Budget

Trying to work to a budget of around $1000, its going to be tight

Electronics from Makerbot come to around $700, thats the MK7 extruder head, Mk4 electronics, motors, heated bed, 1kg of plastic fibre and some heatproof tape needed to construct the extruder head.

At the moment i'm finalising the design of the machine itself, although at the minimum i'll be needing 6 rails and 6 bearings to run on them. Sourced form Ebay the set comes to about $140

I've decided to use acme leadscrews to provide the linear motion there is a company in America that provides the screws machined with matching nuts, also coupling for attaching the motors to the screws. The whole set comes to about $130

So this brings me to about $1000 very quickly!! Well no budget survives first contact with a project and my project is no different. Realistically i'm building a rapid prototyper of superior quality compared with the makerbot models which sell for $2500 so long as i do not spend that much i'll be happy!