I’ve been given some linear rails, and the only thing I can think to do with them is build a large format 3d printer. I have two 750mm and two 670mm rails, two carriages each.

I know there are several open-source plans for printers, and I could use a cool project to work on. I already have a smaller printer to work with so I can already make a lot of the parts.

Has anyone done this before? What printer did you build, and do you have any recommendations and things to look out for?

  • elucubra@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1·
    18 hours ago

    I have a printer that started life as an Ender 5 Plus. the print volume is 350x350x400. I have printed some pretty big things, like a full size Mandalorian helmet in one piece, and never maxed it out. A lot of my prints would fit in a Bambu lab A1 mini. Ask yourself how many large prints you’d do in one piece. Also, printing large prints can be stressful, as failures mid print are a lot more painful in large prints. You won’t see many printers larger than 350 for a reason.

    My printer has been converted to an Endorphin Hybrid CoreXY so of the original printer, little more than the frame, motors, and bed remains. It’s a pretty competent printer. Over 3x the stock speed, good quality prints, and cost me around 150€, including an overkill (not really, has room for a toolchanger mod I’m planning) Octopus Max board. if you use a simpler board, you could probably shave around 40€. I had the printer, so it was a no brainer for me.

    I got a couple of rails that were larger, because for some reason they were cheaper than the original. I cut them to size with an angle grinder on a miter adaptor which I had, but which are cheap. Just make sure you wrap the rails in masking tape, and grind down the edges a little. Any speck of iron dust will wreck the carriages.

    Ender 5 Pluses are cheap used.

    If I were starting from zero, maybe I would have looked into an Elegoo Centauri carbon, 310€, or an Anycubic Kobra X,339€ including 4 color MMU, or ideally a Snapmaker U1 toolchanger, 850€.

    Just because I have some rails wouldn’ really justify building a printer from scratch, but that’s just me. To me is like justifying building a mountain bike from scratch because I got some wheels free.

    • papalonian@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      11 days ago

      The entirety of voron is an open source project, they do not make or sell printers or parts. None of their printers are designed for this size, though. People have definitely made custom ones larger than the schematics but there are drawbacks for going even 50-100mm over the normal max of 350mm, doubling it would certainly require more engineering than “print some parts longer”

      • Ernest@lemmy.zipEnglish
        6·
        11 days ago

        IIRC there’s someplace on their website or manual where they explain why 350mm is the max they chose, and a big reason was the wobble/flex that you’d get from going over–you’d have to compensate for that by designing a much more rigid frame and not just scaling the Voron design

          • elucubra@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            1·
            18 hours ago

            How good a welder are you? introducing a 1-2mm. difference is really easy when welding, not to mention the squareness of the frame. Extrusions allow for corrections.

  • fufu@feddit.orgEnglish
    7·
    11 days ago

    So of your dont want to build a very long/tall 3d printer i recommend looking into building a flat long CNC frame for a laser/Plotter. They want to be long and flat, fitting your parts. I build a voron, several cartesians from scratch aswell as a giant laser frame. A Laser frame is much more simple compared to sth as overengineered as a voron(Perfection), far better suited to waste some spare parts with out getting lost in a one year project. Id have loved those rails for my laser.

  • monotremata@lemmy.caEnglish
    4·
    11 days ago

    I built one, but it was a (top-down) resin printer, so I don’t think I have any useful advice to offer. Also, I kinda burnt out on the project after I came in one morning and found the resin had melted the vat and leaked onto the floor–somehow I just totally failed to consider that the solvents in the resin could obviously dissolve a lot of plastics. Huge mess, huge pain to remediate. At least it was a concrete floor. I got a replacement vat in glass, but I never worked up the will to work on it again. It did basically print before that, but I had a lot of off-layer curing and didn’t get to do much work on tuning that in before the accident.

  • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    11 days ago

    I built a Prusa Mendel from scratch eons ago. With enough of effort, and a more modern nozzle and extruder, you should be good.