Haha! Just kidding! I know this doesn't exist yet. So.... I'm going to make it. First of all I'll answer some obvious questions up front:
1. Why?
That's an easy one - DRM Filament(of course) and also... These printers have terrible support! Mine was bad out of the box and it took forever to convince them that the printer was faulty and not that I was just another yahoo who didn't know how to use technology.
2. Why the Mini? Nobody likes the Mini! Do this for the Jr or the AIO or any other printer than the Mini!
Well, the Mini was the first one I bought. I mainly chose it over the Jr based on a review that suggested that it prints slightly better quality. Also, it was about $20 cheaper or so, although when I saw that crappy fold it yourself front cover, I wold have gladly paid the $20 for the fully enclosed version.
3. OK, so why not dump the Mini, get a Jr and then do your project?
Haha, that's easy. It seems like people are dumping Minis left and right! I can't throw a rock on CraigsList without hitting a <$100 almost new Mini that people just like me got frustrated with when they realized that 3D printers, while priced like Inkjets of 10 years ago, aren't actually just plug-and-print user friendly devices. I'm still struggling with printing more than just test Cubes, D&D 20-sided Dice, and a couple of Benchys. That's mostly because the initial defect took all of the excitement out of me and I have doubts that I'll actually be able to print one of those cool, working(well, moving) 8-cylinder engine blocks I see online.
Still, the glut of dumped Minis got me a second mini for just $50. It still had it's original spool of transparent yellow which had only about 3m printed off of it! By this time I had learned how to level the X-arm and adjust the Z-height. Also had learned a few tricks with the bed sticking(kapton tape + thin layer of gluestick made by diluting with a few drops of water and spreading by hane to make just a slight "haze" on the Kapton). It's still a pain to get large contact prints off without wrecking the bed tape, but I'm working that out.
So I have 2 minis so I can experiment on one while maintaining a "golden unit" just in case. If I brick one, the spare parts and extruder are well worth the $50.
Also, since the Mini seems the least hack friendly, I figured I'd be doing a service to the other poor souls with Minis that are not easily modified.
4. Why not just install a Ramps board and be done with it?
If you ever met me in person for more than 5 minutes, you'd know. I don't just re-invent the wheel. I fabricate a shiny streamlined, user and programmer friendly wheel that looks like it always belonged there. Wait... That analogy got away from me. Anyway, I like to create what I'm calling(coining?): FactoMods. That's a modification that fits exactly where the factory part came from like it was always meant to be there. I pull out the digital calipers and measure the board, mounting hole locations, connector part numbers and locations, etc... I largely use what's already there, and make it (hopefully) better. Someone wth no hardware experience other than the ability to know how to gingerly remove and replace delicate connectors(particularly the flex cable), will be able to install one of these. If other smart people help write/port the firmware, they also won't have to know anything about firmware programming either. There's still the host side stuff (slicer, etc), but I'm thinking of leveraging Python to make something that works a little better.
So... This post covers the "Why" Next I'll get a little more into the "What"