Hell, with modern stepper motors and extruded aluminum box frame, you don’t even need a 3D printer to build a 3D printer. It would certainly make it easier, but it’s not required. You could manufacture an entire 3D printer using off-the-shelf parts and a raspberry pi (or maybe even an Arduino) to control the motors. It wouldn’t be elegant, and it would require a lot of calibration… But it would be doable if someone were so inclined.
Repraps were controlled with Arduino Megas for a very long time. Up until the MK4 series, Prusa’s Rambo or Einsy boards still ran on the ATMEGA2560 microcontroller.
Hell, with modern stepper motors and extruded aluminum box frame, you don’t even need a 3D printer to build a 3D printer. It would certainly make it easier, but it’s not required. You could manufacture an entire 3D printer using off-the-shelf parts and a raspberry pi (or maybe even an Arduino) to control the motors. It wouldn’t be elegant, and it would require a lot of calibration… But it would be doable if someone were so inclined.
Repraps were controlled with Arduino Megas for a very long time. Up until the MK4 series, Prusa’s Rambo or Einsy boards still ran on the ATMEGA2560 microcontroller.
All of this work is done.