Looking for plans to build your own 3D printer? Now you can consider building an Ultimaker 2. While it’s for sale in assembled form, you can now inspect the plans for it.
Ultimaker touts itself as a company born from and supportive of open source practices. They’ve definitely practiced it since they’ve just released ALL the plans required to build their latest personal 3D printer, the Ultimaker 2, as open source for all to see. There are dozens of individual part descriptions with which you should be able to construct your own Ultimaker 2.
But why do this? Ultimaker risks having their design copied by unscrupulous Asian manufacturers and undercutting their price.
It’s because of the principles of open source. Release a plan and others may copy it. But others may improve it with their own modifications. Those modifications make the machine better – by encouraging everyone to use their skills, ideas and abilities to experiment.
Check out the files, currently linked from Ultimaker’s YouMagine repository and stored in GitHub. You might not build the machine, but you’ll learn a bit more about how 3D printers are put together.
Via Ultimaker