Building my own 3D printer part 3 and the first video

My 3D printer had its first test run last night.  So far I need to replace the X axis stepper motor it has a bad connection inside of it somewhere as can be seen in this video on Youtube.

http://youtu.be/s77h1BQ-EVQ

Here is a picture of the jumpers to convert the Ramps board to a printer 25 pin interface.  I only connected to the pins that I needed for X, Y, and Z for Step, Direction and Enable, they are blue, green and yellow.  The enables are all connected to ground.  Then I also needed to connect to ground and 5 Volts, they are yellow and red, the top two connections..

Here is another video of the DIY 3D printer this time it is running with and Arduino Mega.

http://youtu.be/YemKKhmJT2o

Here is a picture of the Ramps wiring.  The heat bed is not wired up yet.

Here is the wiring with the heat bed wires in.  I spliced the ribbon cable into some 14 gauge stranded cable and covered the splice with heat shrink.

Here is the third video.  This was my first extrusion attempt.

http://youtu.be/vYSjmuuCgkQ?list=UU49j5FVUO2KIFyH2IXmGXjg

Here is what I got from my first attempt at making something.  It was supposed to be a 8mm bearing support.

Building my own Mendel 90 3D printer part 2

My 3D printer is coming along quite nicely but slowly.  I have started doing the electrical wiring as can be seen in this picture.  Notice the custom made aluminum motor mounts and the use of standard "off-the-shelf" parts throughout.  My next book will give the details of construction it will be titled "Inexpensive 3D Printer Projects".

I purchased standard ends for the X-Axis ends but I have come up with plans as to how to make my own X Axis ends.  I really think even the X Axis ends can be made with standard parts and a piece of Plexiglas or aluminum to hold it together.  The only tricky part would be the "Nut bracket".  That could be made out of Plexiglas.  Just drill a 1/2 inch hole in it and then melt the 5/16" nut into the hole.

Here is a picture of my homemade X axis carriage.  I had to cut the 1/2 inch pipe supports to fit them in the space available (There is approx 2.05 inches between the rails).  The two holes at the back are for mounting the Extruder. The holes at the front already existed but they are for the belt clamps.  The center hole was just a little over 1.25 inches in diameter but it was not big enough to lower the hot end down through.  I had to disassemble it and reassemble it through the hole.  I need to cut off 1/2 inch at the front as it is not needed.  I changed the design and moved the holes out 1/8 an inch.  Then I countersunk them and used flat head 6-32 screws.  Now the print head sits flush.

It is almost done!  Just the 25 pin connector at the bottom right and the heatbed to wire up and it will be done.  Here is what it looks like at this point.