3D PRINTER

This is the homemade 3D printer I made as one of my first explorations into full-on robotics engineering. It is a Prusa i3 printer with a reworked extruder head for additional torque.

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I began by building the metal frames from pre-cut pieces and added on 3D-printed connector pieces to put the whole thing together. I added in four stepper motors and endstops to complete the frame. Next, I used a RAMPS board as an interface between my Arduino Mega 2560 and the stepper motors and endstops. I then used the Repetier-Host software (which contained a built-in G-Code slicer) to code the Arduino and make it possible for me to convert .stl files into a printable sliced form.

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Once I calibrated the Arduino (which took forever because my initial fake Chinese knock-off Arduino turned out to be a complete bust) I wired my power supply to the RAMPS board and got the three axes running smoothly. 

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I then added the hotend, which was a E3D v6 hotend, to my extruder which reached up to around 200°C and printed both ABS and PLA plastics. I also wired in my hotplate, which increased adhesion to the print bed (mostly meant for ABS but didn't hurt for PLA) because a lot of my prints would curl off of the bed and ruin the print.