[Swansea Hackspace] 3d printer cost elements

[Justin Mitchell]

On Fri, 2014-09-26 at 16:56 +0100, Neil Jones wrote:
> Hi Everybody,
> 
> I'd like to explore the idea of cheaper 3d printing. Looking at our 
> printer and that they cost c£400. It would seem that there must be a way 
> of making them cheaper.
> 
> What are the most significant elements of cost?
> 
> Or put it another way if you could wave a magic wand and create certain 
> elements at near zero cost what would they be?

The costs just tend to add up.

200 step, NEMA 17 steppers £10 ish each (x4)
RAMPS control board kit £16
J-head hot end £20 or so
heated bed kit (heater + aluminium plate) £25
then a big pile of threaded and smooth rods, nuts bolts and washers.
and then all the printed parts.

researching and getting all the exactly right parts can be very time
consuming unless you buy kits of piece, in which case the prices go up.
I have seen full kits of parts for a prusa i3 from £260
but either way you need to invest a lot of time into building it.



this was just a quick 5 minute search, as a longer term project if you
want to start a page on the wiki with a list of parts and suppliers then
you might be able to put something together cheaper.