and if you're okay with it being super tiny optical drives have entire assemblies you can use as is for an axis

I've already built a small 3D printer with CD drives. Been using it more for a mill tho

in that case: what is your biggest caliper, how long

6 inches

same, 's why the kossel kit was such a pain for me :(

had to do a lot of "okay, is this value right? no, slightly off, change firmware, flash, how bout now? no, still off, gdi"

but one can make it work with patience since you can measure test cubes with a caliper that size

yea

i just want like a fkn 12 inch caliper

only the expensive Real Machinist Tools brands seem to make them though

i live well enough but i can't exactly sit here and drop a grand on some mitutoyos for a specific project like that

I use a 12 inch Caliper when welding, they can be a pain in the ass on their own

if you have access to one use it

you'll be up and running with a delta kit way faster

ah OK.

OH, thing to note with the sub-$200 printer kits

you _must_ replace the power supply, and you _must_ put a fet between the heated bed and the hot bed connector on the board

otherwise you will have fires, maybe not immediately, but it will happen

ahhh. a fet?

you simply do not fit a safe and reliable 25A+ power supply in that budget, and the boards cannot handle the current a hot bed needs

ohh

so you put the heat bed output on the gate of the fet and wire that up to the power supply directly instead of putting all 20A of that through the pcb

not a problem. 20A Power supplies aren't hard to come by. What is the voltage required?

16A minimum, but honestly if you aren't putting 20A through that bed you aren't getting much use out of it for the plastics that it helps

depends, you have 12v and 24v pritners, most are 12v

Ah ok. Well shit, I have a ton of 12v 20A PSUs from laptops

all the beds can run on either and i would actually recommend getting a 24v supply to run the bed and maybe just give it its own controller instead of having the 3d printer control that

you'll get same power with less current

if you use a psu for just the heat bed, make _absolutely sure_ it can shit out absolute minimum 16A indefinitely, and you really want 20A

if you're gonna use it for the whole printer, 25A-30A

OK

a lot of people use gaymurr psus for this

Not all materials require a heatbed so. Maybe a separate PSU is in order

since they all have multiple super high current 12v rails and big chunky connectors meant to handle lots of current

most require a heat bed

you're limited to PLA and PVA without one

Yea, and PLA is shit

it's got pretty good wear resistance but for most applications i'd rather use abs or nylon, yeah

it's also got some surprisingly good chemical resistance, better than abs at least

gonna have a hard time attacking pla with any solvents normal people will have on hand

Acetone smooths out PLA if I remember right, the fumes at least