Complete newbie with lots of questions

**Alexvw** · 08-29-2016, 04:57 AM

Hi all. I want to build my own printer from parts off the shelf. Buying a kit is not financially viable, and i learn by doing anyway so want to do it myself. I am extremely mechanically proficient, computers, not so much. Building the thing is not a problem. I babysat and maintained a couple of CNC machines for a couple of years.

The question is what stepper motors talk to what drivers and what software. I need someone to explain the terminology of the stepper motors and what are the right ones to use on what axis. And then drivers. Explain them too. What do i need and what not. Some have heat sinks and some not. Now what.

If someone could just give me the basic info, it would be appreciated. I am in South Africa, and support is nonexistent or expensive.

Thanks
Alexander

**AutoWiz** · 09-06-2016, 02:49 PM

Hello. I am an avid diy'er and enthusiast. I LOVE to build. And I live on a very tight budget. I found a really cool solution in the form of a geeetech prusa i3 pro c. You can buy one of these printers for far less than you could build your own for. Under $250 for the entire kit and you only need a spool of filament to start printing. The kit requires a lot of assembly and attention to detail. And you gotta hunt online for instructions. And it has its own hurdles. But it is the cheapest way into a 3d printer. And if you are meticulous enough, it can be a very good printer. here is the building of my printer:
http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/foru...d.php?t=269457

**AutoWiz** · 09-12-2016, 08:24 PM

here is my i3..

I have designed and printed the piece to mount the filament spool directly to the printer. I have added the 12v led modules to light up the print area. I added a volt gauge so I can monitor what the power supply is doing. I upgraded the 1/16 micro stepping a4988 driver boards to 1/32 microstepping drv8825 driver boards to create 2x as many steps for a given distance and in this way increase printing resolution. I got a bigger lcd display and printed a case for it and I did some tweaking of the marlin firmware to make all these things work together.