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Hello World
December 12th, 2010

Welcome to Grass Roots Engineering

I created Grass Roots Engineering so I could share the developments and continual improvements of my 3D printing machines, as well as my perspectives on the rapidly growing commercial and DIY 3D printing communities.

My 3D Printer

I have been involved with 3D printing for some time now, since I first discovered it and my eyes were opened to the manufacturing possibilities while I was pursing my B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, USA. This led to industry sponsored undergraduate research with 3D printing unique materials. I then went on to pursue a Masters of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, USA. One of the reasons for choosing Cornell was to work on the open source Fab@Home project that was based there. As the Mechanical Systems team leader, I was in charge of designing and validating the new Model 2.0 system for public release [see My Fab@Home page]. I also have been working on a large scale 3D printer of my own design since late 2008 and as of Summer 2010, it is fully functional [more details on the My Machine page].

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7 Comments:
  1. Edward
    December 20, 2010 at 6:01 pm #

    Wow! Impressive to say the least!

    Did you make your own controller, or are you using modifications of those used in the F@H or RepRap projects?

    • Jim
      December 20, 2010 at 7:26 pm #

      Thanks Edward!
      Right now, I use all standard RepRap electronics on my machine.

  2. Edward
    December 20, 2010 at 9:27 pm #

    That’s great to know. I’ve been planning my own printer build for the past few months and have been toiling over which project’s electronics to use.

    Can’t wait to see more of the build!

  3. Coleston
    March 31, 2011 at 11:22 am #

    Hello, your machine seems to be far superior to either the mendel, or the fab@home v2 or the maker bot.

    Are you planning on releasing parts lists and drawings and whatnot to facilitate people replicating your design? Drop me a line on email if you have a moment, I’d love to discuss your project with you.

    -Cole

    • Jim
      April 25, 2011 at 10:46 pm #

      Thanks Cole!
      The machine is still a work in progress (I’m always trying to make it better), so at this time I don’t really have plans or a bill of materials available.

  4. Gary
    July 27, 2011 at 12:29 am #

    When you do decide to release a build plan on this I am very interested. I use Alibre so I will have to see about converting the files to STL. Very nice work.

  5. Maggy Rond
    February 4, 2014 at 7:34 am #

    Hi Jim,
    I have to give you my compliments for your very good looking quite large and pretty accurate 3d printer. But what makes me wonder is: as far as I can see, the four vertical stands and the connecting horizontal beams do nothing else than hold the print head and Z axle. It’s probably a very rigid construction but so are those good old bench drills and mills with much simpler constructions. Your construction would make sense to me if you would have used it as a portal with the print head moving in XYZ directions. Am I missing the point?

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