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As long time readers of the blog may remember I tried to build a 3d printer many years ago without any success.  The problem was that at the time I didn’t really have a need for one, didn’t know what was involved or what parts I actually needed.  I also bought printed parts from one person on eBay, the metal bits from another seller, the electronics from another group again and so on.

Needless to say this did not make for an enjoyable experience.

Every time I got into building it I hit the point where I realised there was a part I didn’t know I needed and I’d put it aside for a few months.  Rinse and repeat.  It got to the point where the printer I started to build was obsolete so I’d have had to start again anyhow, so I donated what parts I had to the local RepRap usersgroup and they used it to build a printer for a local school.  I was happy with that.

Fast forward to now, or at least a few weeks ago, and I had need of a few random parts.  A case for a Pi, bits for the Roomba rebuild, bits for the Mini, the list is ever increasing this time around!  To that end I bought a Hictop Prusa i3 from Amazon which included everything which meant the whole project was instantly more streamlined!  One weekend of hacking, unhacking and rehacking later and I have a working printer!

I’ve printed out a few things now from Thingiverse but I’ve also started designing someone from scratch, more details on that soon, but this is proving a wonderful experience!