The QU-BD One Up is the least expensive, production ready, high quality 3D printer available on the market! ...Its OPEN SOURCE TOO!
The QU-BD One Up is the world's first production ready 3D printer to break the $200 barrier. It uses industry standard technology and electronics and everything is OPEN SOURCE!
The source files will all be released a couple days BEFORE the Kickstarter campaign ends!
*** Please note that we are having a company that shares our warehouse with us handle all packaging and shipping so that we can continue to focus on our all metal 3D Printers***
We are thrilled to offer the One Up and Two Up for the Holidays as an easy to assemble kit. These units were 'shelved' for quite some time waiting to release now. They are very simple, reliable and can produce incredible results for their price. While they may be outclassed by our RPM and Revolution 3D printers in speed and incremental print quality, the One Up and Two Up rival the speeds and print quality of most of the 'high end' consumer level 3D printers on the market.
UPGRADES:
Heated Bed and Full ABS Support: Add $74 to your pledge to add an upgraded power supply, silicone rubber heater and basalt bed.
Stretch Goals!
What's in the Kit? Everything that you need to begin 3D printing is included in the kit, including a small amount of PLA filament to get you going. The kits include:
(4) Super Torquey NEMA 17 Stepper Motors
(1) Anubis Hot End for 1.75mm Filament w/ Thermistor
(1) Laser Cut Black Melamine Coated MDF Frame
(1) Precision ACME Screw and Nut for the Z-Axis
(6) LM8LUU Precision Linear Bearings w/ 6 8mm Smooth Rods
(2) Aluminum HTD Pulleys w/ 3 Ball Bearings as Idlers
(1) Set of Laser Cut Acrylic Idler Plates
(1) 40mm Fan w/ Mount to Cool Off Your Prints
(1) Laser Cut Acrylic Build Plate
(1) Set of Printrboard Electronics with Integrated Stepper Drivers
(1) 60w Power Supply (or see UPGRADES:)
(1) Bag extra wiring, crimps, electrical connectors etc.
(1) Bag of required hardware (nuts, bolts, screws etc.)
So What is 3D Printing? It is the process where layer by layer of molten plastic is extruded through a heated nozzle in a computer controlled manner to build a 3 dimensional object from computer data.
What can it be used for? The possibilities are basically limitless...break something around the house?...print it! Design a new invention...print it! Demonstrate a mechanical device or concept for education...print it! If you can dream it you can print it!
What makes us different? The One Up and Two Up can produce results rivaling the best print quality of virtually every printer on the market at a price less than an XBOX! By leveraging our supply chains and machining components in house in our industrial machine shop we can pass the savings on to you. The One Up and Two Up use all industry standard components albeit at a quality substantially higher than most kits available. This allows very precise movement enabling extremely high print quality with the minimum of 'fuss'.
How did the OneUp and TwoUp come about? Through the development of our all metal, precision machined 3D printers we had always talked about a low cost, entry level unit to allow virtually anyone to get into the exciting field of 3D printing. We had all these amazing quality components for linear motion and precise movement 'laying around' from our other printers so what we really needed was a low cost frame. Really we repurposed the components that we were already using into a no frills 3D printer. We chose Melamine coated MDF as a dimensionally stable, rigid, low cost alternative to our all metal printers AND it could be cut on our huge CNC laser. We stripped off all the extra bits that we could to reduce the cost as much as possible without sacrificing quality of prints; you can acheive some really world class prints at 60mm/s. We integrated the stepper drivers into the electronics board and we machined up a low cost hot end using proven concepts for printing strictly in PLA. We wanted to create a world class printer with the only sacrifice relative to much more costly 3D printers being the build area at a price that anyone can afford. It's cheaper than an X-Box!
The entire Melamine coated MDF frame can be cut in less than 10 minutes on our 150w CO2 laser. Due to the cutting envelope of the laser we can nest 30 of the OneUp's frames on one 48"x96" panel, click cut and let it go. This allows huge throughput with minimal human interaction. All the frame pieces were drawn up in Solidworks and we will be releasing a PDF, EPS and DXF version so replacement, mods and copies can be produced on anyone's laser...isn't Open Source great!?
