Quote:
Originally Posted by AndrewJ
unless your printer is also built with planned obsolescence in it 
Just imagine yr printer wears down and you cant print new
bits for it ( guides, brgs, motors etc ), and no one keeps spares.
Andrew |
The commercial 3D printers are indeed designed as "appliances" with built-in obsolescence - built down to a price, and designed to lock you into buying the manufacturer's filaments and spare parts. (Just like 2D printers - they practically give them away, but the ink cartridges cost as much as liquid gold!)
No such issues if you buy or build an "open source" design (based on the RepRap project designs
http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page ) - all the plans are available on-line (including those for all commercial derivations which are based on earlier designs, due to the open-source licensing model), which means you can make upgrades for your machine as the designs improve. RepRap 3D printers were conceived from the get-go to maximise the amount of printable parts, and those bits which are not printable are designed to use widely available bog-standard components (steel rods, stepper motors, bearings, etc) which you may have lying around at home, or can pick up at the local hardware store.
If you find a non-standard component such as a stepper motor that you want to use (e.g. from a discarded scanner or printer), and you can't find an existing design based on it, you measure it and design and print the mount and install it. You may need to do a bit of experimenting with the firmware to allow for its operating characteristics (e.g. number of steps per full rotation), but that's standard practice for calibrating and tuning your printer even when you build to a standard design, and it's half the fun of an open-source 3D printer!
Sure, some component designs use custom-machined components or exotic materials, but there is always a cheap, simple alternative.
And even when your printer breaks a part that you don't have a spare for, you can print it on a mate's machine or at the local library.