A new jumbo 300mm cube, 3D printer that can print most of it’s own components. (The only RepRap fully designed in Canada that I know of) Designed by myself and built with the help of others at Protospace, Calgary’s hackerspace.
The source will be available at the end of the month, and a few Alpha kits will be available on my new webstore. (Store URL & Indiegogo campaign info will be posted when I release the source)
Want to clarify, the 300mm cube is the build volume, the physical dimensions of the printer are ~650mm cube. There is also a mini version available.
Is the frame black anodized aluminium?
Very impressive ! Congratulations !!
@John_Bump You bet! 
@Daniel_Ferreira Thank you, it’s about 6 months of effort so far, so I really appreciate the comment.
How much are you going to sell it?
Brilliant work - What’s the resolution?
it’s a belt design, so it should be just like reprap mendel.
@Allen_Zhang We’re Aiming for a kit retail of ~$1200-$1400, with a fully assembled one for ~$2500-$3000. (These figures will change since this printer is in an alpha state)
@Evan_Swanepoel It should be a bit higher than an average threaded rod RepRap because it’s more rigid, so it should be comparable to a MendelMax.
“3D printer that can print most of it’s own components.”
I don’t think you can really make that claim. You have by volume, probably more T-slot than you have printed components. This is a printer that can print most of its own components: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:14451
And this:
@ThantiK If you don’t mind sacrificing print resolution and speed, that printer is a really neat alternative. Thanks for posting about it!
@Kaz_Walker both printers are able to do what yours can and better (the tantillus better because of the overhead gantry) You’re using the same linear motion components that they are. What yours has on both of them is sheer size though. I’ve seen the ronthomp mendel doing 120mm/s perimeters, 200mm/s travel moves without hiccup. And the tantillus doing 0.01mm layer heights. I understand wanting to post positive things about your printer, but claiming that it can print most of its components when it in-fact, doesn’t, just doesn’t sit right with me…I’m forced to call it out.
You’d also get a much better build area/desktop ratio if you went with an overhead gantry.
@ThantiK The printer you mentioned wouldn’t be capable of doing 300mm prints, and on smaller prints it could do, the resolution would be lower because of the reduced rigidity in the frame.
As for the Tantillus, it uses a bowden extruder, and that’s a big draw back. Bowden extruders are a real pain to deal with if you do a large amount of printing. They also don’t deal well with retractions. I’m also not sure why you think an overhead gantry is better, it raises the COG(Centre of Gravity) and makes the machine less stable.
On that note about the Tantillus, I plan on printing the entire Tantillus frame as one piece later this year. My printer has a large enough print volume to make this happen.
Bowdens require a bit more tweaking than a direct drive extruder, but I think you’re overstating the issues with them a little.
I do wonder how much effect the higher center of gravity of an overhead gantry has on stability, though… I would think a slightly heavier base, plus mounting your PSU and electronics to the base, could largely fix that. Although I have no actual data to back that up, it’s just a gut feeling.
@Stephen_Baird The higher COG is fine, as long as there’s enough rigidity in the body of the printer. You’re right that weight in the base helps quite a bit, but if the frame isn’t rigid enough, you’d get flex and that would put some wobble in your Z axis, or potentially skew your Y/X axes.
That’s true. With a largely 3D printed frame I’d expect more flex, although with the scale of the Tantilus the effects of that wouldn’t be too noticeable… At least I’d think. On the scale of your printer though it probably would be (assuming you decided to print replacements for your aluminum extrusions, anyway).
Do you see much flex in your design using printed interconnects for the aluminium? I seem to remember someone talking about that in relation to another printer, but that was all speculation and no one ever had an experience based answer for whether or not those types of connections flexed.
It depends on the version of the Tantillus, the laser cut one uses a joint at the corners that wouldn’t prevent flex. (I’m not sure about the printed one)
So far the frame hasn’t flexed at all, it’s very strong, but that also comes from how I aligned the T-Slot in the corners. I plan to do some more extensive testing in the coming week.
Nice printer. I do agree, though, that you should probably reel in the “print most of itself” thing. This printer has enough advantages without trying to defend that.
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我想学英文，你们想学中文吗，我们互换./I want to learn English, and you want to learn Chinese, we swap
