I need a cotation for my university (budget)!!

Hi, I'm Lluc from Barcelona, Spain. (sorry for my English) I'm studying Industrial design.

I need a economic cotation of a first Drawin V1.0, because I present to my university a project for create one of this machines.

My university, called "Elisava, high-school of design", is very interested in rapid prototyping and manufacturing as well promoting students like me !!

Presentation is tomorrow, and I need some help from experimented people!!!

Thanks!
Lluc84[aroba]gmail[dot]com

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2008 02:08PM by Lluc.

Sorry maybe cotation is not the best word.
I want to say budget!!

You need to talk to Zach Smith at [rrrf.org] and Ian Adkins at [bitsfrombytes.com]

oks ! Thanks really helpfully !!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2008 02:18PM by Lluc.

You need to read more closely. The Full Mechanical Kit - Gold

Does not include electronics, motors compatible with Arduino electronics.

Those, you need to get from Zach at [rrrf.org]. That's going to cost you several hundred more dollars for the boards and components and the stepper motors.

also be aware that...

This kit offers no performance improvement over the Silver Mechanical Kit but is more aesthetic and caps / covers are particularly useful for those using kits near children or who are particularly concerned about safety.

I see! Thanks really helpfully !!!

I'm interested in improving the machine, because university put the money and I put ideas!

Hi Lluc,

... best target for optimizing is the extruder ...

Viktor

Viktor's right about the extruder. A hard look at the extruder design to make it easier to print and more reliable is definitely a good idea.

Vik Olivier is also dabbling into replacing those belts on Darwin with ball-chain drives...

[blog.reprap.org]

[blog.reprap.org]

...which could be cheaper and easier to print than the belts they replace.

Another big issue is how to do support material for prints that need to span voids. This is something that there has been a lot of talking about and Adrian Bowyer has actually built a few paste extruders to do the job, but NOBODY has actually tested either Adrian's designs or tried to come up with their own support material system.

There is a LOT of work that can usefully be done.

You may want to consider picking up a used or new proxxon mill and using that as your 3 axis positioning system. This would be quick, and not very expensive. There are other brands of small milling machines, like Sherline, around, but I'm not sure what is available in Europe besides proxxon. I suspect most of the information on cnc-conversion of proxxon mills is in written in German.

Even cheaper would be to build your own at school out of wood or metal. This would be like building your own CNC router.
You could use these plans:
[dev.www.reprap.org]
The McWire is inexpensive and is not much work to build, but it is not a very powerful or precise machine.

I would look here for spanish-language advice on homemade cnc machines:
[www.cnczone.com]
and here is a full set of plans:
[www.cnczone.com]
If you look in the jgro subforum you can get cost estimates. I saw one casual estimate of ~$500 USD, including steppers and electronics. Unfortunately the plans are in imperial units, not metric.

Don't forget, if you build or buy a CNC machine, after using it with a printhead to make Darwin RepRap parts you can use it as a normal CNC machine.

I do not know what kind of tools you have available, but if you have an exisiting cnc machine, you can use it to make the printhead parts. If you have a laser cutter, you can use it to make parts for a Darwin RepRap.
[forums.reprap.org]
If you have a table-size CNC router around, you could use it to make the parts of a smaller CNC machine, not just the print head.

Quote

I'm not sure what is available in Europe besides proxxon. I suspect most of the information on cnc-conversion of proxxon mills is in written in German.

Proxxon stuff tended to be a little small, or a little epensive, sadly Lots of places import the same Chinese-made mini mills from Sieg though. Pretty much everything worth having is twice the cost it would be in the States, and harder to get hold of.

There's also nowhere doing decent little cnc kits like fireballcnc on this side of the atlantic. I'm probably going to attempt to assemble a little mill for myself out of structural aluminium profiles, which are relatively easy to work with without being hugely expensive. The McWire is cheap, but it just doesn't seem solid enough to do many non-rep-rapping things, which I'm keen to do.

If you're not going to be using the CNC machine as a mill after you've used it as a repstrap, its probably vastly easier, and perhaps even slightly cheaper in the long run just to buy the parts for a Darwin cartesian robot instead.

Thanks for all!

The first meeting with school chef was success! Right now I'm waiting for a official answer.

In the school lab we have some good tools, I'm sure that can be sufficient.

Just caught up on this thread Forrest is nearly correct our kit does not include electronics but it does have all the stepper motors and we also have a more robust design for the extruder I will blog this as soon as the Cheltenham Festival is over next week.

---

Ian
[www.bitsfrombytes.com]

Ian Adkins Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> we also have a more robust design for the extruder

Cool! Does it have a flow control solenoid too?

next up on the design board and it will fit with the new design drive. It should also be retro-fit-able to the original design with a few well placed brackets

---

Ian
[www.bitsfrombytes.com]

VDX Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Lluc,
>
> ... best target for optimizing is the extruder
> ...
>
> Viktor