An educational purpose built three dimensional printer

Abstract

A three dimensional printer using step motors from 3.5-inch disk drives was built for our undergraduate research thesis project. An Arduino microcontroller was in charge of controlling the steppers through the DC drivers and a 3D pen was used as the printing unit. The program was created with the Arduino suite and the design of the drawing with the open source Grbl using g code. For the axes, three disk drives were reassembled to form the X, Y and Z levels. Moreover, this structure can be operated as a Computerized Numerical Control machine by replacing the 3D pen with other components, such as a drill. The 3D printer will be used for educational purposes, as a teaching tool in laboratory projects. It provides an opportunity for students to learn more about robotic machines and create one from scratch.