Q-bot 3D printer

The Q-bot 3D printer started with the idea that I could build a better 3D printer out of the parts of a Tevo Tarantula printer. The Tevo Tarantula printer is a few years older than the original Creality Ender 3, and has many similarities to the Creality printer. However, it was definitely more a tinkering project than a functional 3D printer. The Tevo Tarantula taught me basic electronics, and it got me interested in CAD software. 

However, after a few years of neglecting the printer, I felt like I could do better. CoreXY 3D printer were becoming very popular in the hobby community around 2020, and I wanted to build my own. The compactness and ease of enclosing the printer really appealed to me. I started by modelling the entire printer in Fusion 360. A lot of effort was put into making the 3D printer as small as possible for a build volume of 200 mm³. I tried to use laser cut wooden panels and aluminum profiles as much as possible in the design. The laser cutting was done at the Inventory makerspace of the TU Delft Science Centre. Re-using as many parts as I could, I only had to buy a few sheets of plywood, linear rails, belts, bearings, and an upgraded hotend.

Building the 3D printer was a relatively smooth process. However, one issue immediately became very clear. The main cause of print quality issues for the Tevo Tarantula was the lack of bed stiffness. The Q-bot suffered from the same problem, since rubber wheels still supported the bed. The linear rails proved to be a significant upgrade for the X and Y axis, but the lack of an X-axis beam does mean that high-speed printing would not really be realistic. I didn't quite reach the 200 mm³ build volume, with the final print volume being 190 x 190 x 200 mm.

These imperfections aside, I had still transformed a cheap 3D printer from China into a significantly more reliable machine. It was compact, had a nice build volume, and included a lot of nice features. I added an old webcam from a broken laptop to monitor prints, and a Raspberry Pi allowed me to control the printer wirelessly. 

I did some successful prints, but I quickly discovered that 10 years after buying my Tevo Tarantula, consumer-grade 3D printers had improved immensely. I used the Prusa i3 Mk3s+ printers in the Science Centre much more often than my own 3D printer, until I took my printer apart for a different project in 2024. You can read here what happened with the parts of my Q-bot 3D printer.