WHAT IS A 3D PRINTER?
These machines are used to convert the 3D designs that a person can do with the help of the computer into a real object. To attain this, they use liquid plastic (or other materials) rather of the ink to which we are habituated, which after the impression solidifies and made the object.
They are usually big machines that can cost approx five thousand dollars, but technological progress is making them available to the general public easily.
An object that made in 3D Printer shown in below image.
HOW 3D PRINTER WORK?
There are various ways to get it, but the most common is to disjoin the 3D model into a very thin layer that is printed one on top of the other, and after that fix them, we have a 3D object.
To make it better sympathize, let’s check at one of the most used processes, stereolithography: the printer produce a thin layer of resin and “draws” a thin straight section of the product with a laser beam. That laser solidifies the pattern he drew and sticks it to the next layer of resin, and so the process is repeated layer by layer. At the end of all that resin come forth the 3D object designed.
You can see below image for better understanding.
This is not the only method and different materials like as dust or metals can be used, or even liquid plastic material that solidifies when leaving the printer, but the concept of layers constantly implement.
3D Printing objects are commonly measured in centimeters (it is a small object). but some printers can reach up to several meters. It is also a slow process that needs solitaire: for a 100-gram object, something build complex objects may require several hours. Finally, mention that the materials they use in the 3D Printer are not cheap.
TYPES OF 3D PRINTER
When you ask me what type of 3D printer is great, I constantly answer with another question: What do you wish to print? You could say that there is no one type of printer great than another.
All Printer has its advantages and disadvantages. The different technologies are complementary and each one put up something different. For this reason, I have decided to make a list in which the different types of printers are classified:
- Extrusion (Fused Deposition Modeling)
- Resin (Photopolymerization)
- Powder (Powder)
- Others
Here we talking about only Extrusion 3D Printer.
APPLICATION OF 3D PRINTER
- Rapid prototypes of industrial products
- Medical Prostheses
- Create your own ornaments and then paint them
- Figures of your favorite character
- The very fast Manufacturing process
- Little skill required to make parts
DIY 3D PRINTER HOMEMADE
If you are planning to make Science fair projects or Arduino projects for your school or college than follow this below step to make 3D Printer at home.
STEP:1 3D PRINTER PARTS
To make 3D Printer you need to buy below parts. I will give the link of all the parts with cheap price. This link is an affiliate. so I get some little amount of commission. If you buy these part from below link, These would motivate me to do more new creative projects for you.
I will give two links to the same product. One is from Amazon and the other is from Banggood website. You can buy the parts by comparing both the website rate.
- 3D Printer Arduino kit………………………[Amazon/Banggood]
- Hot end…………………………………………………[Amazon/Banggood]
- Extruder………………………………………………[Amazon/Banggood]
- Stepper motor (4 no)………………………….[Amazon/Banggood]
- 12 Volt 10 Amp Power Supply……………[Amazon/Banggood]
- PLA Filament 1.75 mm……………………….[Amazon/Banggood]
- 5 x 8 Shaft Coupler(4 no)……………………[Amazon/Banggood]
- Trapezoidal Threaded Screw(2 no 150 mm length)……………………………………………………………………[Amazon/Banggood]
- Trapezoidal Threaded Screw(1 no 200 mm length)……………………………………………………………………[Amazon/Banggood]
- Pencil (or Smooth road)………………………..[Amazon/Banggood]
- 8 x 22 x 7 mm Radial Bearing(5 no)……………….[Amazon/Banggood]
- Limit Switch(3 no)…………………………………………..[Amazon/Banggood]
- Heat Bed(optional)…………………………………[Amazon/Banggood]
- Linear Bearing LM8UU(optional)……[Amazon/Banggood]
- Acrylic Sheet
- Wooden Block
Other remaining material you can buy it from a stationery shop or near to your home easily available.
If you cant find than comment your requirement in the comment box. I will reply to you as fast as possible.
I want to give some information about some important parts of 3D Printers so you can easily understand what’s going on here.
3D PRINTER ARDUINO KIT
Buy the below circuit in the pack so you get a good discount. This pack includes the below parts.
- RAMPS 1.4
- Mega 2560 R3 board
- A4988 Driver
EXTRUDER
This Part is very important in 3D Printer. The extruder is used for the pushes the plastic filament inside the hot end nozzle.
There number of small component there in the extruder. see the below image and assemble as per video tutorials.
HOT END
This Part is melting the plastic filament, and this melted plastic goes inside the hot nozzle. It will solidify on the hotbed.
A hot end consists of the below parts:
- Cooling Fan
- Nozzle
- Heater
- Temperature Sensor
- Teflon Tubing
POWER SUPPLY
Here we use 12V and 10 amp Power supply. Please keep in mind that you must use thick gauge wire for output. because heater consumes lots of power so high current flow through this wire. If you use thin wire than it chances to heat up and it will be fire. 
PLA FILAMENT FOR DIY 3D PRINTER
This Plastic filament is pass through the hot end nozzle and solidified on the bed of the machine. There is a different color of filament available in the market. you can choose what you like.
Required Features of PLA Filament:
● It must have good quality PLA material
● Work with all type of 3D printers
● PLA is a biodegradable filament which is made from renewable resources, like corn starch, tapioca roots, chips or starch, or sugarcane
●It must permit higher print speed, more accurate locating of material with easy cooling.
● PLA smells out like cotton candy perfume when it is used
STEP:2 HOMEMADE 3D PRINTER(VIDEO TUTORIAL)
STEP:3 AXIS OF 3D PRINTER
3D Printer is working on 3 Axis, X, Y, Z. The main thing to learn in the 3D Printer is his axis.
If your axis is not properly managed than your machine is not working better.
