We’ve come across our fair share of 3D printers here at Tom’s Hardware. We’ve even covered a handful of clever Lego-based projects. This is the first time, however, we’ve seen the two meld together so harmoniously. In a fascinating display of intellectual finesse, a maker who goes by Zealousideal-Army333 over at Reddit has created a working 3D printer using Lego bricks.
Most people would rather buy a printer and get busy printing, but Zealousideal-Army333 truly channeled their inner maker when coming up with this idea. The entire 3D printer body was put together from scratch and, being an original idea, this inevitably took a look time to complete, as confirmed by Zealousideal-Army333 in the original project thread.
A handful of motors make this design possible. There are three large ones that are used to operate the X, Y, and Z coordinates. A fourth motor is thrown in to actuate a 3D pen. This is how the printer is able to melt and dispense filament. Instead of an extruder system, a smaller motor is used to press the button on the pen which is moved around the print bed.
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The software side of the project is handled using Python. Zealousideal-Army333 put together a custom script that is able to read Marlin gcode and translate that into workable instructions to print the object. This means the Lego 3D printer is able to print regular gcode files without any special processing.