The very first parts printed on the 3d printer I have designed and built.  Nothing glorious. Frankly I was expecting nothing to happen when I clicked print.  I had not finished all of the final alignment adjustments needed to the build platform and frame. This print happened while I was testing the build platform heater for the first time. To see how the software worked,  I loaded a small stl part file (the two pieces are a hub for a whirlyprop kids toy) mostly to see how the software processed the file. After playing with the code and making adjustments to some settings,  I said to myself, “Let’s see what happens.”, clicked print and voila parts were made.

 The above pictures show I still have  a lot of work to do on optimizing parameters in the software code for my unique printer design.  It did surprisingly well spanning the overhang with only a few loose rows of filament being out of place due to droop.    The acrylic adhesive on the blue masking tape smelled something terrible after heating. This is due to some thermal degradation of the adhesive.  I was happy it peeled off the build platform cleanly.  The blue tape is used to help the abs stick to the build surface as it is extruded in the first layer.  I had ordered some 2″ wide polyimide tape but was waiting for it to arrive when I printed these very first parts on the printer.

These parts are the very first things the 3d printer I designed and built ever printed.   I was pretty excited when I saw my design in action printing.  The printer is not “done” by any means. There has been a heated bed V2.0 built and installed already.  The #1 issue I have found with designing and building a 3d printer that is much larger than the majority of cupecake, makerbot, reprap style printers people typically build is flatness of the build platform.  More on this in my next post.