So, I’ve now finally built the 2nd 3D printer, the Durbie V2, there are a few problems with this I need to iron out, the bed keeps slipping and the hotend isn’t calibrated correctly…

But I’ll get there soon!

The overall aim of the RepRap open source project is to bring cheap affordable printers to people around the world. The advantages of RepRaps is that they are easy to build but can be used to great effect. We were fortunate enough to be given a BitsFromBytes 3D printer [citation needed] to kick start our programme on the basis that once we’d created a RepRap, we could pass on (or play it forward) the BfB printer. Therefore, we decided to pass this on to a local school which we feel would benefit greatly from the use of the printer.

The printer was passed to Simon, a CDT teacher from Campsmount School in Doncaster. We’ve created a page on this Blog where they can document their use of the BfB printer….we are expecting great things!

So, I’ve always been an Ubber Geek when it comes to all things gadgets, so imagine when I got my first printer, a 24-pin (Colour!) DOT Matrix. With this printer I could actually recreate images from the internet, or photographs I’d scanned in with my hand scanner. I spent many an hour, watching the 24 little pin heads of this printer going forwards and backwards, laying each of the three (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) colours and black, to give a life like image.

Printers have come a long way since I was a 14 yo with my dot matrix, we now have very high quality colour laser printers that can produce photo quality images, quickly and cheaply. The development of these printers, and their cost has reduced the need to take your 35mm film to the local Boots for them to reproduce, this can now easily be done at home.

Well, things have just got a whole lot more Ubber Geeky and interesting to say the least….

‘Presenting the 3D printer’

Now, instead of taking a 2D image from your computer screen and producing a physical reproduction of this, you can now design 3D models, and actually print and create these ‘physical’. ‘tangible’ objects. Imagine this, you think of a Widget that you need, maybe you are designing a new Gibble Matrix, and this Widget is needed, open up Google Sketch Up, quickly design your widget, and at the press of, several, buttons your 3D printer had produced a physical copy of your widget. But wait…it’s too small, or the hole is in the wrong place, just re-design it, and re-print.

You’ve not got your own manufacturing lab in your bedroom! Imagine my excitement at this….this blog gives details of the LNCD funded project for building and putting to use a 3D printer.
 
Printing a 3D Quadrocopter….