Converting 3 Axis Router to 3D Printer

Hello All,

I have a fully operating home built 3 Axis router I want to convert to a 3d printer. Any advice? Brands of printer head, software, cosumables???

Thanks,
Eric

Look at reprap i would recommend an ramps Board which Takes over Control it is the easiest Way


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Thanks for the resource. Didnt find much on how the filament feeder is controlled. Will the ramps Board control my start/stop of my feeder, how does this tie in to my cnc control boards?

Hi,
right now i have to less time but ,..
If you look at RAMPS 1.4 - RepRapWiki
you see this setup can control 5 Steppers and the heat
So my idea was simply
i own an Heiz 400T mill which comes with an control box
there are DB9 connectors to this box
if you make connector cables to the ramps board you can control all the movement and endstopps and you can use any given and proven print head you want
this would be a no hassle setup
thomas

The Arduino (ARM) based Ramps boards are great, especially if you are running an Arduino. But if your 3 axis router is already using a more powerful PC based control (ala Mach3 or LinuxCNC), then it may not be the best or easiest route. It has been awhile, but I recall most of the 3D printer software packages, (Repetier, Cura, MakerWare, etc), although commonly interfaced directly to an Arduino based printer, can also run stand alone and all produce G-code. Some allow settings to generate the g-code (or Post) to Mach 3 or LinuxCNC for the bootstrappers like yourself. SeeMeCNC at one time was making a strong effort to help the Mach 3 users start 3D print boot-strapping, I don't know if they still do or have totally abandoned this effort. Their have also been others in the LinuxCNC crowd with dedicated web pages on this effort as well.There are many ex-truder heads out there. Many in keeping with the RepRap 'self replicating' theme are substantially constructed of 3D printed parts (search Thingiverse). It had been difficult to keep pace with the rapidly evolving market on who's #1, but it is maturing and there are some better choices. I can only recommend searching as I am not current enough to give you advice here.You may also want to search and post on the 3DPrintForums, I believe a sister site to here, the Zone. It is young and arguably a child or subset market of CNC, so it doesn't get quite the traffic, but you may get more specific info to your bootstrap approach.Consumables, I'm just guessing (making an ASSumption throughout this post) that your 'printer head' you are thinking about is to perform fused deposition modeling (FDM) using thermoplastics, in the somewhat standardized 3 mm or 1.75 mm diameter filaments. This too is an every changing and evolving market on available plastics. The 2 earliest and predominent are acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and polyactic acid (PLA). The RepRap wiki has a page (Printing Material Suppliers - RepRapWiki) as a good jump off point for many available vendors.It can be done, it has been done, you just have to look a little harder. If working with Mach 3 or LinuxCNC you will need to configure them to deal with the extruder temperature and the extruder's 'spindle' (stepper, servo, or on/off dc motor and gearhead) speed and direction. Depending on filaments you plan to use, many find better success in ABS (and others) with a heated build-plate, which could be independent temperature control, or via your PC/Arm controls and interface hardware.The only other minor concern with some bootstraps, particularly CNC mills, is if the mechanics and controls will be able to run at the higher feedrates and rapids common for FDM printers. I'm guessing your router will be fast enough.Good luck, and happy printing.(After editing a Typo, the smart Quick Reply software decided one large run on paragraph is best. Tried a second time to put pargraphs back in, and it still disagrees with me. I'll let the SW have this one, sorry.)

You may not need the whole machine but maybe the "Super Extruder" head would be a reasonable starting place ... https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...machine-in-one.