Building a custom 3D printer step by step

[djnoyz]

Hi everbody,

I'm very happy to have found the duet wifi project page and this forum. A simple introduction : I got started with 3D printing a couple of months ago when my nephew dumped his Ormerod 1 printer on my desk because he couldn't find the time to properly calibrate it. So I invested some time and I'm very happy to be able to print my own creations.

At one time I'll have to give him his printer back so I really want to create a custom 3D printer for my own. I have a degree in electro-mechanics but it's been over a decade that I had to use it to a certain degree… hope it will all come back to me as I go.

I've been reading up on building your own 3D printer for some time now, and was very pleased to find this Duet Wifi board so I pre-ordered it immediately.

As I want to take my time to learn, design, test, ... every aspect of my upcoming project, my first question would be : would it be possible to approach this as a step by step project with the Duet board, .. so meaning : attaching a power supply and for instance only the Y-axis stepper, endstop and 'play around' with just the Y-axis ?
Then moving on with the Z-axis ... then next next next. Or will the firmware require some values from temperature sensors or stuff like that ?

My goal is in the first place to learn... to freshen up what I used to know about electronics, and in the process try to end up with a reasonable quality 3D printer that I can keep on tweaking / tuning / ...

Any suggestions are certainly welcome. In the meantime I'll hurt my brain some more on these complex 'which stepper to choose' equations and variables

[dc42]

Yes, you can go step-by-step if you wish. The motion control is independent of the temperature management, apart from the extruder control. In order to test an extruder motor, the extruder has to be assigned to a tool and either all the heaters for that tool need to be up to temperature or you can use M302 to allow cold extrusion.

While are experimenting, just remember never to connect or disconnect anything (especially stepper motors) with power applied.

[djnoyz]

Thanks dc42,

Really looking forward to getting started.