Here I will show you an image of the 3D Printer Axis.
You can see that from image
X-Axis: It Controls the movement of the nozzle left an right
Y-Axis: Control the movement of Bed
Z-Axis: It Controls the movement of the nozzle up and down
STEP:4 Y-AXIS MAKING
The Y-axis controls the movement of the bed. To make a Y-axis arrangement we need 2 stepper motor. follow the below step to make it.
- Take the two acrylic sheet. Make a hole of the size of one hole is 8 mm and another hole size is equal to an outer diameter of bearing (22 mm).
- Stick this acrylic sheet with a wooden plate of length 22 cm
- Insert the Threaded Screw of length 150 mm inside the bearing
- Join the Stepper motor with the threaded screw by Coupling.
- Take a Syringe and cut both the end of it
- Cut both ends of a Ball pen cap
- Insert this cap into the syringe, so this is working like linear bearings. This is made because of the smooth movement of smooth toad when the operation is done.
- Now Insert the big size pencil inside the small hole of acrylic. You can also use a plain rod of diameter 8 mm
- Our one parts of Y-axis done
- Repeat the above 9 steps and make the same frame
- Now join both the parts by 3 pencils attach at the side of wooden plate
- Our Y-axis ready
STEP:5 BED MAKING
3D Printing is done on a bed. Keep in mind that bed must be at the proper leveling. If it is not in level than your object will not be accurate.
We can also measure the leveling of bed with the help of your smartphone. You can adjust the leveling of bed by nut fitted over the spring.
You can also make bed hating arrangement. But in this video, I was not use heating of bed.
Follow the below step for making bed arrangement for 3D Printer.
- Take wooden plate as per your size and fix on the nut of a threaded screw
- Make a hole of size 2 mm on that wooden plate
- Put the acrylic sheet on the wooden plate and fix it with the help of 4 screw
- Insert 4 screw on acrylic sheet
- Add Ball pen spring on that 4 screws. You can adjust the leveling of bed by this spring
- Now tight these spring by a nut
- Check your leveling by smartphone until it shows 0 reading. If it does not show than adjust the nut of that 4 spring.
STEP:6 X-AXIS MAKING
The x-axis is very simple to make. You can make it by reading the instruction given in y-axis.
Here the length of Threaded screw is 200 mm.
One thing new is you have to choose the wooden plate length is 27cm.
You can see the image of x-axis that I made.
STEP:7 Z-AXIS MAKING
This Z-axis is made on the X-axis with the help of Old DVD Writer Parts.
Z-axis is used for the up and down the movement of 3d printer nozzle.
Check below step to make z-axis.
- Attach the wooden block on the x-axis as per image
- Take an old DVD Writer from the Computer shop
- Attach the parts of DVD Writer as per above image
- Our Z-axis is ready to perform
STEP:8 ATTACH X & Z-AXIS WITH Y-AXIS
Now its time to join X & Z-axis with Y-axis. For that, you have to attach two wooden blocks on the x-axis.
Attach this full assembly with Y-axis by fevistick or screw.
STEP:9 EXTRUDER MAKING
To make an Extruder for 3D Printer is very easy. Because you only have to assemble the parts of an extruder.
Follow the step as per pictures, you can be made yourself easily.
When your extruder is ready at that time you can install it in our frame of 3D Printer.
STEP:10 HOT END FIXING
After Extruder its time to fix hot end assembly with DIY 3D Printer. You need to make one L shape parts for fixing the hot end with the z-axis assembly.
You can get some idea from below images.
STEP:11 INSERT PLA FILAMENT
PLA Filament is inserted inside the Extruder. So when Stepper motor is rotated at that time filament is come in hot end nozzle through the extruder.
The diameter of the nozzle is equal to the diameter of the PLA Filament.
STEP:12 WIRING DIAGRAM OF DIY 3D PRINTER
DIY 3D Printer wiring diagram is very easy if you follow the instruction in video and follow the below image wiring diagram.
Below diagram is with LCD & Hotbed. This LCD is not necessary if you have a laptop. but your use of 3D Printer is high than every time connect the laptop with 3D Printer is not a good idea.
In LCD you can get the slot for micro SD card. So you can feed that G-code through the SD card.
STEP:13 SOFTWARE FOR DIY 3D PRINTER
Main things to do in 3D Printer is software. There is a different type of software available for 3d printing. here we use 4 software for 3d printing listed below.
Fusion 360: This software is used for making 3D Model. You can also use other 3D design software like Solidedge, Catia, Creo, Solid work, Autodesk Inventor, etc.
If you don’t know the above software then you can direct download STL file from a number of websites available.
- Cults
- Thingiverse
- YouMagine
- Pinshape
- MyMiniFactory
- GrabCad
- Autodesk 123D
- 3Dagogo
Cura: All the 3D Software understands the language of G-code. This software is used for the convert the 3D File into G-code.
If you are a beginner of this software then this tutorial is for you: Click here
Xloader: It is used for upload the Hex file into Arduino.
Pronterface: This was the main software in 3D Printer. It will Operate your 3D Printing process.
STEP:14 ENJOY THE DIY 3D PRINTING
Now your 3D Printer is ready for printing. Make your favorite design on 3D Printer. If you are made this printer than show me your pictures on my facebook page creative buzz. If you getting any problem then comment below.
CONCLUSION:
I hope you are made this 3D Printer at your home easily. This printer is not giving you accurate precision like a standard company 3D Printer. But also not a bad precision by this 3D Printer.
If you are planning for your school or college projects than you definitely do this project. It will enhance your skill and mind.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
What if we build a ladder from sky to earth instead of earth to sky…? I mean what if we can make space stations from Moon towards earth rather then from earth towards Moon. Is it same or different ?