3DR released

[richrap.blogspot.com]

I know what I'm printing tonight...

---

- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

Not many LM6UU around though.

MPower Wrote:
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> Not many LM6UU around though.


Wha?

Huh?

Good looking design. The 6 mm bearings and rods are out there. It's just not too many 3D specific companies stock them yet. They aren't hard to get.

vegasloki Wrote:
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> The 6 mm bearings and rods are out there.

Easier to find in metric oriented countries, like Australia

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2013 06:21PM by SheldonE.

I didn't say they are impossible to find, just not as common. According to my builds, I and probably other people stock on LM8/LM10 mostly.

pokey9000 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> MPower Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Not many LM6UU around though.
>
>
> Wha
> ?
>
> [url=http://www.vxb.com/page/bearings/PROD/Kit8377
> ]Huh?[/url]

Personally, I want to use 8mm rods.

But for the life of me I cannot enlarge the holes in any of the models. My Sketchup-fu is lacking.

I might just convert the models to Inventor and be done with it.

---

- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

Im currently sourcing parts for the 3DR this week. So far got my aluminum extrusions and also a nice 100M reel of PLA to get parts printed.

Looks like LM6UU are easy to get from Ebay china delivery so no that much of a problem. Im guessing you could do some PLA bushings and cut the costs down even more lol.

My current problem is sourcing some decent 6mm stainless steel in the UK without having to pay silly carriage costs.

Being thing rod im worried buying from ebay it will be offcuts and bent. iv seen some listings but they state rods are metal so they may be scracthed and nicked :| which is no good at all for bearings.

Would be cool if rich could do an 8mm version dont know if they would effect the motion at all?

I had a quick look but i cannot do sketch up it kills me lol (why have they never put measurements in that software??? it would OWN then!!!)

akhlut what do you use to convert to inventor? as this is my current cad software i use for stuff

As far as I know there is no way to convert a SketchUp file to Inventor. You would need to import the STL, but then can you convert it to solid in Inventor?

Don't forget SketchUp is a mesh modeler, not a solid modeler.

Quote
Enlightx
why have they never put measurements in that software???

You are mistaken, there are measurements in SketchUp, in the Tools menu. But I'm guessing you're talking about parametrics, if so SketchUp is not parametric like Inventor or SolidWorks.

FYI FreeCAD (which is open source software) can import mesh parts like STL and convert to solid, but the model will still have facets rather than smooth surfaces. Holes and cylindrical surfaces will still be polygons. Once a part is converted to solid, it can be exported to STEP which I know Inventor can open.

yeah i know there's measurements in a sense but even sketch up (when it was owned by google anyway) did say there only classed as labels. The whole part of design is making mistakes you can 100% say you will need to alter a measurement somewhere on a CAD file what i was saying if they could make sketch up parametric it would possible be easist cad program in the work but im sure there programming rules stopping them from doing this or they would of done so.

tbh im surprised rich managed to pull something like the motor mount in the 3DR off in sketch up its a very very detailed file and to do it in sketchup takes some major sketch up skills!

FYI a Russian company (LEDAS) made a plugin for Sketchup and Rhino called Driving Dimensions, it brings some parametrics to both software. The free version has restrictions (10 dimensions max) and the Pro version is not cheap (145€).

[drivingdimensions.com]

This technology has been since sold to Bricsys, which uses it in its Bricscad AutoCAD clone, a very nice package that costs less than 10% of an AutoCAD licence; that's still too much money for hobbyists though.

As for myself I use Linux (Ubuntu) at home so my options are more limited. But I'd rather use open source software, and FreeCAD more than fits the bill even with its limitations and bugs.

I too am amazed at RichRap's work using Sketchup. He's even made an assembly file. But I'm a little disappointed people use proprietary software for design files of open source hardware. Sketchup may be free, but its file format cannot be exported to anything but lossy mesh format unsuitable in real CAD software.

I don't like OpenSCAD but if he had made his parts with it, I could have converted them to STEP easily with FreeCAD!

I'm not going to import it.

I'm going to reproduce it.

---

- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

So I got the bottom modeled tonight. M8 rods is the only change.

[i.imgur.com]

[i.imgur.com]

Going to work on the top tomorrow (later today).

---

- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

I've found a bunch of very cheap LM6UU Igus bearings, nice, maybe I'll give this a try

Beautiful machine akhlut!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2013 06:06AM by Ohmarinus.

Akhlut,
Would you mind posting stl's of the modified 8mm parts? I would like to build one of these as well, and would also like the 8mm rods.

I'm still working on it, so bear with me. Add to that I'm leaving for short vacation at the end of the week, but I'm going to try to get as much translation as possible done.

---

- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

I appreciate it.

Hi everyone,

I'm so pleased with the response to the 3DR release, I'm a little swamped with messages etc. so just wanted to say thank you to all interested in it and improving on my starting point.

