on today's maker mashup maker showcase we're talking about a lego 3d printer build
on today's maker mashup we're going to be talking about a lego 3d printer build now
those of you that have followed the channel for a while now you know that we've produced a number of
3d printer build videos that walk you step by step through the 3d printer build process and
i've put a card up at the top so you can check out those videos if you've not seen them before
so one question we get a lot on the channel based on our 3d printer videos is
how do i build a 3d printer if i don't have access to a 3d printer to print the parts
that are needed to build a 3d printer and that's a very fair question if you don't have access to a
3d printer it's really hard to make a 3d printer now i had also put together a video that i have
at the top here that shows you how to build it out of some hardware store items and some wood
it's really not the best way to build a 3d printer but you certainly can without having access to a
3d printer so several months back one of our makers that are in our channel discord which
is like an online makerspace had reached out saying that she was going to be building a 3d
printer out of legos so when stacy said that she was going to be building a 3d printer out of legos
i was a bit excited and skeptical at the same time i've seen robots and mindstorm and things
created with legos before but i never thought that a lego printer would be sturdy enough to produce
quality prints so after a few months stacy had gone ahead and said she completed her build and
i was super excited by that so i asked her and she said that you would join us here on maker's mashup
and tell us a little bit about her printer so with all that said let's get to work my name is stacey
zabinsky and i'm a doctoral student at boise state university and the main reason i stress
that is because this was a project for my doctoral program so i'm an educational technology major
and when you get to a certain point in this doctoral program you have to do an
innovative experience project of your choice and since i am a lego master educator and i'm
always pushing my students to build more and stretch those legos further than they can go
and a 3d printer enthusiast i thought this would be a really great mashup and so i immediately was
like oh i definitely want to make a lego printer the lego group represents a billion dollar
industry with offices worldwide billions of legos are produced each year which equals about 36 000
pieces every minute children around the world use these legos to build all sorts of creative things
lego also has many themes to it you've probably seen disney legos minecraft and heard about robots
being built from mindstorm and technic themes but how do you start building a 3d printer out of
legos i cannibalized another printer for parts and i was using that as the basis for the size and the
actual like building of it and the design of it was just what i felt would be the most rigid and
structurally sound for actual mechanical movement my biggest fear was that it would move fine while
i was moving it but once i had mechanical movement it would start to fall apart so i started by
measuring the bed and the linear rods to determine what dimensions i needed for where the legos had
to be and originally when i was planning the project i thought i would start with building
the scaffolding and building the structure and it turned out to be completely opposite of that
and i ended up building the bed first and the supports for the bed and all of that because it's
not even connected to the rest of the printer it is completely separate from the printer what it's
connected to is actually the base plate building a 3d printer from the ground up has many challenges
any maker who's assembled their own 3d printer knows a lot goes into just the assembly designing
one from legos added additional challenges to the overall design of this amazing printer
biggest challenges was rigidity so i wha i got the um structure built for the carriage to move
on but once i got the weight of the carriage on it everything flexed and moved i ended up having
to rebuild the support for the x or the z-axis movement i don't know seven or eight times until
i finally got something really strong enough and i was working with lego technic pieces for that
because they have the nice little connectors and beams and found out that lego technic is a perfect
fit for m3 screws so that worked out really well so machine screws were a big savior on some of the
parts where i just couldn't get them to not pull apart you might think that most of this is glued
together but in fact it's not no it is all loose bricks there's no glue at all the only thing that
is more permanent than the legos is just um i've got some horizontal threaded rods that i
i just use locking bolts in those tall towers for rigidity everything else is completely loose
i can snap it all apart it's all lego the total build took over 3 000 lego pieces the 3d printer
structure is only half the work she still had to wire the electronics to make this printer work
and the approach she took to the electronics enclosure is full of lego creativity
so when i first started wiring it i just had the board sitting just literally sitting on the table
while i was getting everything wired and once i finally got it wired i built a little housing
and i've got the 12 volt power supply on the table but i flipped it upside down so that its
heat vents and its air vent for the fan are facing upwards and then i built a little housing around
it and then on top of that is where i put the board and i put the housing and again i built
just a little lego housing around it the um vent for the blower fan i printed on this printer i'm a
k-6 teacher and what i'd really like is i'd love for one of my students to be able to build this
and it's it's it's all well and good to have 3d printers and be able to use 3d printed parts but i
wanted to stay true to the only use what you have and i couldn't get the legos to stay on there so i
finally decided all right i'm going to 3d print a part but i'm going to 3d print it on this printer
like i would have my students do i think the printer that stacy has put together here
is really a testament to maker ability she took something that she had around the house
which happened to be some legos she built a 3d printer and now she's sharing that design
with other people in the community so they could make their own 3d printers as well plus having a
working printer proves that it can be built with something as simple as legos and i think that is
exciting because i know all over the world people have access to legos but they don't have access
to 3d printers and with some mechanical parts and some electronics you can build a 3d printer
out of legos yourself so now i'm curious what do you think about the 3d printer build is this
something that you would recommend to someone who doesn't have a 3d printer let me know down in the
comments i would love to hear back on what your thoughts are on this community build i think it
was super exciting so i really want to hear from the community on what you think of this 3d printer
build now if you're interested in talking with other makers like stacy i've put links down in the
description to our discord channel which is really just a very large online community of makers
not just for 3d printers for really any sort of making activities electronics cnc we talk about
just about everything in our makerspace so with that is going to bring the end of today's video
if you enjoyed it make sure you mash that like button and don't forget to share and subscribe
so you don't miss any of our upcoming videos if you would like to help support the channel
consider checking out our patreon page patrons receive early and exclusive access to content
on the channel so with that i want to say thanks again for watching and we'll see you next time
you