Some people want a cool new toy for Christmas. Those that are a little older hope for some special jewlery, a new sports coat, or possibly the keys to a nice car. Me? I dream of parts for projects.
Most notably an attempt to build a sub-$300 3d printer.
3d printing (under $10,000) has come miles since the RepRap Project. One of the more well known models is the Makerbot Cupcake CNC, which sells for $700 and is a DIY 3d printer kit. I've played with this recently at the hackerspace, as we have one, and I fell in love with it. Being able to download gears or servo mounts from Thingiverse. I do have some reservations with the design, and even more reservations on the sheer price of it.
I've been doing some research. I've recently purchased some L298N Full Bridge Drivers (cheapest on the provided Sparkfun link if you're looking for a good 4A bridge for a motor driver). I was planning to use it to make a stepper motor controller, but lo and behold, I wasn't the only one. During a visit to Hive76 this week, two members were working together to build a stepper motor driver with this part! I helped out now and then, and they got it working before I left. This is great news, as it confirms my thoughts before I had to dish out any money testing.
For the base, I'm debating a simple design such as the Easy Mill on Instructables. I'll be making small modifications to refine the design, or make it cheaper/easier to build.
I'll keep the blog update as I go, but this is probably an after-Christmas project.
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