Open Source 3D Printing

Well for me it all started with REPRAP, well to be honest that is where it started for all personal 3D printing. I found out about this project in 2011 and finally bought my first REPRAP machine in 2015.

RepRap Project actually started in 2005 so when I found out about it there had been a few models already in the works in the community. My first machine, I think I built it good but could not get the firmware/software to calibrate correctly so I kind of gave up for a bit. Now jump forward to June 24th 2020 and I decide to drop some coins on a Prusa i3 MK3S 3D printer, man oh man that was a good investment.

Check out the cool unbox setup….

I think even the packaging was done well…

So right out the box all I had to do is remove cable ties and boot it up, load filament and do the quick setup wizard.

Now I started printing things from the SD card and got great results, which then got me online checking all the sites that have free models to print. So i started with https://www.prusaprinters.org/ then moved onto https://www.thingiverse.com/ , https://www.cgtrader.com/ and https://www.youmagine.com/.

So here are some of the things I printed…

Now I did run into some issues when I was learning how to slice and resize and had a few X and Y crashes. Also just today I had a small blimp of power in the house and the printer stop in med print. I had to pull off the unfinished print job and start anew. I might be investing into a APC UPS that way the printer will not get effected if the power goes out which gives me time to pause the print and maybe i might be able to resume later.

I think the biggest problem I had was when ( I think I shutdown the printer before it could cool the hotend.) I got filament and the PTFE tube stuck in my heatsink.

I spoke with support to be sure on the new parts needed, and ordered them up with some extra filament from Prusa (Prusament filament). So a new heatsink with black clip and PTFE tube was ordered and installed and i was back up and running.

So like I said, originally I bought a RepRap Ormerod 2 but didn’t really get to use it has much as I wanted to now some pieces are broken and I have decided to rebuild with new printed parts.

Link below is some shots I took when I was building it.

https://goo.gl/photos/rzcw28F59ME8Q4R1A

This time around it will be Royal blue and black

I am also testing out different filaments from USA and China so that I can get filament quick. Of course the Prusament is my first choice but I would love to get a reliable USA distributor. Here are some of my filaments…

So at this time I moved my printer from the brown desk to my IKEA Linnmon desk. All my prints will be place in a self and I just need to start on my upgrades. I want to start first with the enclosure then move to the multi filament extruder. So stay tune for more upgrades, failed prints and more fun.