REPRAP DNA

Hi

I am fast coming to the end of my second repstrap build.
This robot is built to last and to be very reliable (we shall see).

I am adding an old USB stick which will be fixed permanently to the chassis of the reprap. It contains all the build instructions, software to use
the reprap and any other tools I found useful.

The idea is that in 20 years time. After I have moved on, if someone wants to rebuild or use the reprap all the tools and information will be available to do so. It will also be an interesting archive of the state of the technology.

Just wanted to share the idea of adding DNA to the reprap.

regards

Stephen

Interesting idea. A question might be posed as to whether you'll be able to read the USB stick. 20 years ago, 3.5 inch floppy disks were all the rage for storage medium.

BeagleFury ()
Interesting idea. A question might be posed as to whether you'll be able to read the USB stick. 20 years ago, 3.5 inch floppy disks were all the rage for storage medium.

My reply
True. But then to get the reprap to work you needs some form of USB connector for the arduino. I just wanted a repository of all the data required to get the reprap to work. That way even if Makerbot went out of business, reprap.org was deleted and my PC hard disk died. There would still be a backup of the plans of the reprap on the reprap itself.

My first reprap was a bits from bytes v2 and already the build instructions seem to have been removed from their site. How long until the Darwin instructions and generatiojn 2 electronics disappear?

I suppose the best place to store this DNA would be on the micro controller when it becomes SD enabled by default.

Stephen

P.s. I keep seeing this image of an episode of star trek when they encounter an alien device and work out what it is from the plans embedded into it. Seemed like a good thing to do.

Fun Idea.
[xkcd.com]

I agree that it is good practice to have a personal 'snapshot' of your current working RepRap. This helps in case of a dataloss or system loss on the computer running your RepRap, or a Microcontroller failure on stand-alone RepRaps.

True. But then to get the reprap to work you needs some form of USB connector for the arduino. I just wanted a repository of all the data required to get the reprap to work. That way even if Makerbot went out of business, reprap.org was deleted and my PC hard disk died. There would still be a backup of the plans of the reprap on the reprap itself.

RepRap.org will get deleted over my dead body. Also, we'd have snapshots of a tarball of the wiki and object library on the torrent networks.

My first reprap was a bits from bytes v2 and already the build instructions seem to have been removed from their site. How long until the Darwin instructions and generation 2 electronics disappear?

Never. We'll just label them "Obsolete and Archived".
[objects.reprap.org]

It may be good to tack up some notes on "Snapshotting" personal RepRap machine and controller configurations here:
[objects.reprap.org]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2010 06:35AM by SebastienBailard.

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-Sebastien, RepRap.org library gnome.

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