Making a 3D Printer From Scratch

Acknowledgement

First of all, we would like to thank

ALLAH for helping us and guiding us and our fellow colleagues to make it to this point after passing all the courses and getting us to writing the final report of our graduation project.

We would like to express our deepest appreciations to everyone in our families that were supportive and helpful to us with their prayers and efforts.

Next, we feel obliged to take the opportunity to thank the staff of our college and our lecturers who we are greatly indebted for their great help for us and guiding us and sharing their expertise and knowledge throughout the years of studying in the College of Telecom and Electronics.

We would like to thank the head of department college Eng. Tariq Al-Ghamdi and we would like to especially thank DR. Jaber the instructor of the final project and the one who supervised our work and corrected us when we needed his help and was a great source of knowledge to his students.

Step 1: Introduction

The term 3D printing covers a host of processes and technologies that offer a full spectrum of capabilities for the production of parts and products indifferent materials. Essentially, what all of the processes and technologies have in common is the manner in which production is carried out layer by layer in an additive process which is in contrast to traditional methods of production involving subtractive methods or molding/casting processes.

3D Printing is a process for making a physical object from a three-dimensional digital model, typically by laying down many successive thin layers of material. It brings a digital object (its CAD representation) into its physical form by adding layer by layer of materials.

There are several different techniques to 3D Print an object. 3D Printing brings two fundamental innovations: the manipulation of objects in their digital format and the manufacturing of new shapes by addition of material.

Step 2: Parts Used

List of supplies:

1-Pulley 20 Teeth Bore 5mm GT2 6mm Timing Belt

2-Idler Tensioner (4 pieces)

3-Heatbed Leveling Kit (4 pieces)

4-Miniature Linear Rail Slide (2 pieces)

5-Filament Break Detection Module (2 pieces)

6-BIGTREETECH Relay V1.2 Automatic Shut Down Module 10A 250V Power Switch (1 piece)

7-AC DC Transformers 110V 220V TO 24V Power Supply 15A (1 piece)

8-Stainless Steel Lead Screw with Shaft Coupling and Mounting Support (2 pieces 1 meter each)

9-1NO+1NC e-stop push-button switch emergency stop switch (1 piece)

10-10 Pcs Mini Micro Limit Switch Roller Lever Arm (10 pieces)

11-Direct Drive Extruder Upgrade Kit for Creality3D Ender (1 piece)

12-BIGTREETECH DCDC MODE V1.0 Power Module Supply Power For SKR V1.4 SKR V1.4 Turbo Control Board (1 piece)

13-Lead Nema17 Stepper Motor (5 pieces)

14-Aluminum rods 9 120x108x90 cm

Step 3: Assembly Process

Due to the present pandemic and the how
our college decided to put the work on the project, lots of factors of the project were affected including the shipping of some of the required parts of the project and how the work was divided while keeping social distancing and keeping it safe. Also, some of the parts we ordered didn’t arrive because of the delivery companies’ restrictions due to COVID-19

We will provide in this part screenshots of the video that inspired us to make the design of the project.

Some of the assembly processes are provided in the following link for the design inspiration though we modified it to fit the project goal.

Note: the design IS NOT accurate to the video provided, we were inspired and modified the shown design.

-On the first step we took the aluminum rods and divided them into the pieces we need to build the design. (After measurement and cutting we have 13 pieces)

-We welded the corners to make the base square and mounted two rods vertically on the square base to mount the Miniature Linear Rail Slide for the Printing Bed to be on top of.

-Fixed stepper motors at the bottoms of the two rods to install the Pully Belt to move the Printing bed up and down.

-Underneath the Printing Bed there is a compartment for the Power supply and Microprocessor to be away from sight.

Therefore, we finished the horizontal part of the printer using 6 pieces of aluminum rods we cut out earlier. Now, we move to the vertical part.

-We made two of a rectangular shape using 3 rods (total of 6 rods) we installed them perpendicularly on the square horizontal base.

-At the base of the rectangular, we placed two stepping motors and installed 2 Stainless Steel Lead Screw with Shaft Coupling and Mounting Support.

-We connected the Stainless-Steel Lead Screw to the last remaining rod to move this rod which will have the Motorhead on it.

Step 4: Software

For the software part of our project. The codes compiled over 6000 lines of coding. We will demonstrate in the following video the codes used in the project.

here is the source of the codes explained in this video

underneath all of the codes used in the project are included in the .txt files

Step 5: Problems Encountered

-Due the global pandemic that occurred during the making of

this project we were limited in supplies and when we ordered some of the parts that were not available it took us longer than usual to get them because of the shipping companies.

-we used a bed for the printing made of wood then we changed aluminum to reduce the weight.

-aluminum rods for the base of the printer is expensive and ordering other materials that were not available was more expensive.

-the microprocessor used is 32-bit and we can only upload the program using a micro-SD memory card because the software used on PC was updated and we can’t connect the microprocessor to the PC.

-lack of user manuals for the microprocessor because its not popular

Step 6: Credits

This project was made by the students of College of Telecom and Electronics

Abdulrhman Qari 439151762
Nawaf Emad 439151620
Dhiyaa Y. Awan 439127241
Nawaf Hassan Aiban 439151734
Ghassan Ba Gais 439127708