New budget 3D printer

There are all new 3D printers in the RepRap family . Printrbot was designed to make the printer cheap, as easy to assemble, and therefore affordable to a wide range of people. The motto of the project is " Printrbot - your first 3D printer." Looking ahead - the planned price for the base model is $ 549.

The project caused a keen interest in kickstarter and 50% of the required $ 25 thousand was raised in less than a day and a half. By the end of the month, 830 thousand were collected for the project. $ (3,323%) The

following are the translations of selected places from the project website and from the published videos on behalf of the printer creator Brook Drumm, which clarify the details of the project and the current status.

- “I developedPrintrbot as the simplest printer. There are many great kits for self-assembly - Makerbot, Ultimaker, Prusa Mendel and others, but none of them is as simple and miniature as Printrbot . Not only do they require many hours to assemble, but they also contain hundreds of parts and cost more. My design also eliminates the many calibrations that other 3D printers suffer from. Even a child can assemble it. "We assemble electronics, a printhead, install connectors on all components - no soldering will be required during assembly."

“I assemble this printer in 45 minutes. Following the video instructions you will assemble the printer in an hour. And in a couple of hours, after you connect the electronics, download the software, available for free on the Internet, you can print your first 3D part. ”

“In January 2011, I assembled my first Makerbot Cupcake 3D printer . On February 3rd, he printed his first object. By August 13th, I had designed, printed, and built the first Printrbot prototype . After several months of testing and improvements, on November 17th I launched the project on kickstarter. During this very long month, great interest was shown in the project. ”

“This is not a side job in my spare time, but the beginning of a new business. I have a small trusted team that deals with individual components.

There is a local print head assembly supplier.

There is an engineer who communicates and makes decisions on the production of electronics. All of it will be assembled by the manufacturer - not a kit for assembly, but completely assembled. Mainly used components for surface mounting, so it can be assembled by robots. So the bigger the order, the better.

Motors: I spoke with a local supplier and he already offered to place a large order in production. I will not engage in direct negotiations with manufacturers in China - this is not my specialty. Leave it to the professionals. I was assured that there would be no problems with any quantity. For safety reasons, if necessary, I will break the order into parts so as not to keep all the eggs in one basket.

Details will be printed on the bot farm that we create. This will be the largest print bot farm I've heard of. And certainly the densest - my little Printrbots take up so little space. ”

- "... The print head is one of the components that will be manufactured locally. We partnered with a gentleman who has been managing the HP Failure Analysis Laboratory for many years. He knows how to do things, how to test them under heavy load, how to find "Weaknesses and bug fixes. We love our printheads and they will be delivered assembled, saving you the trouble of dealing with the most problematic part of the kit."

9 days after starting kickstarter:
- “Now we plan to make 500 sets, but if necessary we will increase or decrease this number. The more printers we sell, the better the price will be in the future. Already now we should be close to the price of $ 500 per set. Thanks to all participants. ”

13 days - 1000% collected:
“Tomorrow we will look for production facilities, since we outgrew the capabilities of my garage when the number of required kits exceeded 200 pieces.”

1000+ participants make the printer better:
- “At the start of the project, my goal was 50 sets assembled in my garage. But after a couple of days we exceeded our dreams ... Printrbot was even better than originally planned ... In the initial design, I reduced the number of bearings to save a little. But thanks to the large volume of the order, I agreed on a great price and now we have 12 linear bearings - 4 for each axis. In addition to 12ti 8mm linear bearings, we have supplied hardened, machined rods in all axes. Together with excellent bearings, movement along all axes is smooth as silk.

Our engine supplier has dozens of models to choose from. For the X / Y axes, we chose the most powerful Nema 17 motors with a force of 4.2 kgf. The Mendel specification has 1.4 kgcm engines. Why do we need so much? Because we want to give you the best possible. Who knows, maybe you want to upgrade and put a larger platform and you need this power. I repeat, the order turned out to be large and this gives us the opportunity to choose the best. ”



- “We announced a new option - a set of Printrbot + worth $ 649. This is an improved version laser cut out of plywood. The size of the working area is increased to 20x20x20cm. It is tougher and more accurate than the smaller brother. I hope he helps those who like a bigger printer. ”

“We have come to a final decision on prices for international customers.
$ 89 only printed parts without iron ($ 75 + $ 14 shipping)
$ 231 set of parts without motors, electronics and printhead ($ 199 + $ 32 shipping)
$ 469 set of “repraper” - all except printed parts ($ 424 + $ 45 delivery)
$ 544 full set ($ 499 + $ 45 delivery)
$ 694 full printrbot + (plus) set ($ 649 + $ 45 delivery)
$ 900 assembled printrbot ($ 750 + $ 150 delivery)
$ 1149 assembled printrbot in a painted plywood box ($ 999 + $ 150 delivery) »

- “New option !!! I know, I know what you want to say, but there is nothing we can do. The laser cut version of birch plywood is just super. She's so tough and just looks a lot better. AND FOR THE SAME MONEY! ”
Differences.
basic Printrbot :
- you can easily increase it - just change the iron rods and increase the size of the
Printrbot LC (laser cut) printing platform :
- it looks better
- it’s faster to manufacture
- the design is stiffer, which improves print accuracy
The rest of the two models are exactly the same.

- " Printrbot will be sold on printrbot.comfor $ 549, tentatively with delivery starting in May ... We are working on the prices of all models, upgrades and special prices for schools. We will also offer discounts on bulk orders - 10, 50, etc. kits ”

- from questions and answers:
“ When will the source files be available to the RepRap community ? ”
"The GPL requires the release of source files with the product, not earlier. So they will be available when the first printers begin shipping."

For the most patient set of links on the topic:

Project homepage (later there will be a store) - printrbot.com Kickstarter
project (already closed) - printrbot-your-first-3d-printer
RepRap wiki page - reprap.org/wiki/Printrbot YouTube
videos - youtube. com / user / printrbot
Video clips on vimeo - vimeo.com/printrbot
Video and photo on flickr - flickr

Threat. Watch the video on the kickstarter website. Unfortunately, there is no way to insert it here.