Introducing RepPresent: Our Newest Toy

Several years ago I got interested in 3D printers - machines which build physical objects by laying down thin layers of a material, like plastic or metal, and binding them together. In particular I was keen on the RepRap project as their machines were the cheapest to build and I liked their goal of trying to create a machine which was capable of duplicating itself. So I began salvaging stepper motors and other components from old floppy drives and 2D printers, with the idea of maybe, someday, getting around to building my own machine.

About a month ago the paramour caught the 3D printing bug. Having observed my glacial progress zie decided to speed things up by ordering a kit containing all the necessary parts. The kit arrived on the 14th. We're considering this to be our christmas present to each other and have tentatively named it the RepPresent.

The machine is currently a little over half complete, but the pace is picking up now that the holidays are here and I'm able to devote more time to it.

Behind the cut is a picture of the machine in its current state, with all the main bits labelled, and a description of how it will work.
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RepPresent Build Details, From Start To Bed Install

I figured I should record some of the problems that I've run into while building the RepPresent and how I've solved them, just in case some other RepRapper finds the information helpful. So if you're not interested in the minutiae of building a RepRap machine then you should bail now.


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