ToyRep 3D Printer – Costs Under $85 to Build Using Super Cheap 28BYJ-48 Motors

This is interesting – a fully functional 3D printer for (potentially) under $85. Of course, there are caveats. Though the printer itself seems very capable, even compared with those that cost at least ten or fifteen times as much, a fair amount of skill is needed to build it. Also, it does rely on a fair number of 3D printed parts, so you need to have access to a 3D printer to make one. That said, even if you had to rely on a company to produce those 3D parts for you, and even if you invested in a better printing head than the cheap one described here, it would still be possible to build one of these for a very few hundred dollars. This might not be the perfect solution for schools etc, where reliability and safety are paramount, but it looks like a great alternative for hobbyists wanting to explore Santa Claus machines.

Any moment now, 3D printing looks set to hit the mainstream. I’m still not quite sure what such machines can really do, given their current reliance on PLA or ABS filaments, their slow print speeds, and unreliable operation. I have spent a while browsing Thingiverse looking for projects and have been amused by printable guitars and violins (some glueing and extra components required).  I’ve had a few thoughts about designing bits and pieces like cord organizers, replacement parts for broken devices and instruments, home gadgets, etc, but I have yet to come up with any really compelling use cases that are not more trouble, nor significantly cheaper, than simply buying the things ready made. Most of the objects available on Thingiverse look a lot like uses of Sugru – great fun, ingenious, but embarrassingly amateurish, garish and crude.  And 3D printers are not compact things – you need to put them and their raw materials somewhere. For low-utilization scenarios it’s still more sensible, and not much more expensive, to simply send a design to a 3D printing service.

I feel almost certain that there are educational uses for such things. This is most obviously valuable for kids and those in physical design disciplines (architecture, engineering, interior design, sculpture, etc), and I can think of a few ways of using artefacts to help make concepts more concrete in a physical classroom (physical routers, logic gates, etc, for instance), but I have yet to work out a way to incorporate them into the things I teach online, all of which are conceptual and/or virtual.  I’m hoping that, when I get one, the possible will become more adjacent.

Address of the bookmark: http://3dprint.com/89620/toyrep-3d-printer