metric repstrap

i can't seem to find a bom or plans for a metric mcwire or something similar. i know that some people learn imperial at school, but all my tools are metric and i think in metric. i'm doing civil eng and SI is all we deal with.

anyhoo, if someone has plans for a metric mcwire or something similar that can be built out of a hardware store, please let me know.

thanks!

Well it fairly much a matter of matching components.

The McWire was designed for milling and being build with local home hardware store components here in the USA hence imperial stuff.

The basic idea of a repstrap is to use it as bootstrap until you can create your first darwin or mendal. Look for inexpensive PCB milling for you insperation.

1" = 25.4mm

annodomini2, that's true but not particularly helpful. I took physics in the United States, so I understand the perspective.

chirdaki, if you do figure it out, could you write it up on the wiki?

Also, how is pipe sized down in Australia? What about structural steel from a building steel supplier?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2009 02:12PM by SebastienBailard.

bailard, i think thats a good idea. i was more hoping someone had already done it so i wouldn't have to duplicate the work, but i think this is a better idea to document it. i haven't done a full conversion before, but can't be that hard.

fred, once i've made a few mendel sets and got another machine up and running, i'll probably leave my dremel attached to it and use it as a cnc router. had an idea a while back of making 3d photos a while back that i wouldn't mind trying to implement.

In Australia? Metric, theoretically since the mid '70s, in practise imperial's been a hard habit to break for hardware stores. Both are almost universally available.

I'm in australia, making a wooden mendel. all metric, although having some imperial stuff around is quite handy - try getting an M6 threaded rod (I'm using M6 instead of M8 because I already had it) through a 6mm hole without lots of banging and cursing! 1/4" (6.35mm) drill hole is perfect though, enough clearance for easy sliding but still small enough for the washers to get a good grip with no radial play

chirdaki, making 3D photos is tricky if you're mapping intensity-> height from a 2D still. It means the whites of the eyes, the teeth, and the mountain's snow cap in the background stick up high. However, this still works if you CNC the image out of a translucent panel and backlight it.

Triffid_Hunter, how is making a wooden mendel? Is the current documentation and plans good enough?

SebastienBailard, some of the parts are quite tricky to cut from wood (router bit in pedestal drill = impromptu mill), and I have to be careful of which way the grain goes or many parts are too weak and break when tightened.

I found a most excellent blender CAD tutorial which I've used to get scale print-outs of the faces of many of the parts, which helps immensely.

[wooden-mendel.blogspot.com] <-- some of my prints are here, not sure if you can get the originals (4960x7015 600DPI PNG) from flickr

As long as you can make your repstrap version of Mendel or Darwin achive full 3D movement to conform to the defined build area for that version. The dimensions of the frames and support components is not that crucial.

For example my Darwins all use un cut 500mm lengths of studding.
one has wooden block coreners based on a Drawing supplied by Wade.
The other uses the Nylon corner blocks the only part that needs to conform to dimensions is the extruder and tha has all the dimensions in mm's

To get any dimensions converted easily just make up a spread sheet put the dimensions then make a forula to mulitiply by inches by 25.4 or mm's to inches multiply by 25.4

To get the lengths of the diagonal struts just use pythsgoras square the two sideds add result then calculate the square root

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Bodge It [reprap.org]
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BIQ Sanguinololu SD LCD board	BIQ Stepcon	BIQ Opto Endstop
BIQ Heater Block PCB	BIQ Extruder Peek clamp replacement	BIQ Huxley Seedling
BIQ Sanguinololu mounting	BIQ standalone Sanguinololu or Ramps mounting	Print It Stick It Cut it

My rep strap: [repstrapbertha.blogspot.com]

Buy the bits from B&Q pipestrap [diyrepstrap.blogspot.com]
How to Build a Darwin without any Rep Rap Parts [repstrapdarwin.blogspot.com]
Web Site [www.takeaway3dtech.com]

SebastienBailard Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> annodomini2, that's true but not particularly
> helpful. I took physics in the United States, so
> I understand the perspective.
>
> chirdaki, if you do figure it out, could you write
> it up on the wiki?
>
> Also, how is pipe sized down in Australia? What
> about structural steel from a building steel
> supplier?

Ok I wasn't very helpful, I apologise.

You may want to take a look at this thread in the reprappers forum

Custom Machined Metal Mendel

Apparently the individual implementing this is going to supply drawings