Purple Mammals

The Printer i have is a Desktop printer which are really meant more for hobby printing then for full commercial Rabbit prototyping. If you want a high quality print you need to go with production printer. These printer can start at 20,000$ go up in price from there. In the last few weeks we have used 3 different 3D printing companies to see how their prints hold up for testing. We got the best results from a company named after 2 Mammals Purple Mammals at that. Purple Platypus is the side of the company that sales printers and Purple porcupine is the side of the company that will print objects for you. Purple is not just in their name it is everywhere in their show room. There will be lots of pictures to check out at the bottom of the post. Now they use Porjet and 3D system printers, which are now the same company. if you would like to learn more about these printers check out the main site Projet/3Dsystems. If you would like to see Purple Platypus for yourself they do hold a open house one the 25th of every month so go check it out and see all the great stuff that can be printed

3D print a 3D printer

If you follow my blog you will know that I use a Solidoodle 3 printer in my office. You will also know that I have fallowed 3D printers for a long time and have wanted one for my home. This brings me to the idea of using my Solidoodle to print a 3D printer. RepRap is an open source 3D printer that is meant to be build and printed on another printer. if you would like to know more check out their main site http://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap. This is meant to be more of a long term project and i can only print a few pieces at a time. I will also need to buy all the parts that can't be printed like motors and belts, mother boards etc. The system I am going for can be found on at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:34630 and is based on a RepRap design the best part is the zip come with full detailed institutions and all printable parts. This will be an on going project so be sure to check back but here is the first 3 parts i have printed they took about 8hrs to print together and i have to print one more set.

 

basic maintenance

like any system 3D printer require maintenance to keep them running smooth. In the last few days i have had to replace the Kapton type on the print board and also grease the system. Some parts stick to the print bed a little to well and when removing them you can damage the Kapton type, however you can buy small rolls to replace the damage, you can also buy large rolls and i was able to find 8" by 36 yard roll of Kapton because i had let the damage go on for so long that it was much better to replace the whole sheet. If you are looking to buy large rolls of Kapton check out this site http://www.kaptonsource.com/. when it come to grease it can be picked up at any hard ware store White Lithium Grease works great it what i was told to use buy members of the solidoodle IRC. amazon also carries it http://www.amazon.com/Permatex-80345-White-Lithium-Grease/dp/B000HBNV58 but Home depot is just down the street from my offce and we already have a home depot card.