Operational Theory Documentation

I've been pounding away at this site for several days now and I have the basic knowledge of how a 3-Axis Cartesian RepRap is constructed. However, I have not found any documentation on the brains of the system. Is there documentation on how the firmware and software work behind the scenes and how they are intended to work together? What are the mathmatical formulas being used for ensuring an accurate prototype.

As a non-engineer this is information that would help me better understand the theory behind the reprap. I can of course read the code and try and decipher what it all means but I have limited exerience with microcontrollers. A document that walks through the firmware and Java Source code would more rapidly bring new guys like me up to speed so that we could start contributing to the project without feeling overwhelmed.

hey squintz,

unfortunately the java code pretty much *is* the documentation at this point. we've been so focused on getting the physical stuff working that the software has lagged behind a bit.

anyway, the basic operation is this:

you take a STL file (which contains the dimensions of the 3d object)
you slice that STL file into layers the thickness of your extruded line
you take the 2D layers and generate toolpaths for each layer that are the thickness of your extruded line
it then sends those lines to the firmware for translation into movement and extrusion.

thats how it works roughly. obviously each of those steps is rather complex, but not as complex as you would think.

Although simple, your little 4 line explaination is a good start. Thanks for the feedback.