The Arduino based electronics that we are using are referenced off the Open Source Printrboard electronics. They include 4 integrated Allegro 4983 stepper drivers. There are two MOSFETS onboard as well that power the extruder and at a later time a heated bed for printing in materials other than PLA. There is an SD card slot to allow computer free printing. The printer is powered by a universal 60w laptop power supply which provides the needed power for the extruder and stepper motors.
The extruder is called the Anubis and is based off an industry standard PEEK barrel with a groove mount with a PTFE liner which is used as a lubricious insulator. It is fed into a machined brass barrel that is heated with a machined aluminum heater core that houses the heating element and thermistor for temperature control. The extruded filament exits through a machined brass nozzle with a .40mm orifice. The extruder is designed for 1.75mm PLA filament which gives off a sweet smell and is non-toxic and biodegradeable.
QU-BD One Up / Two Up Specs:
Minimum Layer Height: 50 Microns (Lower is Better)
Frame Material: Black Melamine MDF
Max Travel: Approximately 100x100x125mm / 175x175x125mm
Maximum Travel Speed: 150mm/s
Maximum Print Speed: 100mm/s
Bed Material: Acrylic (or Basalt ... See Upgrades Above)
Heated Bed: No, electronics support it so it can be added later
Linear Motion Type: X/Y Belts and Linear Bearings | Z Precision ACME Screws / Linear Bearings
X-Motor: NEMA 17 Motors w/ Up To 16x Microstepping
Y-Motor: NEMA 17 Motors w/ Up To 16x Microstepping
Z-Motor: NEMA 17 Motors w/ Up To 16x Microstepping
Electronics: Printrboard Style Electronics
Firmware: Marlin
Extruder: anUBIS w/ PTFE Liner for Reliable Printing
Filament: 1.75mm PLA, HIPS, Carbon PLA, Laywoo (or with optional heated bed upgrade adds support for ABS! ... see UPGRADES above)
The only difference between the OneUp and TwoUp is that the smooth rods on the X and Y axis are swapped for ones that are 75mm longer on the TwoUp, they are identical in every other way.
SAMPLE PRINTS:
All the machined components, motors, belts, ball bearings etc. are already machined in house and/or are in stock, We manufacture the machined components on our Haas SL30 Big Bore lathe, Mori Seiki MV50 mill and our QU-BD 48-1250 laser (all pictured below).
We need to purchase in sufficient quantities to bring the price down to where our target is for this to work. Because of our prior relationship we have already got the ball rolling on their end and we are expecting the first boards November 15th. We have worked with the electronics contract manufacturer on their projects and we have been pleased with the results. While they are already under process to meet our Holiday deadline, we did commit to purchasing a LOT of them over the coming months! We have a 9600 square foot warehouse that we do the machining of all the components. We are working with another company that shares a warehouse with us to handle the packaging and shipping of the kits in order to bolster up our fairly lean work force. All total there will be approximately 10 people helping to package and ship out the printers. Based on the initial time trials we expect to be able to package and ship everything in one business week from the time all the electronics are received and tested. While we are waiting for the electronics to arrive, we will begin to prepackage all of the kits. Additionally we are working on a video tutorial for assembly and calibration to make it as easy as possible to begin printing. We are intentionally limiting the amount of kits for the Holidays in order to make SURE that we can fulfill the timeline, we know many will be sold as Holiday gifts, so delivering on time is critical. Thank you for helping us get the most inspiring tool of the 21st century into the hands of as many people as possible!
Risks and challengesLearn about accountability on Kickstarter
We have all the components in stock to build the One Ups and Two Ups except for the electronics. All the parts that required machining have already been completed and have been checked to ensure quality and consistency.
We are contracting another company that shares a warehouse with us to handle the packaging and shipping so we can focus on our machined metal printers but if for whatever reason they cannot complete their contract we have 3 other companies lined up to replace them.
Our electronics contract manufacturer has already begun work on the required quantity of electronics and are expecting to deliver the 250 unit batch on November 15. We have enough other electronics in stock currently to replace some/all of the batch we are expecting in, although they are at a higher cost due to additional features that are not used on the One Up and Two Up. We will eat the cost if the contracted electronics are delayed.
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