DIY'ers create homemade 3D printer

Hot on the heels of the candy-object-making printer, an ingenious group of DIY'ers from Russia have managed to create a homemade 3D printer from a CNC lathe kit and some cobbled together bits and pieces. Typically, 3D printers are quite expensive (running anywhere from $20,000 up to $100,000), but working with cheap materials and using free, open source software, the designers were able to construct this project for considerably less. The printer software uses standard STL (a stereolithography CAD file) to render the objects, and it employs inexpensive plastic waste or powdered paint as raw material to create the real-world item. Motor over to the translated Russian site to see how it all takes shape -- pun intended.

[Via Make]

[oshean @ Aug 17th 2007 9:59AM]

In Soviet Russia, 3D prints you.

Seriously though, can one use empty milk jugs as the 'ink'?

[Dahk @ Aug 17th 2007 10:23AM]

Steps closer. But I still want to see a replicator sometime before I die =(.

[alex @ Aug 17th 2007 11:23AM]

When am I going to see a Lego version of this?

[zanbowser @ Aug 17th 2007 11:41AM]

old crap is old. where've you guys been? this open-source project has been around for at least two years or so.

and @alex: i think someone's already done that. seem to remember seeing it (or someone's comment, saying they were going to do one).

[oshean @ Aug 17th 2007 11:48AM]

It's news to me.

[Mr. Picklesworth @ Aug 17th 2007 11:52AM]

Here is an open 3D printer project that is /not/ a scary translated Russian site.

www.fabathome.org

[Andrew @ Aug 17th 2007 12:39PM]

I met a 16 year old kid who built 3D organic tissue with an HP printer. Not to knock on these Russian guys but there are lots of ways to do this for cheap that have already been done.

What I'm waiting for is a rapid prototyping method that fits the first half of its name. All affordable methods right now take hours or days.

[silverblackvoid @ Aug 17th 2007 2:16PM]

this is awesome, inspiring and really solid hard work. cheers to all the hardcore geeks from Russia. For those about to DIY, we salute u!

[michas_pi @ Aug 17th 2007 4:39PM]

Pssshht, this is nothing. I've already used one by Umbrella (a la Resident Evil: Code Veronica) and it's much better.