of the power requirements for my
machine with a bit of head room which will reduce I opted to run the printer without a screen since the

Duet Web Control interface o ers all of the control W iring

you need and can be accessed from any PC or mobile
on the same network as the printer. I have a PC next to High exibility silicone wiring was used throughout
the printer making the PannelDue that is the the machine as there are a large number of moving
preferred screen for the duet unnecessary. parts and the silicone wiring o ers a superior life
when being constantly exed. Making the right
M o t o rs selection of wire thickness is also essential to ensuring
that the load on the wires is safe. I used 20 AWG for all
Stepper motors are extremely common in 3D printing of my low current connections and 14 AWG for my
due to their ease of open-loop control (control bed connections. This will provide a small safety
without a feedback system), excellent low speed margin over the expected current.
performance, and accurate positioning capability. I
selected to use NEMA 17 motors with a step-angle of All wires are xed at both ends with cable anchors to
0.9º step angle throughout the entire machine. The reduce the chance of them becoming loose and mains
increased step resolution over typical stepper motors wiring is contained within plastic conduiting. This
gives ner control and smoother motion but also has provides essential protection from wires creating
reduced torque and top speed. To compensate for shorts or bringing components like the frame live.
this, I chose motors with a 2.0 A rating which allows Drag chains are used to manage the cables on the Z
more current to be used to recover some of the lost axis to keep the wiring tidy and prevent it getting
torque and the high step rate of the Duet Wi should trapped in the motion system.
allow a reasonable top speed to be maintained.

How to Design and Build a 3D Printer: Page 10

Step 8: Building the Machine

With the design nalised its time to order the parts square is an essential tool for this. If blind joints have
and start building! Before assembly it’s always good been cut non square you can correct them by adding
practise to run through the assembly process in your small shims into the joint or rotating the extrusion 90
CAD package to help iron out any nal issues and degrees to shift the error to a less critical dimension.
familiarise yourself with at least a rough plan of what
you are going to do, how you will do it and in what Installing the linear rails that are operating in pairs (Y
order. axis and Z axis) requires careful alignment to ensure
smooth running. There are several methods to align
Special attention is required in the assembly of the the rails but the easiest method I have found is to
chassis to ensure rails don’t bind, and prints come out denote one rail as the master and another as the
square. A critical area is ensuring atness of the top 3 oating rail. With the master rail securely xed to the
members so that the linear rails can be installed with frame the other rail can be aligned using a Dial Test
minimal issue. I worked from the top down using a Indicator. If you don’t own a Dial Test Indicator the
table to hold the extrusions at to a common plane. rails can be aligned “close-enough” by sweeping the
Ensuring the squareness of the top frame is also axis back and forth ensuring smooth motion as you
essential for good motion (although a small amount tighten down the oating rail.
of error can be corrected in software). An engineer’s

