Dymaxion S RepRap 3D Printer

thingiverse

This was an idea for a 3D printer I was working on a few years ago. It is inspired by Buckminster Fuller, using a cuboctahedron as it's main structural frame. The frame is almost completely 3D printable, with only 8mm nuts and bolts required to assemble the triangles. The idea behind this printer was in hopes for future home plastic recycling filament extruders, making filament cost low enough to print this style of frame. There is still much to do to this design, I originally planned on all belt reduction drives on the X and Y axis. That could be eliminated to simplify the design. There are two ways to print the frame, the triangle pieces are too large to print in a standard printer, which there was also plans for a "mother printer" designed to especially print these. That printer idea isn't quite as far along as this one. :) There is a file with the triangle divided into 3, and requires super gluing them together. The Z bearing part, I had started adding triangle designs to reduce the amount of filament required. That is incomplete. I'm attaching the Sketchup files here also, which I normally do not like to do on Thingiverse, but if anyone feels like working on this feel free too. I've sat on it for too long, and probably won't have time to work on it in the near future. I do not have files drawn up for mounts for the Y axis / bed rails, but they were planned to mount with a similar bracket like the one for the top of the Z bearing. If you don't mind listening to someone ramble when they are tired, you can watch the videos I made talking about the design some years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzTSMblbYCU# http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG9B3ngDi_k#