Turning Your 3D Printer Into A 2D Printer

“Bam” on the lulzbot forums shared an interesting project recently. He printed a small mount for his extruder that allows it to hold a pen, essentially turning his 3D printer into a standard plotter, or 2D printer. A few custom settings in the software package Cura allowed the gcode necessary to keep drawing on the paper to be created quite easily.

I loved the idea. There’s something a tiny bit silly about it, most of us have regular inkjet printers in our home. Watching something being printed in the style of a plotter has its charm though. I wanted an attachment that I could pop on and off when I needed it, and that could hold any number of writing utensils. To achieve this I opened up Design Spark and quickly cobbled together what you see above. If you have a lulzbot printer, or any other printer that holds the extruder stepper motor at that peculiar angle, you can print this yourself. Otherwise, the one created by Bam might be much more versatile.

Finished Makey Robot

30% solid infil

A few layers, just testing the mount

snaps onto the extruder stepper. No modification necessary at all

I thought a little weight would help. Ultimately it was unneeded.

First, load the .ini file supplied by Bam into Cura. Note that the custom .ini keeps the extruder from heating up. Then be sure to set your layer height to .01mm and total height to .05mm on the import dialog.

You’ll have to play with the settings a bit to get the desired effects. In this instance I liked the look but found that the paper was getting saturated with ink. I was afraid it might rip through!