I have decided that my next printer will be a delta printer, and although I have come up with numerous designs, the most recent one seems to be verging towards that of a Kossel Mini, so why not simply build a variant of one of these and have done with it.
Now I could buy a kit of printed parts for $39.99 (£25.76) + $11.81 (£7.61) P&P plus some additional import taxes, but decided instead that since I already have a 3D printer, lets stop being lazy and use that to print the parts and save a few more pennies.
The aim is to complete the build for under £200.00, ideally under £150.00, which I believe is very achievable compared to a purchase price of about $1125.00 (£721.15) for an off-the-shelf version.
Cost of PLA printed parts
| Filament | Cost | Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part | (mm) | (cm3) | (£) | Qty | (£) |
| Effector | 5.139.8 | 12.4 | 0.176 | 1 | 0.176 |
| Frame Top (20×20) | 13704.1 | 33.0 | 0.469 | 3 | 1.408 |
| Frame Motor (20×20) | 34007.6 | 81.8 | 1.165 | 3 | 3.495 |
| Carriage | 5717.9 | 13.8 | 0.196 | 3 | 0.588 |
| Bowden Extruder | 13719.7 | 33 | 0.470 | 1 | 0.470 |
| Total | 6.137 | ||||
| Cost | Total | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part | Supplier | ($) | (£) | Qty | (£) |
| 20×20 profile 600mm | Motedis | 2.46 | 1.58 | 3 | 4.73 |
| 20×20 profile 240mm | Motedis | 0.89 | 0.57 | 9 | 5.16 |
| Slider for 20×20 profile | Motedis | 2.71 | 1.74 | 3 | 5.22 |
| Carbon fibre Tube 5mm OD, 3mm ID, 180mm (6) | Robotdigg | 5.00 | 3.20 | 1 | 3.20 |
| Tie Rods & Ball Joints (12) | Robotdigg | 7.00 | 4.49 | 1 | 4.49 |
| GT2 Belt Loop 1350mm (675 tooth) | Robotdigg | 2.40 | 1.54 | 3 | 4.62 |
| Geared Nema17 Stepper Motor | Robotdigg | 28.00 | 17.95 | 1 | 17.95 |
| Filament Gear Drive | Robotdigg | 4.00 | 2.56 | 1 | 2.56 |
| Nema17 Stepper Motors | Ebay | 12.55 | 8.04 | 3 | 24.13 |
| J Head Hot End | Ebay | 24.94 | 15.99 | 1 | 15.99 |
| Sanguinololu | IteadSutdio | 4.68 | 3.00 | 1 | 3.00 |
| ATmega1284P | RS | 7.80 | 5.00 | 1 | 5.00 |
| Step Stick Stepper Drivers | Ebay | 2.30 | 1.48 | 4 | 5.92 |
| F623ZZ Bearings | Ebay | 0.78 | 0.50 | 6 | 3.00 |
| Total | 104.97 | ||||
I ordered some Sanguinololu boards from IteadSutdio a while back at $22.00 (£14.10) for 10 boards, the components, are made up from various bulk orders I have made in the past (thousands of resistors for $0.99, thousands of ceramic capacitors for $4.99, hundreds of radial electrolytic capacitors for $8.99, 10 packs of 40 pin headers for $2.99, etc), I boosted the total cost of board plus components to £3.00 to include some decent connectors, rather than just pin headers.
I don’t bother with FDTI chips on the Sanguinololu boards, or the associated components, I either program them via the ICSP header if I need to burn a bootloader, or an external FTDI serial programmer if just updating firmware, I also use bluetooth modules for wireless communications.
I am intending to try the Acetal Slider from Motedis instead of linear rails, I am not aware of anyone trying this idea before, and I have no idea how well it will work – it may have way too much slop to be of any real use, but at only £1.74 ($2.71) per axis, they have to be worth a try.
If this does not work, then I can use their Acetal rollers instead, these are designed to run in the 6mm slot on the side of the 20x20mm profile, these are £2.67 ($4.17) each, and I would need 9 or more, so I think it is worth the shot on the sliders first, many people have made alternate carriages to run on similar wheels/rollers, so I should be able to adapt one of these fairly simply.
