Fab Lab Meeting 3/6/2024

Attending:

• Dave Miller
• James Lancaster
• Rustin Atkeisson
• Steve Owens
• Gemma Blackburn
• Paul Shackleford
• Domy Rivo

This meeting was called to discuss the addition of another Prusa 3D printer for Fab Lab.

Rustin A. advised that the Fab Lab area committee would need to take a vote to approve submitting a proposal to the Board for the purchase of a new 3D printer. It was assumed the members attending regular monthly meetings of the Fab Lab area comprised the area committee. It was suggested that the area lead needed to appoint at least one deputy lead. Dave M. appointed Gemma B. as deputy lead with no objections.

Previous area notes should be make public and will be added to the wiki.

A proposal was outlined containing the following information:

Purchase request of one new Prusa mk4 3D printer kit to meet the needs of MakeICT members.

The kit costs $799, plus $48.76 for DHL shipping. The printer ships from the Prusa factory in Prague, Czech Republic. As the purchase price is less than $800, no duty taxes will be required. Any additional accessories and parts would be purchased separately using the Fab Lab budget.

Fab Lab has collected donations of $345 to contribute to the cost of this 3D printer. A proposal will be submitting to the Board to request general funds cover the rest of the cost. If this is denied, Fab Lab will request that the area budget cover the rest.

This printer is a newer model than the four Prusa mk3s+ in Fab Lab currently, as the mk3 models were discontinued at the end of February, 2024. The mk4 is similar enough to the current printers to provide a low learning curve for members, but with additional benefits such as about 40% faster printing time, auto-offset for switching out print surfaces for different filaments, higher print quality, and easier hotend maintenance.

Would need to get a Raspberry Pi 3, SD card, and cables for networking the printer. We would have to investigate which spare parts to keep on hand that vary from the mk3s+ parts, although there is a lot of crossover between the two models.

Use numbers from a two week snapshot of printer use will also be submitted in the proposal.

Dave called a vote to approve submitting a proposal to the board for the purchase of a Prusa mk4 3D printer:

Yes: 7

No: 0

Other:

There are currently three upgrade options for the mk3s+ printers: 3.5 upgrade, 3.9 upgrade, and full mk4 upgrade.

Each upgrade has pros and cons, and this is a large topic that will require further discussion.

The 3Dprintmonitor page needs some improvements, and if a new printer is purchased it will need to be added to this page.

Currently, when a printer is down it isn't reflected on the page which can cause confusion. Also, a script running on the RPi of Prusa 1 is needed to make the page update, so if that RPi is down the page stops updating.

Steve O. is looking into this project.

Enclosures for the 3D printers were discussed, including adding an additional level to the shelving units and walling them in with acrylic with built-in doors. Enclosures would help keep the printers free of dust and lead to more successful prints with temperature sensitive material like ABS.