It appears to have been forgotten by the neighborhood, however the authentic premise behind the RepRap challenge was self-replication: 3D printers printing 3D printers till the universe is nothing however 3D printers. For sensible causes, just like the impracticality of printing motors and digital elements, that purpose slowly pale from the collective consciousness. However the idea was nonetheless intriguing to Matthew Trahan, so he got down to 3D print the tiny MOSSBOT Mini Bot 3D printer.
The true 3D printing fanatics studying this are yelling at me by way of their screens proper now, as a result of the custom of 3D printing 3D printers remains to be alive and effectively. Voron printers, for instance, are supposed to be constructed utilizing elements which can be printable by different Voron printers (or any 3D printer that’s accessible). They simply make an exception for the “nutritional vitamins,” that are the mechanical, electrical, and digital elements that may’t feasibly be printed. But when we’re being trustworthy, these nutritional vitamins make up the vast majority of the elements. Many of the 3D-printed elements are simply customized mounts and brackets that maintain every little thing collectively.
That’s additionally true for the MOSSBOT Mini Bot, to a lesser extent. It’s an itty-bitty 3D printer that may relaxation on the palm of your hand and its complete body is printable. Beginning with an current design made Trahan’s job simpler, however it nonetheless wasn’t a stroll within the park, because the directions (and invoice of supplies) had been all in Chinese language. However with the assistance of Google Translate and a few deductive reasoning, Trahan was in a position to determine many of the nutritional vitamins for this construct.
These embrace an Arduino Mega 2560 growth board, a RAMPS 1.4 management board, a knockoff E3D V6 sizzling finish, tiny little hardened metal rods and bushings, and somewhat leadscrew such as you would possibly discover on a disk drive. And, in fact, the 3D-printed body elements, which Trahan printed on a Bambu Lab A1.
Meeting did require some soldering, which Trahan didn’t have any expertise with. However he managed to tug it off. Some minor modifications had been additionally crucial, as a couple of elements didn’t match fairly as supposed.
Fortunately, after some irritating troubleshooting, Trahan was in a position to get the MOSSBOT Mini Bot working and that was definitely satisfying. And extra importantly, it reminds us all that self-replicating 3D printers had been a extremely cool concept.
