Fabbster 3D printer
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The Fabbster is a low cost 3D printer kit that can be assembled by people with some do-it-yourself skills.
Important. This article refers to a "pilot program" printer and the draft manual version 1.10 and not the "final" home-user version.
More later. I just finished assembling and started testing ! At some point I will split the page, e.g. move assembly to a separate page after I am done with it. Finally, you will find gibberish and small mistakes in the text. I'll spend some time repairing these now and then ....
See also:
- Fabbster assembly (some assembly notes)
- Fabbster testing and setup (including software installation and calibration)
- 3D printing category and its 3D parent category...
- Daniel K. Schneider 14:11, 24 April 2012
The fabbster kit
The fabbster is a kind of modified Mendel design that targets the home market.
Where and what
Getting it The kit is sold through retailers and costs about 1500 € (incl. VAT., e.g. here). It will be shipped sometimes soon (May 2012?). I got ours for 500 € through their (March 2012) pilot program.
Software
- A basic slicer program (STL to machine code configurator/translator) from Netfabb is included in the price. The machine code is closed source and not documented, meaning that you will have to use this Netfabb program.
- The printer comes with an electronic box that can print either through a connected PC or via a SD card. You also can put a file on the SD, then launch it from the PC (this is better solution for large files)
- Driver software for Windows XP/VISTA/7 can be downloaded from the wiki.
Materials
- Custom made ABS sticks or 3mm ABS rolls
- PLA sticks or rolls
The parts
Unlike the RapMan, the fabbster is based on very few different kinds of parts:
- Most of the structure uses so-called "cassettes", i.e. good for most everything 8.5x7.6cm plastic parts
- Most screws and bolts have the same size.
Assembly
The assembly manual
- Assembly is described in a bilingual German/English assembly handbook (Version 1.10 is a color PDF file in A4 portrait format and includes 57 pages and about 42 for the assembly process itself.
- Steps are explained on sheets that included the following information:
- Parts (prepare them first)
- A graphic explaining the assembly step
- Some detail views
- A global progress view
Other documentation
- Wiki
- support forums
Build time depends:
- On your DYI skills
- On your technical reading skills
- On your capacity to follow instructions (undoing is easy, but adds time)
- On how well you want it to be done
- On how fast (without breaks etc) you plan to work
In my opinion, it can be anything between three and thirty hours (or more if you make a lot of mistakes). It took me about 22 hours (including initial testing, wiki writing etc.). Pure assembling therefore took less. But I do count problem-solving and basic testing as "build time".
Important: Build time refers to the pilot version. The final home-user version should take much less time.
Suggestions
- The manual should be improved a bit:
- some mistakes must be fixed,
- some explanations must be added,
- Insert upfront a graphic that labels the most important elements (axis, names of the motors). e.g. see this. Users must understand what they are building. Some won't ....
- Some parts don't fit well: Fabbster is in the process of fixing this
- 1-2 parts need a redesign: Fabbster is in the process of fixing this
- The testing/calibration/software installation part is currently badly documented: Fabbster will fix this too I hope :)
If I had to assemble a second one, I'd certainly do it in 4 hours but then I wouldn't. Once every two years is enough (see RapMan).
Links
- Official
- Fabbster Home
- Fabbster forums
- Fabbster wiki (Includes all the documentation). Sometimes, a wiki page just links to a file, e.g.
- assembly handbook
- drivers and software