It's great to see people already converting the files to other formats and packages.

Thank you all and keep up the modifications and improvements, this is exactly how it's all supposed to happen with RepRap, and the power of open-source leveraging so many other people's talents to build on something.

I only use Sketchup at the moment, I don't have any access to the likes of solidworks and have limited time to learn new tools. OpenSCAD is great, but I enjoy the process of visual creation too much to do everything using it.

I know a lot of people are waiting for more blog posts from me, I have a lot of other stuff I need to finish, so will be back to 3DR as soon as I can.

Cheers,

Rich.

---

[richrap.blogspot.com]

Hello Rich,

Quote
richrap
I only use Sketchup at the moment, I don't have any access to the likes of solidworks and have limited time to learn new tools. OpenSCAD is great, but I enjoy the process of visual creation too much to do everything using it.

If or when you have some time, have a look at FreeCAD. It is open source, parametric, but it has a full GUI and it works similar to SolidWorks or other parametric CAD packages. Like many open source software it's still in development, but highly usable. Right now there is no "assembly module" that would allow easy placement of parts with 3D relationships, but it's coming. In the meanwhile parts can be placed manually à la AutoCAD. I already modeled a couple of assemblies (Lulzbot TK-0, currently doing the Prusa i3 vanilla).

The learning curve is steeper than Sketchup, but it comes with a few advantages (parametrics, polar or linear patterns of holes, lots of other stuff)

When I have some time I may try to model your 3DR in FreeCAD.

Cheers,

Norm

Where did you guys in the UK get your profile from ?

KJN is the cheapest I found for profile (3x550mm) & T-nuts, £9.35, but they have a flat shipping charge of £12 for 10kg's or less (or that's what I was told on phone) , I ain't paying that . Other on-line sites I've found are more expensive for the materials & also seem to be asking stupid amounts for postage.

Haven't found anything local, B&Q only do 12x12mm box section Ali profile, but it's £13/metre.

richrap Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm so pleased with the response to the 3DR
> release, I'm a little swamped with messages etc.
> so just wanted to say thank you to all interested
> in it and improving on my starting point.
>
> It's great to see people already converting the
> files to other formats and packages.
>
> Thank you all and keep up the modifications and
> improvements, this is exactly how it's all
> supposed to happen with RepRap, and the power of
> open-source leveraging so many other people's
> talents to build on something.
>
> I only use Sketchup at the moment, I don't have
> any access to the likes of solidworks and have
> limited time to learn new tools. OpenSCAD is
> great, but I enjoy the process of visual creation
> too much to do everything using it.
>
> I know a lot of people are waiting for more blog
> posts from me, I have a lot of other stuff I need
> to finish, so will be back to 3DR as soon as I
> can.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Rich.

Hi
I 'm trying sketchup, but without results.
I canot export the model for stl file
I tried two plugins, for export, but no stl file is saved. nothing happen....
Can you help me about.... I use the windows 7 pro.

thanks in advance

Why are you bothering with this when RichRap has already provided STL files?

[github.com]

Hi NormandC


What I wanted was to know how richrap can export the files to stl.
I can not.
I would like to start using the sketchup program for my projects. It seems more friendly than others.

Cheers

IIRC you need to install an extra plugin that allows you to then export as stl.

novato Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What I wanted was to know how richrap can export
> the files to stl.
> I can not.
> I would like to start using the sketchup program
> for my projects. It seems more friendly than
> others.

Not to be "that guy" but this is the first link when Googling "sketchup stl export". If you have Sketchup 8, the second link has a plugin that will work.

In reality, Sketchup generates some hairy STL even if you've taken care to clean the model before export. I spent the better part of an evening cleaning the top electronics mount .skp and still needed a good Netfabbing after export.

This Sketchup discussion is hijacking the topic. Anyway... Seriously, considering how a PITA it is to get valid STLs out of Sketchup, its ease of use does not make up for it.

Here's a suggestion for a workaround that may work: export to COLLADA (*.dae) instead, import into Blender (free and open source) and from Blender export to STL.

It is not difficult to get good STLs out of Blender, problem is when you start with a bad mesh in Sketchup you will get bad STLs out. Same thing with Blender or any other tool if you create a bad model, changing it to a different format does not fix the problems.


Anyways back on topic, I note that Rich has now posted Part 2 of his 3DR blog postings, which should help out those who have gotten the parts and are working to assemble!

[richrap.blogspot.co.uk]

Many thanks for your help.
I will try the method of NormandC.
The links published by pokey9000 don't work for me. When I export to stl, the program ask me for a file name, and after this nothing happen. No file appear in the directory.

Cheers

Hi

Did you ever finish re-drawing RichRaps 3DR in inventor?

I would be grateful if you could post the inventor files please.

Best regards

Andy