Printrbot has been continuing to refine their printers as they go along. Since the original Simple beta, they’ve gone through a few revisions. The original didn’t have end stops, this now comes as part of the kit. A fan was added to help temperature control. They’ve added tension adjustment on the strings they use to attach the platforms to the motors. On October 23rd they change the design to use large motors – and even though my order was a day prior, I still received the large motor kit.
These improvements they’ve managed to fold into the same cost, keeping the price the same for the improved product. For previous customers, they offer reasonably priced upgrade options (and instructions) to update their printers. For some parts, they provide the files needed to print your own.
I promise I’ll get off the fan boy soapbox soon, but I need to also mention that they’ve released the designs under a Creative Commons non-commercial license. This is a company that not only delivers great value, but has embraced the community. I’m quite happy to jump in and participate when things are like this, and I’m sure a lot of others are too – this creates a great feedback loop to the company that benefits them via support and (potential) improvements from the community.
On to day one of my Printrbot Simple build – I followed their build instructions and will reference steps (hopefully they don’t renumber / edit the document too heavily). [Edit – it does appear they’ve added some steps, as my numbering appears to be currently ‘off by 2’ later in the instructions – that or my notes were sloppy]
The remainder of this post is terse details with my comments on each step. Not much to see here unless you’re building your own Printrbot Simple. This was the first of three nights I took to do the build (a bit at a time) – for me it was like reading a good book, I didn’t want it to end so I stretched it out a bit.
