Hi Everyone I'm Mike,
I'm new to the forum and to the gCreate world. I have had a Printrbot Simple Metal for about 3 years now. I have printed a ton of stuff on that little printer and love it, but I would like to step up to a large format printer to tackle bigger projects. I have been planning on scratch building my own large format 3D printer for some time now. I was thinking of cannibalizing one of my x-carves and just designing /building my own with most of the existing parts, But a few weeks back I stumbled across the gMax website and decided I want to make something like that instead. After looking deeper at the gMax printer I really fell in love with the machine. It looks very well designed , simple and very well thought out. Buying a turn key gMax is out of my price range so I was thrilled to see that the print files are available for download.
I did a lot of searching for information about the gMax 1.5+ on the forum, the web, and studying photos of both the 1.5 and the 1.5+. I learned a lot about this machine but I still have a handful of questions.
Here is where the questions begin:
#1. I did some poking around and I couldn't find much information on the rest of the machine parts or any drawings for the 1.5+ i.e. extrusion profiles and lengths. plates, brackets etc. Is info for these parts available or is this not really an "open source" machine?
#2 The best I can tell from reading and poking around the forums and looking at the older 1.5 assembly manual, the extrusions are 8020 1515 lite series. Am I correct in guessing that the extrusion lengths called out in the 1.5 assembly manual are the same lengths for the 1.5XT+ minus the Z column extrusions? Additionally what are the lengths of the 2 Z column extrusions?
#3 What is the profile size of the smaller V-slot extrusions for the X and Y carriage's? They are just called out as "thin extrusions" in the 1.5 manual.
#4 gMax parts availability. I would like to buy some of the more complex items from gCreate like the 16x16 heated bed and the aluminum bed assembly. Both are on the website but are listed as sold out. does anyone know if these items will be back in stock are they gone for good?
For now I'm going to get started printing the printable parts for the 1.5+ If someone could help me out with the questions I listed above that would be very much appreciated so I can place an extrusion, bracket and hardware order so I can start making this dream a reality.
Also, I'll keep everyone updated on my build progress here as I get things done.
Thanks, Mike
I'm new to the forum and to the gCreate world. I have had a Printrbot Simple Metal for about 3 years now. I have printed a ton of stuff on that little printer and love it, but I would like to step up to a large format printer to tackle bigger projects. I have been planning on scratch building my own large format 3D printer for some time now. I was thinking of cannibalizing one of my x-carves and just designing /building my own with most of the existing parts, But a few weeks back I stumbled across the gMax website and decided I want to make something like that instead. After looking deeper at the gMax printer I really fell in love with the machine. It looks very well designed , simple and very well thought out. Buying a turn key gMax is out of my price range so I was thrilled to see that the print files are available for download.
I did a lot of searching for information about the gMax 1.5+ on the forum, the web, and studying photos of both the 1.5 and the 1.5+. I learned a lot about this machine but I still have a handful of questions.
Here is where the questions begin:
#1. I did some poking around and I couldn't find much information on the rest of the machine parts or any drawings for the 1.5+ i.e. extrusion profiles and lengths. plates, brackets etc. Is info for these parts available or is this not really an "open source" machine?
#2 The best I can tell from reading and poking around the forums and looking at the older 1.5 assembly manual, the extrusions are 8020 1515 lite series. Am I correct in guessing that the extrusion lengths called out in the 1.5 assembly manual are the same lengths for the 1.5XT+ minus the Z column extrusions? Additionally what are the lengths of the 2 Z column extrusions?
#3 What is the profile size of the smaller V-slot extrusions for the X and Y carriage's? They are just called out as "thin extrusions" in the 1.5 manual.
#4 gMax parts availability. I would like to buy some of the more complex items from gCreate like the 16x16 heated bed and the aluminum bed assembly. Both are on the website but are listed as sold out. does anyone know if these items will be back in stock are they gone for good?
For now I'm going to get started printing the printable parts for the 1.5+ If someone could help me out with the questions I listed above that would be very much appreciated so I can place an extrusion, bracket and hardware order so I can start making this dream a reality.
Also, I'll keep everyone updated on my build progress here as I get things done.
Thanks, Mike