Visual Instruction Manual for the Prusa Mendel

As I was learning to use Google SketchUp, and building my Prusa, I put together an instruction manual for the steps, loosely in the style of a Lego or Meccano guide. There's some more details in this blog post, and the document can be found here: http://garyhodgson.com/reprap/prusa-mendel-visual-instructions

Whilst the steps in the Wiki are clear and straight-forward I thought this could perhaps assist new-comers and such. As such, the text for the steps are copied verbatim from the Wiki so there's a point of reference. (Which I presume to be ok, in keeping with the GPL - let me know if this is frowned upon. I also pasted the reprap logo into the document - and if this isn't allowed then please let me know.)

The Sketchup Model and MS Publisher file are available on github, and there's an issue tracker if anyone wants to raise bugs or suggestions.

Cheers.

Gary,

Would you like to put that documentation directly into the wiki page for prusa mendel? That way newcomers will be able to find it and use it.

Whilst the steps in the Wiki are clear and straight-forward I thought this could perhaps assist new-comers and such. As such, the text for the steps are copied verbatim from the Wiki so there's a point of reference. (Which I presume to be ok, in keeping with the GPL - let me know if this is frowned upon. I also pasted the reprap logo into the document - and if this isn't allowed then please let me know.)

RepRap tends to be GPL, so it's all good. (But documentation in the wiki where folk can find it is a few thousand times better than documentation accidentally cached elsewhere. Because this way, newcomers can find it, and then and the rest of us can polish it and make it even better. For example, it's much harder to translate those docs into a german reprap wiki page if it's not already a reprap wiki page.)

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2011 07:57PM by SebastienBailard.

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-Sebastien, RepRap.org library gnome.

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Remember, you're all RepRap developers (once you've joined the super-secret developer mailing list), and the wiki, RepRap.org, [reprap.org] is for everyone and everything!

Hi Sebastien,

I'll happily upload the images into the Wiki as I agree that it's better to have it in a central place - I didn't want to spam the wiki whilst i'm still a n00b

Would it be best to create a sub page for the images (there's quite a lot of them) or adding thumbnails (or a text link saying "see image") alongside each step? I don't want it to distract from the flow of the page.

For the time being I have added a link to the guide in the Assembly section.

I didn't want to spam the wiki whilst i'm still a n00b
Nah, you're a dev, and docs are exactly what the wiki is for. Thank you!

Would it be best to create a sub page for the images (there's quite a lot of them) or adding thumbnails (or a text link saying "see image") alongside each step? I don't want it to distract from the flow of the page.

Ideal is big glossy images in the text. Let them drive the flow of the page.

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-Sebastien, RepRap.org library gnome.

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Remember, you're all RepRap developers (once you've joined the super-secret developer mailing list), and the wiki, RepRap.org, [reprap.org] is for everyone and everything!

Very cool! Anything that we can do to help new comers is great.

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Help improve the RepRap wiki! Just click "Edit" in the top-right corner of the page and start typing. Anyone can edit the wiki!

Wow, nice manual. I will be one of those n00b when my kit comes. Thanks

Thats really good, just what we need , a visual format, maybe we could adopt a standard format like this?, documentation does take a lot of time, and I am the worlds worst, well done.

I suppose open office impress would do the same job?.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2011 04:06AM by johnrpm.

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Random Precision

Open Office Impress would also work. I only used Publisher because it has been laying around unused on my PC since I got it, you can position the images nicely, and it generates the PDFs quite easily.

As Sebastien has mentioned, using the wiki would be best, because it's open nature reflects the requirements we have for documenting (I guess): open, accessible, easy to use. I also think it has to look good, not only for aesthetics but to attract visitors and potential reprappers to join the fun.

I'm not a MediaWiki expert, so I don't know what options are available for layout and PDF publishing, but I have played around with similar solutions in my day job and i'll happily have a look at what's available and throw some ideas around.

Perhaps it could be related to Prusa's suggestion/plan for automatically generated documentation ?

maybe we could adopt a standard format like this?
Sure. It will have to be lead-by-example. Us devs, we tend not to read rules before documenting. (And generally, I think that time spent reading rules about documentation is time that should be spent documenting, so it may all work out.)

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-Sebastien, RepRap.org library gnome.

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Remember, you're all RepRap developers (once you've joined the super-secret developer mailing list), and the wiki, RepRap.org, [reprap.org] is for everyone and everything!

it generates the PDFs quite easily.
PDFs basically break the wiki. The http://reprap.org/wiki/InkJet page is just a landing pad for a pdf. That page hasn't really ever improved / translated into German / extended /etc.

They're great for one-to-many, but we're doing many-to-many, so ... ick.

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-Sebastien, RepRap.org library gnome.

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Remember, you're all RepRap developers (once you've joined the super-secret developer mailing list), and the wiki, RepRap.org, [reprap.org] is for everyone and everything!

PDFs basically break the wiki , fair enough, will avoid them.

The [reprap.org] page is just a landing pad for a pdf I have been meaning to extract it, but have not had time, I will get around to it.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2011 11:56AM by johnrpm.

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Random Precision

Nice work Gary!

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[numbersixreprap.blogspot.com]

very very nice, kudos on your hard work.

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]

Pretty cool !

Beside, I've a question, about the wikipage of the prusa.
We are translating all the assemby section in french and I'm wondering how can we add that to the wiki.

It seem to only exist the translated-page of the presentation of the reprap atm (http://reprap.org/wiki/RepRapWiki:Translations)... and so did we make a new page with the same "-_-in-french" at the end, or a copy or whatever ? (new to editing the wiki ^^')

Hi Gary

Thank you. I built my Prusa using your guide and it made the whole process very easy.

Brill.

Cheers
Geoff