Hello
I have my first 3D printer(anet a8) still laying around. Can I use the parts of this printer for the Mostly printed CNC?
Thank you!
Kind Regards
I had an A8 printer (sold it just recently)…
That printer had 4 stepper motors so you would need at least one more motor. I have no idea what torque the steppers in the printer were rated at, but they were probably fairly weak - the MPCNC requires 42 Oz/in motors, which is also a fairly low torque motor. So I would guess the motors you have may work.
The printer also had a ‘proprietary’ control board (not an Arduino + Ramps), but it did run Marlin, so I would bet it could be made to work. But, and this is a big but, you would likely need to configure marlin specially for that board. If you know what that entails and can dig up the details, then it’s most likely possible.
You could also salvage one of the lead-screws, and nuts from the printer.
I think that’s about all you could use from that printer - oh, the power supply would work also.
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Sort of. Depends on your dedication to reuse and ability to kludge together something that works. A quick look at the BOM for the A8 looks like you might be able to repurpose one of the motors. The others probably aren’t matched, and you should have matched motors for your X and Y. You might be able to reuse the control board. Looks like a 4-driver board, which will let you run a base configuration. No dual-endstops for you! 
That’s really it. I doubt the belts will be long enough to be useful. The linear motion is different. As mentioned before, no endstops (although you might be able to harvest those if you replace your controller with a 5-driver model). If you decide to put in a hot end to do printing, you could obviously scrounge all of those components…
Your best bet is to just use it to print parts for your MPCNC/LR2/MP3DP.
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