If you are wondering how to Build a 3d printer then you may be amazed to hear that it can be surprisingly easy to enter the world of 3d printing.

By way of example, I shall be detailing the build of my Longboat Prusa Mendel kit here.

The Longboat Prusa is a Replicating Rapid Prototyping Machine using fused deposition modelling.  It is an improved version of the Prusa Mendel kits design from the RepRap open source project.  The fundamental improvement is in the use of LM8UU linear bearings in place of the printed plastic bushings used in the prusa-mendel design. The use of linear bearings greatly improves the movement of the axes, giving smoother operation, less power consumption, and smoother and more accurate printing.

I purchased my Longboat mendel kit as a complete kit, with ready built sanguinololu electronics.

The kit I am building is a ‘batch 1′ kit and there are a number of changes, (improvements), in later kits.
I intend to follow the ‘batch 1′ instructions as published in the batch 1 wiki here.
I will be updating to the latest build standard once the original build is complete.  I will also be adding my own modifications later,

The blog will detail the build from the receipt of the kit right through to completion. It will show how to build a 3d printer from beginning to end.