I was first introduced to the world of 3d printing during the fall of my Freshman year of high school, when I built my first kit. Since then, I've built two 3d printers from scratch, designed a low-cost multimaterial module, and manufactured printed parts on commission. 3d printing became an early outlet for my engineering passions, and each step along the way taught me something new about mechanical design, electronics, or polymer extrusion.
Left to right: kit-built Prusa, custom made Bear (middle), and Smartrapcore (right)
Below shows the evolution of my first fully scratch-built printer. First assembled in the spring of my Freshman year, it started as my large-format, low-budget printer. Since then, it's electronics, extruders, and Z carriage have gone through a number of iterations, documented in the pictures below (left-right, oldest-newest).
The printer has gone though a number of iterations in its life. While the Z axis was initially driven by In its final state, it currently uses a belt-driven Z axis driven by a 100:1 geared NEMA 17 stepper motor. The 1/4 MDF Z carriage was also changed to be routed out of 3/4in plywood and pocketed to minimize moving mass. The printer also had dual extruders in its first design, used to print the cat shown below, and the extruders used to feed filament in went through multiple iterations. The printer was initially modeled in Onshape, but was later transfered to Solidworks.
Above: (left) multimaterial prints; (right) a custom geared Z axis modeled in Solidworks
The second printer I scratch built used a mix of spare parts from previous projects. Based on the Bear project, the frame was cut and faced in my High School shop using 2x1 V-slot extrusion, and is gusseted together with a mix of routed aluminum and 3d-printed gussets. The linear motion system is entirely reused, and the printed parts shown are a mix of PETG and HTPLA. The printer was recently upgraded to use a spare MK52 magnetic bed, and I routed the spiderlike Y-carraige from 1/4in aluminum.
The printer runs a slightly modified version of the Klipper printer firmware, which allows communication with a PAT9125 optical runout sensor through code I helped develop.
The Bear printer
Above: fabrication of the new Y carriage
