Chinese company Makeblock, better known in DIY communities for their vast offering of mechanical parts, electronics modules and all kinds of hardware for robotics projects, have released a do-it-yourself 3D printer kit. Makeblock say they were inspired by the demands of the RepRap open source community, creating a product which is not only completely open source, but also capable of delivering high precision, quality 3D printed parts. This DIY 3D printer can be driven with any Arduino Mega 2560 compatible microcontroller, and most free 3D printing software suites can be employed for spooling the models to be printed.
The 3D printer kit is available for sale at a price of US$ 700, equivalent to about 540 Euro without taxes, and the company expects to start shipping in less than a month, proposing a deadline of October, 10th this year.
The DIY kit is comprised of no less than 400 parts, and features an all aluminium chassis, mounting brackets and various fixtures. It employs standard 1.75mm PLA filament for builds. Complete assembly instructions and software can be found on Makeblock’s GitHub page, you can find additional resources for software, firmware and electronics below.
3D printer specifications
- Chassis material: anodized aluminium
- Dimensions: 324x312x400mm
- Build volume: 125x165x120mm
- Extruder: up to 250°C (482°F) with 0.4mm nozzle
- Horizontal (XY) resolution: 0.1mm
- Layer (Z) resolution: 0.1-0.3mm
- Print material: 1.75mm PLA filament
- Platform: not heated
- Printing speed: 40mm/s nominal, up to 100mm/s
- Actuators: 4 42BYG stepper motors
- Control electronics: Arduino Mega 2560 compatible board, RAMPS 1.4 motor drivers, RepRap smart controller with LCD
- Firmware: Marlin (wiki, GitHub)
- Supported file format: STL
- Software: Slic3r, Printrun, Cura, Kisslicer, MatterControl, Skeinforge
- Connectivity: USB, SD card
- Power requirements: 12VDC/10A, 110-240VAC power adapter included