Printed V-Laser - BiBu

thingiverse

Hi! Due to the great response from the community with LiBu, a printed mini laser engraver structure, we proudly present BiBu, your BIG Burner! BiBu, as its little sister, is a large laser engraver structure that started with an initial idea of fully 3D printing a big structure, but many challenges were encountered. It's virtually impossible to create a precise and sturdy big structure using 3D printing. To overcome these challenges, we chose Open Hardware aluminum profiles for making the long structure parts, V-Slot, because there are many printable parts available online. The smooth linear motion of V-Slot is well-balanced with price and availability, also backed by an awesome community around the product and derivatives. We then discovered this on the internet while searching for a V-Slot distributor: http://openbuilds.org/?category=laser-cutter-builds&id=304 A whole world of information was found on this site, including incredibly clever pinion/belt systems ideas that enable the engraver to work on walls and non-horizontal surfaces based on V-Slot. The site also features a huge amount of information about the electronics. We took the site as a base to create our "fully 3D printable" big laser engraver. Check the site, an amazing work worth studying. Finally, we closed the design using: //// HARDWARE //// * 3 NEMA 17 motors * 4 x 50cm 2020 V-Slot aluminum profiles * 1 x 47cm 2020 V-Slot aluminum profile * 3 x GT2 Aluminum pulleys * 4 x 55cm GT2 Belts * 12 x V-Slot Delrin mini v wheel Kits *2 * N x M3x12 screws //// 3D PRINTED //// * 2 x Y-StepperCarry parts * 1 x laser_StepperPlate_X part * 2 x axis_spacer_X_HolderV5 parts * 6 x V-slot-belt_end parts * 1 x laser_support part * 4 x upper_corner parts * 4 x bottom_corner *3 parts * N x V-Slot nuts All printed parts have a slight clearance on sizes and diameters (about 0.2mm), especially thinking for FDM users. *1: To cut costs, you may use standard aluminum extrusion (cheaper) in the sides that are not involved with linear motion, but remember that nuts are different. *2: There are some methods to cut costs in this mini v wheel parts using 3D printed rollers for motion (not tested and adds extra screws/spacers/... that come with the miniwheel kit). *3: Our prototype bottom corner is designed for enclose 4 x printer rubber rollers, extracted from an old printer, to act as supports. The bottom corner is taken from the upper one, so there are many options to make proper supports just adding a few walls. For electronics, we used a cheap laser engraver controller board that can be found in many online sites nowadays. As always, this project was deeply inspired by the work of other people who like to make things. We'll try to list them all; forgive us if we miss someone: For the projects that made us dream with big lasers - actually you triggered the LiBu project! http://www.instructables.com/id/Pocket-laser-engraver/ and http://www.instructables.com/id/Disassembling-a-CDDVD-reader-and-reusing-its-parts/ and http://www.instructables.com/id/Frankenstein-Laser-Engraver/ For their accurate work in translating Open Source hardware to cheap and easy-to-print parts http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:810785 There are many alternative rollers to replace the mini wheels, but we stumbled upon this ones. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:282178 And many more that we can't remember - thanks too! WARNING!!! REMEMBER THAT A LASER MAY SERIOUSLY AND DEFINITIVELY HARM YOUR EYES, DO NOT EVEN START THE LASER PARTS IF YOU DIDN'T GOT A GOOD PAIR OF GOOGLES, AND REMEMBER THAT THEY HAVE TO BE SPECIAL FOR YOUR LASER COLOR (WAVELENGTH). BEWARE THE IR LASERS; YOU CANNOT SEE THEM BUT THEY'RE AS HARMFUL AS OTHER TYPES.