How to Design and Build a 3D Printer: Page 11

Step 9: Test and Calibration

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With the machine built, wired, and powered up all use it.
that’s left is to calibrate it! There are quite a few
calibrations steps required when setting up a printer The calibration procedure is relatively straight
but here I will outline a couple of the key ones. These forward but relies on repeated testing to narrow
calibration steps consist of brief descriptions of the down both the optimal current and stall detection
calibration process and so will require an sensitivity.
understanding of GCode and your machine to enable
you to carry them out. Step one is to slowly reduce stepper current whilst
moving, at the homing speed, around the bed. The
X YZ St e ps Pe r m m aim here is to nd the lowest motor current that will
reliably allow the motors not to stall during free
The steps per mm de ne the axis scaling and so movement. Make sure you test all of the areas of the
accurate setting is required to get parts that are XY movement in case one area is sti er. This lowest
dimensionally accurate. Several methods exist based motor current that still allows reliable movement will
on the measurement of printed artefacts such as become the motor current used for homing moves.
calibration cubes, but these can often introduce
inaccuracy due to the inclusion of errors from the With the motor current set we next want to set the
printing process such as thermal contraction of the stall sensitivity to the highest sensitivity that doesn’t
plastic, ow of the plastic, and surface defects like cause false positives. We can do this by setting the
layer misalignment or Z-wobble which aren’t sensitivity to the highest setting and repeat the
accounted for. Better tests use a stepped artefact that previous movements around the bed. The motor will
allows multiple measurements to be taken and detect a stall as soon as it starts moving so reduce the
consistent errors to be detected and removed. While sensitivity slowly until you nd a stable sensitivity that
these tests still include an error, they are typically doesn’t cause false positives. You now have the
su cient for printing. optimal sensitivity and motor current and you can use
these to write your homing macros.
A good stepped axis calibration test along with ready-
made excel sheet to calculate your steps per mm can Z Pro be
be found here:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2484766. The machine uses a PINDA probe which is an inductive
probe with a built-in thermistor to allow for
St a ll De t e ct Ho m ing measurement temperature compensation. The Z
probe requires calibration to get the perfect rst layer.
Stall detect homing is a great feature as it can simplify Start by xing the probe to the machine so that it
the amount of wire runs you have to make around triggers before the nozzle hits the bed but is higher
your machine and saves you from buying extra than nozzle itself. You can now use the Z-probe to
homing switches. It does however have the drawback home the machine. Find the Z probe o set by moving
of reduced homing accuracy (especially on CoreXY the Z axis up to the nozzle using a piece of paper to
machines) meaning your ability to locate items on the set the correct distance and nally set the Z o set for
bed may be limited. Fortunately, I don’t have to the probe to the current position of the head in the Z
accurately locate anything on my bed, so I chose to axis.

E- St e ps pe r m m a nd Flo w Ra t e

Correct control of ow through your hot end is

essential to consistent layers. First, we can set the E-
steps of the extruder which describes the movement
of lament through the extruder before the hotend.
Start by marking a point on your lament and
measure the points distance from the start of your
How to Design and Build a 3D Printer: Page 13
Bowden tube. Extrude or retract the lament by a set
amount and then remeasure the distance from the
Bowden tube. You can use these two measurements
to calculate the correct E-steps using the formula
above.

Di erent laments often have di erent hardness and

therefore change the e ective diameter of the
hobbed gears. Setting ow controls the extrusion out
of the nozzle allows you to nely adjust the extrusion
based on varying laments to compensate for this
e ect. Start by printing a single walled cube with no
top at 100% ow. This will give you a single wall
thickness which you can measure with a set of Vernier
callipers or a micrometre. You can then calculate the
appropriate ow using the formula above. Adjusted
ow should be between 90 % and 110%. If you need
to adjust the ow more than this, it suggests other
issues are present.

To le ra nce Te s t

A nal test that is useful to complete to characterise

your printer’s performance is a tolerance test. This
tells you the minimum clearance you can leave
between parts before they become bonded together.
Several quick and easy to print tests exist online. I
personally like this one since it is quick to print and
doesn’t use a lot of material:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2949885.

How to Design and Build a 3D Printer: Page 14

 1

1. Single Wall cube for flow calibration 1. Single walled cube.

Step 10: Conclusion

After building the machine I am very happy with the which makes alignment of rails and screws
performance and test prints have come out with challenging. Building everything against a common
excellent quality. Due to COVID19 the delivery of the datum plane that can be guaranteed at would help
laser cut panels was delayed and so they were not make assembly much easier. I would also adapt the Z
installed in time for this write up. Hopefully they will axis to o er more support to the bed by mounting
arrive soon though! each screw to its own linear rail and mounting the
bed through a kinematic coupling.
This machine is far from a ‘ nal design’ and a version
two will likely be made that iterates on some of the I hope this article has been interesting and given you
lessons learnt from creating this machine. There are a some pointers on how to design your own machine. I
few things I would change about this machine. First, I found the project to be a huge learning experience
would opt to use microswitches for axis end stops. but one that I enjoyed, and I certainly picked up a lot
Although they require more wiring the con guration of new machine design skills. If you build your own
is much simpler, they are signi cantly more reliable printer leave a comment. I’d love to see what you
and produce less false positives. Another key issue make!
with the machine is the lack of a common datum

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