Building a RepRap Prusa Mendel 3D Printer

I have been absent from the electronic scene for quite some time now, but my interested has been rekindled after some time researching 3D printers. I have decided to build one for my Grade 12 project!

My first goal was to build the printer for 450 dollars, so I began to research all the available options and their associated costs. I finally settled on a combination of parts, with the majority ordered locally. I will make a basic list of the main components and where I purchased them from:

Electronics - RAMPS board on Arduino Mega 
http://ultimachine.com/
http://www.ebay.ca/Arduino Mega
Motors - Wantai 42BTGHW811 bipolar hybrid stepper motors
http://www.wantmotor.com/
Stepper Drivers - Pololu A4988 stepper Drivers
http://mixshop.com/pololu
Vitamins - Complete structure kit
http://mixshop.com/
Extruder - Complete Wades Extruder kit
http://mixshop.com/

So far I have received the Arduino Mega and the RAMPS board, which I assembled. If you aren't comfortable with SMT soldering, I would suggest going with the SMT already Soldered option.

I went to the open night at the Toronto Hackerspace http://hacklab.to/ and found out that they had a working makerbot which they are generously letting me print my parts off of. So far I have printed 3/4 of the parts over the course of a couple weekends. Hopefully by next week I will have the Mixshop order and all the parts printed and will be able to begin assembly!

Unpopulated RAMPS

 

Finished RAMPS Board