3D Printing a Tiny 3D Printer

It seems to have been forgotten by the community, but the original premise behind the RepRap project was self-replication: 3D printers printing 3D printers until the universe is nothing but 3D printers. For practical reasons, like the impracticality of printing motors and electronic components, that goal slowly faded from the collective consciousness. But the concept was still intriguing to Matthew Trahan, so he set out to 3D print the tiny MOSSBOT Mini Bot 3D printer.

The real 3D printing enthusiasts reading this are yelling at me through their screens right now, because the tradition of 3D printing 3D printers is still alive and well. Voron printers, for example, are intended to be built using parts that are printable by other Voron printers (or any 3D printer that is available). They just make an exception for the “vitamins,” which are the mechanical, electrical, and electronic components that can’t feasibly be printed. But if we’re being honest, those vitamins make up the majority of the parts. Most of the 3D-printed parts are just custom mounts and brackets that hold everything together.

That’s also true for the MOSSBOT Mini Bot, to a lesser extent. It is an itty-bitty 3D printer that can rest on the palm of your hand and its entire frame is printable. Starting with an existing design made Trahan’s job easier, but it still wasn’t a walk in the park, as the instructions (and bill of materials) were all in Chinese. But with the help of Google Translate and some deductive reasoning, Trahan was able to identify most of the vitamins for this build.

Those include an Arduino Mega 2560 development board, a RAMPS 1.4 control board, a knockoff E3D V6 hot end, tiny little hardened steel rods and bushings, and a little leadscrew like you might find on a disk drive. And, of course, the 3D-printed frame parts, which Trahan printed on a Bambu Lab A1.

Assembly did require some soldering, which Trahan didn’t have any experience with. But he managed to pull it off. Some minor modifications were also necessary, as a few parts didn’t fit quite as intended.

Thankfully, after some frustrating troubleshooting, Trahan was able to get the MOSSBOT Mini Bot working and that was certainly satisfying. And more importantly, it reminds us all that self-replicating 3D printers were a really cool idea.