building a 3D printer.

I’ve started building a RepRap Prusa Mendel 3D printer as part of a Hackerspace Charlotte build group.  so far I’ve put together the main structure and made a few modifications to the original plans.  I’m using 3 bearings on each side instead of 1 – this is to keep the belt from rubbing against the fender washers and jarring the machine.  I’ve also added a sanded pipe on the top two bars; this is where the plastic feeds into the extruder print-head; this is partly for aesthetics and partly to prevent the incoming plastic from rubbing against the greasy threaded rod.

I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a 3D printer for a while now – but since there’s a build group it’s the perfect excuse to finally jump into the whole process.  I’m pretty excited at the prospect of being able to print out designs for my art pieces in my studio, and eventually I’d like to work on a way for artists to jump into 3D printing w/o the big technical/programming learning curve (see my post on CNC for artists…)  subscribe to the blog (that little button in the upper right-hand corner) and I’ll keep you posted with updates to the build.