This is a picture of a prototype I’m working on. It is all metal, open source and I am hoping to have a build volume roughly of 13"x18"x11". I currently have most of the design ready but I still have to work on the hotbed. I am planing on incorporating auto z leveling, an all metal extruder and all metal hot end in the fully optioned version. One of the reasons I started building my own 3d printer is due to the fact that current printers have way to many parts to assemble. My goal is shorten the build time as much as possible. I will be documenting this more once I get further along at http://www.zatopa.com/blog if anyone is interested.
Don’t worry about a hotbed initially, with PLA, you don’t need it, so you can already get started without it; then later add it if needed.
un belle réalisation
Crazy overbuilt, I like it.
Good choice with the aluminium V-slot rails. I actually have plans to DIY one too and that was one of my fab options. I’ll be watching. Good luck.
Wow, definitely stronger than you need. Did you have surplus of that extrusion around, or are you planning on using the stages for a hobby CNC mill also?
@Eric_Moy Thats what I thought when I saw it. And if he’s not, he should. Can do way more and high quality stuff with a CNC.
There are a few reasons why I designed my printer to be so stout. I am building this printer to be a real production machine. The large build volume is not for building large prints, although there is no reason you can’t use it that way. It is designed so you can print six 6"X6" prints in one go. I have built a MM 1.5 and worked with quite a few other printers (cube X, i3, etc.) and found things I liked and disliked about each design. After seeing how well the Aluminatus prints I thought that I could make a better for a much better price. By building my frame so robustly I gain linearity, reduce resonances, increase accuracy and precision. The design may change once it’s working as nothing beats real world testing.
Put another way I decided to Go Big or Go Home 
@James_Zatopa Suggestion: Change your design to use a single motor on the Z axis, and use the extra motor to do a double sliding table on the X axis. It’ll double your X axis work area in the same space…
like this cnc I’ve been working on:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/102904770762217826123/albums/5973210397169307921
Matt is that a six axis cnc machine?
@James_Zatopa lol… I call it 5.1… ;p