Delta 3D Printer

After many months of hard work in the machine shop, on the computer, and at the good ole electronics workstation I am finally releasing my custom built Delta 3D Printer. Every part of the printer was hand designed and fabricated by me, though parts of the printer were certainly influenced by other printers on the market. The basis for my delving into this was that i wanted a relatively inexpensive, rather large build volume, fast and accurate 3D printer that was reliable and easy to repair. But the issue with that is that there are very few printers on the market that have all of those features, but also are under $500-600, which was my total budget for building this printer. Soon I plan on starting a full fledged 3D Printing company where Me and my Coworkers will fabricate and sell this very 3D printer, i'll be it with a few higher end fabrication techniques, and hopefully by the end of 2016 Dimension 3 Printing will help contribute to the amazing community and field of 3D printing!

For the main structure of the printer I used 25mm 80-20 Aluminum extrusions, which are modeled and downloadable for your convenience. On the electronics end of it all I initially went with an Arduino Mega 2560 running a Ramps 1.4 board with Pololu stepper drivers. Since then i have converted to the Azteeg X5 Mini, which is a 32 bit controller, much better for all the delta kinematics. I have also outfitted the printer with 3D Printed carriages that use openbuilds wheels to run along the grooves in the extrusion, providing a very locked in linear movement system. I found that Openbuilds wheels are WELL WORTH their cost as they provide some of the most rock-solid and smooth movement that i have used. The build volume on the printer is approximately 300mm in the X&Y and 430mm in the Z direction.

As for the extruder i went with a rather unique method of using a Flying extruder paired with an E3D V6 hot end and a NEMA 17 motor connected to an internal gearing system to drive it all. I have found that this works awesome for most things, especially for the simplicity and the ability to print flexible filaments. The flying extruder setup is basically a system of suspending the extruder motor a few inches above the hot end with some latex tubing, then running a very short length of ptfe tubing to the hot end from the extruder. By doing it this way you more evenly distribute the weight of the extruder over the arms of the printer, instead of having it all centered. This makes for cleaner, and faster printing. I used 1/8" id and .35" od latex tubing paired with the printable parts and some zip straps to very securely suspend the extruder motor. The photos above should clear up any confusion of how everything is setup.

Not all of the files are printable, as a portion of them are parts that I purchased then modeled to ensure a perfect fit. Because of this I will be soon releasing detailed instructional videos as well as an intuitive instructional guide on my website, Dimension3printing.com, detailing nearly every portion of the construction and assembly of the printer. This includes the electronics, mechanics, and aesthetics of the machine.

There is also included a .ZIP file that has all of the STL files organised into folders that help immensely with the printing and assembly process. If you are actually planning on attempting to build this epic machine I would say that the ZIP file is an absolute MUST!

I also have seperate Thingiverse pages for each of the parts of the printer, so feel free to look to there for more help on constructing the individual parts of this printer.

This is a work in progress, and through the following months i will be constantly updating the design, as well as the instructions.

Here is a link to a detailed parts list of the parts i used to build the printer. It is updated as i modify it, so it will only get better! Feel free to use it to find parts for your printers!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xr3XB-6PyDt0rJZ6fhlJ1sU11i4wlew2rB4MuShOpHQ/edit?usp=sharing

Teaser Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX2o5emcHi4

Website- http://Dimenson3fab.com

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/Dimension-3-Printing-1705719523009017/

If anyone has any questions feel free to send me an email at [email protected], i would be happy to answer:)

UPDATE 7-13-16 ---------------------------------

Hello everyone! Thank you all so much for your continued questions, support, and interest in all of my designs. The past months have been very busy for me and my team, but through all of it we have continued to work hard to keep designing and pushing on! As of now I am working on finalizing the designs for a complete redesign of the printer that uses tons of openbuilds extrusions and linear rail as well as lots of printed and machined components to greatly increase the rigidity of the machine and also opening the door to the ability of the machine to do other more rigorous tasks such as CNC milling, and laser engraving. The overall plan is to soon offer kits and complete printers based off of the designs that will all of course be open source!
For more updates follow me on thingiverse, and check Dimension3 out on facebook at the links above!

Happy Building everyone :)

UPDATE 1-23-17 ---------------------------------

Hello everyone, Over the past many months and thousands of hours of design time I am nearly ready to release the final version of my consumer version of the Dimension 3 MultiMachine Delta 3D Printer. Check it out at http://www.Dimension3fab.com