Snips & Snails

What are little printers made of?

In case anyone is curious, I worked up a list of materials and what I paid for them (to the best of my recollection) or what they would cost now.

Materials: About $500-$600 total

   It depends on how much you have to pay for shipping and what you can scrounge up for free. (I did it for about $375 with scavenged/recycled materials and some leftover stuff from previous projects). Since I spread out the spending over 2 years it really didn't seem like much at the time. The projector was the single most expensive item but if you watch eBay you can usually find one for a reasonable price. If you want to have a build envelope larger than 4x6 you might want to look into a higher resolution projector (with a higher price tag).

Electrical:

• Projector – Mitsubishi XD430U (1024x768, 230W UHP bulb) $150 from eBay
• 1 Stepper motor for Z axis – Scavenged from old equipment (about $10 surplus from allelectronics.com)
• 1 Stepper motor for shutter (optional) – also scavenged from old equipment (about $10 surplus from allelectronics.com)
• 2 axis bipolar stepper driver – I had one, (it was about $40 from eBay a few years ago) obviously if you only use 1 stepper you can get away with the cheaper 1 axis controller
• AC relay board - to control the air pump. $18 from cnc4pc.com
• Basic Breakout board – Had one of these too, ($10 from cnc4pc.com)
• 24V Power supply – Had an extra one. ($20 from eBay) or convert a pc supply.
• Aquarium air pump - $14 from Walmart
• Switches – assorted mechanical and optical, had a bunch of these scavenged from old equipment.
• Parallel printer cable and assorted wire from my Box ‘O Stuff

Mechanical:

DIY Z axis :

• Scrap MDF / Pine 2x4 – Free?
• 1” Steel angle bar stock – about $16 from Home Depot
• 1” Aluminum angle bar stock – Had some from a previous project (about $5 from Home Depot)
• 8 roller skate bearings - $5 from eBay
• Assorted Nuts, Bolts, Washers and Corner braces – about $10 from Home Depot
• Acme threaded rod - $19/3ft from McMaster.com (I only used 16” so really $9.50)
• Coupler – Had one of these too ($15 from dumpstercnc.com)
• DIY leadnut – You can make one for next to nothing, if you have the Delrin, or buy one (about $20)

Resin Vat:

• HDPE Cutting board material 1” - $17 from onlinemetals.com. I could probably have used MDF if I wanted to go extra cheap.
• HDPE cutting board material ½” - $9 from onlinemetals.com. I could probably have used MDF if I wanted to go extra cheap.
• 2 Hinges – medium/small brass from Lowes $4
• Glass – $10 for a 12”x12” piece of double thick (5mm) glass from Delphiglass.com. (I cut 3 windows from this so I have a few extras ready for quick replacement)
• Bolts, threaded inserts, washers – about $8 from Home Depot
• Sylgard 184 – $50 / .5 Kg from eBay. That’s probably enough to coat 20 or more 4x6 pieces. It’s really a consumable but I’ll include it in the build cost.

Build platform:

• More scrap wood
• HDPE scrap from the vat construction
• Cheap cutting board - 3/8" thick about $3 from Walmart
• Aluminum angle left over from the z axis
• ¼” 4x6 Aluminum plate – about $5 from onlinemetals.com
• More corner braces - $5 from Home Depot. I could have cut these from scrap wood and glued them in place but I got lazy.

Structural:

• Scrap MDF, Plywood, Melamine shelving
• Scrap steel for projector mounts and front supports – from an old server rack mount
• Even more corner braces - $5 from Home Depot
• Red Plexiglas for door and projector shutter (optional but nice) - $30 from local supplier
• Drawer pull, hinges and magnetic cabinet latch – Had these in my parts box. (About $7 from Home Depot)
• Misc screws/bolts – from workbench

I'm already thinking of ways to improve/simplify the design and will undoubtedly recycle most of the parts for the MkII