Building a Prusa Mendel 3D printer

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I decided I needed a 3D printer in my shop for some projects I am working on. I had some lead-time on the projects, so rather than buying a commercial printer I decided to build an open source printer. So far I have been pleasantly surprised at the quality.

November 19th, 2011 Initial Printer Build The initial printer build was a stock Prusa Mendel. It took about 4 solid days to setup and get running, then another few days of calibrating and dialing in the printer.

December 4th, 2011 The 'finished for now' case In order to add an air filter and heater I built a case for the printer. The air filter is built into the top of the case, and a PID temperature controlled heater will be added later.

December 7th, 2011 Adding an Air Filter I added an extractor fan and an activated charcoal air filter to help extract the plastic fumes from the shop.

December 20th, 2011 Adding doors Doors added to seal up the printer keeping it warm and funneling the fumes into the air filter.

December 27th, 2011 Adding a filament supply I added up using a simple support for a single spool of filament.

January 5th, 2012 Adding a z axis stabilizer. First upgrade part printed on the printer. Weird. I upgraded the z-axis stabilizer.