FABR: Another 3d Printing Project


[Lou]’s been working on his own 3d printer: fabr. We find it appealing because the entry cost is quit a bit lower than something like the reprap. 80/20 isn’t that cheap, but you don’t need a large commercial laser cutter to build the chassis. The steppers he used appear to be inexpensive ones that can be salvaged from dot matrix printer. To drive it, he’s working on a custom microstepping board and hopes to eventually develop an Arduino shield to control the stepper drivers. That’s right, it’ll get an Arudino to act as the CNC control interface.

7 thoughts on “FABR: Another 3d Printing Project

  1. Its nice to see more people building 3d printers at home.

    I have built a RepRap printer, so I would like to clear up just a few statements in this article which are misleading.
    1. I built my RepStrap for just under $450, and I believe that that is pretty cheap.
    2. The RepRap already uses an Arduino as the CNC interface for the machine.
    3. Only one design of a RepStrap requires the CNC Lasercut parts. The whole point of the project is to build a machine that can replicate itself, which it has successfully done in many respects.
    4. 3D printing is awesome and I encourage fabr to continue.

  2. Haven’t looked at a reprap lately. You must mean fab@home. They’ve incremented the electronics on reprap to an arduino shield and separate chopper stepper boards. The software does have the flexibility to work with different hardware than what the “reference design” specs. The latest alternate firmware does G code too. From an earlier post he did, he’s directly approaching the repstrap issue but redesigning it his way. His mechanic kinematics are the same, just different hardware. He’s also doing the exact same thing with software, but basing it off of different tools.

  3. I second soi sentinel’s comments – RepRap doesn’t use any lasercut parts in its standard design, although some alternative cartesian frames that depend on them do exist. You’re probably thinking of Fab@home.

    Also, as soi sentinel mentioned, for several months now the RepRap project has had stable arduino firmware that will take g-code from the USB port and drive 3 stepper controller boards as well as the extruder – this sounds like what the fabr guy is trying to develop. The RepRap Research Foundation also provides open-source stepper controller boards that interface with the Arduino, but it will work with any standard controller board. Check out the (cohesive and relatively stable) system at the RepRap gen2 electronics page.

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