Introduction:
Once upon a time, I saw a 3D printer made out the linear motors out of DVD
drives, I knew I wanted to build one of
my own… And so I got myself a 3D Printer, with then sole intention of 3D
Printing a 3D Printer (viva la reprap). Just for a time point in reference, this
was back in 2019, and I’m now in 2023 finally completing this goal. In September
2021 I discovered PrintABlok and My initial attempts at
this were based on this linear dvd motor design, and annoyingly I did get quite
far with it. Eventually here will be Printables Link, to my original Cartisian
PrintABlok Printer The one
repeating issue I had with it was purely because I didn’t know how best to go
about getting the tooth made for the linear screw, and that shut down that version
of the project that I’m sure was around the 85% mark. Especially after I liberated
the Recreator Mk6 “Funsize” base and made a plate to build with PrintABlok onto of
it. It looked so cool. 
And here is where we are at:
- An assortment of 3D printer related designed bloks
- A bad linear carriage with wobble and slipage
- Some 28byj-48 motors
- Timing belt, idler and toothed pulleys
- 2 years experience playing in TinkerCAD
- Gigantabloks
Armed with these bloks and prior experience, our brave adventurer went off into the wilderness, with a “lol why not”.
Unprintable BOM:
Before we dive too far into the deepend, let’s review what components we have to hand. Or a “BOM” (bill of materials)
- 4x 28byj48 stepper motors (bi-polar converted) - 1x Nema 17 motor and extruder kit
- generic MK8/Creality style hotend (12v) and ptfe bowden tube - 12V 60W Power brick
- 5.25 mm barrel plug (female) if you’re embeding the power brick inside the case and not using a “normal” PSU
- A main board that can hold 5 stepper drivers
- 4 meters of 3mm stainless steel rod
- something to use as a build plate that can be cut down
- Ender3 LCD (or a pi, if you’re going to use klipper and no screen)
- 5m gt2 timing belt
- 4x toothed pulleys
- 10x idler pulleys
- 4x limit switches (and accompanying wire)
- 1x 3010 12v fan
- Assorted screws and nuts for the FunSize Base and firming up the bearing holders
PrintABOM. Printable BOM?
Sorry, that was terrible.
Motor holding bloks:
I had 4 28byj-48 motors to hand from my initial ordering of supplies for the
cartisian printer build. The first thing I needed to confirm was if I could have a
reasonable sized blok that would hold these motors nicely. At first I was thinking
a 2x3x2 blok but it turns out we have more flexibility if I made a 2x3x1 blok, and
then a half blok and a panel thickness piece for shimming the Alpha and Beta
motors.
The mount for the Nema17 motor is just a rip
off of an extruder mount, nothing fancy there. Does make me wonder about an
upgrade path for this CoreXY printer in the future.
Bearing holding bloks:
We have a very nice assortment of bloks.
LM3UU 2x1: These hold an LM3UU bearing inserted during a print pause. Used for an improved “smoother” Z Axis in this
build, discovered we would need a bearing for each rod as without them the wobble/judder was all round a bit nuts.
Y Carriage: I do enjoy how oddly shaped this one is.
X Carriage: simple remix of a 2x2x1 but with bearings inside, this should be tweaked to allow for pausing the print to add the
bearings in. In reality this hasn’t changed too much since the first iteration of having a vertical X rather than a horizontal, because the design worked nicely
Pulley and Belt Bloks:
Augmented with nuts/bolts these Bed belt holder: 2x1 bloks with X carriage belt holder: a funny little arch bit to wrap and zip tie/clip the belt around, can’t get more simple than that. Z axis idler: this of cheese is ugly and annoyingly it works. Nothing else to say about it, we needed something that was wide enough for a single bearing and it did the trick. XY 2x2x2 idler: Inspired by my gigantablok base set, but with a hollowed out core, these hold the A/B idlers for the CoreXY motion opposite the motors. These where the 2nd blok I made for this little adventure, and they look super fancy. 2x1 idler: This was almost a hint of genius, I needed something compact that could sit on the Y carriage and hold idlers, and initially it was temporary while testing. I did have an instance where the shaft snapped off and so I put an M3 bolt in there as a fix, and really since then I’ve had no issues. And it goes to show the most permanant fixes are the temporary ones. Bonus points, you print them without the shaft and they hold the 3mm rods in the right place for the Y axis! 1x1 idler: it’s the same as the above. But used to hold the Z axis rods.
Hotends
I’ve gone through a minimum of two iterations here, one based around the v6 from E3D and the other around the cr10/mk8 style from Creality. Ultimately after fighting with wobble I’ve opted for a creality style. here is it mounted badly and extruding