RepRapMicron "Maus" Micron Precision Mechanism

Micron Accurate Universal System- “Maus”

Maus is a step by The RepRapMicron Project towards producing a 3D printer capable of fabricating 3D objects to micron precision. As it is hard to pick up parts smaller than a millimetre, it also provides manipulation and scanning capabilities using a fine probe. The objective is to use very accessible materials and hardware familiar to 3D printer developers, though you are definitely going to need a microscope as well!

Please be aware that this is a kit to make research machines from, not a finished product.

In short, it uses a fine probe (easily manufactured at home) to draw with 3D printer resin like an old-fashioned ink dip pen. That resin is then hardened with a UV LED. The same probe can manipulate the finished output, and can scan conductive samples using techniques borrowed from CNC called “Z Touch”.

This prototyping kit contains the parts needed to make flexure-based axis modules that are capable of micron-scale resolution, driven by 400-step NEMA17 motors and held together with M3 screws. These can be controlled by whatever firmware and hardware you have handy - the author is using an ancient RAMPS1.4 board running GRBL, with CNCjs running on the host PC. You can use Marlin or whatever. You could even build it in a Delta configuration and use Kossel.

Consequently, there is no complete set of build instructions or a parts list - do put your hand up if you want to try as it would be a useful contribution. Regular updates appear on the RepRap Blog, and if anything becomes particularly permanent or relevant it is documented on the RepRap Wiki. Source files and further documentation can be found on the RepRapMicron Github Page, and again contributors and collaborators are welcome.

The parts are interchangeable with components using the Metriccano prototyping library.

Because this is Printables, here is some basic printing advice: Print the parts optimised for strength (20%40% infill, 4 walls minimum) without support or brim if you can in plain, quality PLA with 0.2mm layers. Filament stiffened with matt pigments, super-bright whites, metallics and so forth probably won't bend in the right way. Keen people can make flexibility modifications in the OpenSCAD source.