What do you do when you split the cost of a 3-D printer with your roommate and then have to figure out who gets to keep it when you stop living together? One college student came up with a solution that made everyone happy. He made a new one using the old one to make parts.

When faced with the impending “who gets to keep the printer” dilemma Instructables DIYer Pat L (AKA: redhatman) and his roommate had, the duo agreed that one would buyout the other with the agreement that it could still be used for the remainder of their cohabitation together. Pat spent the next three months and about $600 to build his very own 3-D printer using parts that he made using the existing 3-D printer.

3-D printer made from 3-D printer

You could almost consider this to be a self-replicating 3-D printer project. Many of the parts were made using a Prusa i2 printer. Although, there were also parts purchased and gathered through other non-3-D printing means.

The final result, dubbed “Project Locus” was a larger 3-D printer that works perfectly.

The project is detailed in 16 complex steps of which you may not be willing to delve into. However, the whole build is evidence of what 3-D printers can do, as well as what DIYers can create. It wont be long until entire 3-D printers will be built with just the push of a button.

It reminds me of the “Benderama” episode of Futurama, when Bender uses the Professor’s matter duplicator to make copies of himself that go on to create duplicates of themselves, and so on. Hopefully, self-replicating 3-D printers won’t consume all matter on Earth in order to continue the duplication process.

Via: Neatorama

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8 replies on “Printception: Making a 3-D printer using a 3-D printer”

  1. 3D printers would rather call the process ‘pro-creation’ not duplication 😉

  2. Oh, my goodness! Shut me down! Machines making machines. Huh! How perverse.

  3. As much as I appreciate the “Printception” joke (good one, by the way 😀 ), being able to produce the parts that are the least expensive and easiest to manufacture via traditional means is just not the same thing. Sadly, we’re light-years from fabricating entire 3D printers with “just the push of a button”. When the technology does arrive, let’s just hope that we don’t end up with a “grey goo” scenario…

  4. Um, that’s the entire point of the reprap movement, founded in 2005…

  5. So its a 3D printer printing the plastics parts that go into a 3D printer? Some of us have been doing this for years now

    1. Yeah, kids these days. When _I_ was in school and I wanted to make something 3D, I had to use a shop full of beat-up WWII-surplus machine tools, like a lathe with a tailstock 100 mils out of line with the spindle! Boy, _that’ll_ learn you something about fault-tolerant design. Now tell ’em to get off my lawn!

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