Lemontron Is an Open Source, Upside-Down 3D Printer You Can Build Right Now
Finally, a 3D printer for the Australians: the open source Lemontron that prints upside-down.
The early days of 3D printing as a hobby were wild and full of experimental ideas. But those days are mostly behind us now. We’ve reached a consensus on the best ways to build effective and affordable 3D printers, with most new development being incremental improvement to existing conventions. That’s why it is exciting when a novel new 3D printer design comes along — like one that prints upside-down. That is the case with the Lemontron, which is an open source 3D printer design that you can build right now.
Lemontron is a unique 3D printer. The most obvious proof of that is the upside-down print bed, which is perfect for our Australian readers who are tired of manufacturers catering to the right-side-up countries of the world. Is there any benefit to printing upside-down? Not really, aside from looking cool and having some interesting implications for overhangs. But the build plate inversion does change the overall printer geometry and that let Lemontron’s designer, James, make the printer remarkably compact. When folded up, it can fit into a standard 1KG filament spool box.
If all of that sounds suspiciously familiar to you, that’s probably because you read our previous coverage on the Positron 3D printer. Lemontron is a derivative of the Positron and shares a lot with it. The overall geometry and kinematics are pretty much the same. The difference is in the details, because James put a lot of effort into designing the Lemontron for build practicality. This is for people who liked the idea of the Positron, but found its design to be intimidating.
James isn’t currently selling kits, so you’ll need to source all of the components yourself and print the custom parts on another 3D printer. The total cost of all the parts on the BoM is $411.58, plus whatever you have to spend on tax and shipping for your location. That’s pretty affordable considering it includes a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, an SKR Pico Klipper-compatible controller board, and the purpose-built Positron V3.2 hot end that extrudes at a 90-degree angle.
James’s video illustrates the entire build process and it looks very approachable. If you have experience with this sort of thing, you likely won’t run into any problems and the project should only take a few hours. The finished Lemontron looks great and appears to print quite well — though scientists haven’t yet proven if it works in the Northern Hemisphere.