Total newbie, seeking introductory information
Posted by The42
|
Total newbie, seeking introductory information January 09, 2008 10:13PM |
Registered: 16 years ago Posts: 1 |
Hi, everyone...
I'm a high school student who found the RR website when it showed up on Digg. I'm fascinated by the project and by rapid prototyping, but I have no experience in electronics/hardware. I perused the website and found that I still had a few questions, namely:
- What progress has been made on the RepRap, and how far is it from complete self-replication (minus imported parts, of course)?
- Does it only use plastic right now? The main page said that it "will make plastic, ceramic, or metal parts", but based on these forums and the blogs I get the impression that plastic is the only material supported by the current iteration of the hardware.
- What are the different major ways of constructing a RepRap/RepStrap? What is a support extruder and which designs include one?
- Keeping in mind that I'm completely new to this, what would be a good way for me to join in on the project? I have tried to install the host software (for WinXP), but I'm having some trouble getting it set up -- I suspect that I have not installed the external Java packages properly.
Thanks for your input!
I'm a high school student who found the RR website when it showed up on Digg. I'm fascinated by the project and by rapid prototyping, but I have no experience in electronics/hardware. I perused the website and found that I still had a few questions, namely:
- What progress has been made on the RepRap, and how far is it from complete self-replication (minus imported parts, of course)?
- Does it only use plastic right now? The main page said that it "will make plastic, ceramic, or metal parts", but based on these forums and the blogs I get the impression that plastic is the only material supported by the current iteration of the hardware.
- What are the different major ways of constructing a RepRap/RepStrap? What is a support extruder and which designs include one?
- Keeping in mind that I'm completely new to this, what would be a good way for me to join in on the project? I have tried to install the host software (for WinXP), but I'm having some trouble getting it set up -- I suspect that I have not installed the external Java packages properly.
Thanks for your input!
|
Re: Total newbie, seeking introductory information January 10, 2008 12:44AM |
Registered: 16 years ago Posts: 622 |
The extruder can only currently do plastic and in a very limited fashion. Support extruder is "in the works." No ETA as I have heard of. Need people to build and test.
You can buy the parts for a RepRap form Bits From Bytes or make a RepStrap Seedling with 1" iron pipes. Hardware is different but electronics could be the same. Also the option for Arduino electronics exist but is not officially supported yet.
Buy the electronics, build the frame--I would go with the Seedling RepStrap--and get to finding problems. Post here to get them solved if they stump you and you are officially involved in the project. Bug reports are cool no matter how you find them. You can build your machine slowly form components that aren't going to change much--ie electronics--and still be active.
As for the host software--I Windows installer is said to be comming shortly. The Linux LiveCD works great from my experience so you could do that and not have to install anything.
Progress...well, someone form the core team would have to answer that. I'm prone to mistakes and errors at odd times so take what I say with a grain of salt. But do jump in and build with the cautionary note that this is "a research project" as some have been known to say.
Demented
You can buy the parts for a RepRap form Bits From Bytes or make a RepStrap Seedling with 1" iron pipes. Hardware is different but electronics could be the same. Also the option for Arduino electronics exist but is not officially supported yet.
Buy the electronics, build the frame--I would go with the Seedling RepStrap--and get to finding problems. Post here to get them solved if they stump you and you are officially involved in the project. Bug reports are cool no matter how you find them. You can build your machine slowly form components that aren't going to change much--ie electronics--and still be active.
As for the host software--I Windows installer is said to be comming shortly. The Linux LiveCD works great from my experience so you could do that and not have to install anything.
Progress...well, someone form the core team would have to answer that. I'm prone to mistakes and errors at odd times so take what I say with a grain of salt. But do jump in and build with the cautionary note that this is "a research project" as some have been known to say.
Demented
|
Re: Total newbie, seeking introductory information January 10, 2008 01:00AM |
Registered: 16 years ago Posts: 235 |
>
> - What progress has been made on the RepRap, and
> how far is it from complete self-replication
> (minus imported parts, of course)?
I would guess I'm less than a month away from starting to test printing my own parts. I'm hopeful that the testing phase will be less than a month then I'll be printing my own parts with no issues (I've spend the 6 months getting to this point, working on it mainly over weekends in a piece-meal fashion).
Vik Olliver (at the other end of New Zealand to me, go kiwis!) is quite a bit further on but seems to be more concerned with smoothing out issues for the rest of us rather than immediately printing out a full set of parts
> - Does it only use plastic right now?
There are a number of people working on different kinds of plastic but you are substaintially right. We're concerntrating on plastic at the moment to get to the point of self replication, then then next goal is to get printed circuits and other materials working.
> - What are the different major ways of
> constructing a RepRap/RepStrap? What is a support
> extruder and which designs include one?
People have run the gambit from making a RepStrap from Lego/Mechano to wood to metal. The current faviourite is the 'seedling' Repstrap. You can get some instructions on that by following the link on the main wiki (reprap.org).
I would suggest at this point that you do with building the full Darwin if you're thinking it will take you a couple of months to get to the point where you need the plastic printed parts. Currently you can buy the parts but they're quite expensive compared to what they will be when a lot of people are printing parts.
The support extruder is needed if you're going to print something that has a part hanging out in the air. The idea is that it puts down some sort of water soluble solid for the overhanging part to hang on to (i.e. be supported by, hence the name).
The support extruder has been a little neglected till now and there a couple of people trying to redesign the reprap parts to be able to be printed without one.
Ultimately though, if you don't want to be severely constrained in what you print you will have to include it.
> - Keeping in mind that I'm completely new to this,
> what would be a good way for me to join in on the
> project? I have tried to install the host software
> (for WinXP), but I'm having some trouble getting
> it set up -- I suspect that I have not installed
> the external Java packages properly.
See [forums.reprap.org] for where you might want to put them. If you can't easily fix it however, there are plans afoot to make that particular issue a thing of the past so if you're not really interested, just leave it and move on to something else
Have a look round and see what your skillset is suited to. Chances are you'll be totally overwhelmed by the quality of people attracted to this project and think you can't really do anything (thats what I thought :-)
If nothing else though, if you keep a spreadsheet of where you get all the materials you buy, what the product code was and how much you paid etc. you'll be able to help out your friends and others in your geographic area when it comes time to help them build one.
I would suggest you learn from my mistakes and not just buy things one at a time but split everything into the 3 main components: electronics, extruders, and cartesian bot (along with software of course), pick one (I'd suggest starting with the electronics) and get a full list of the what you'll need and start buying.
As you put things together you may hit some issues. Just post to the forums and somebody will try to help. Try to figure it out for yourself first though, and see if its a hole in the documentation you've slipped through, in which case tell us and the documentation will be changed to suit.
> - What progress has been made on the RepRap, and
> how far is it from complete self-replication
> (minus imported parts, of course)?
I would guess I'm less than a month away from starting to test printing my own parts. I'm hopeful that the testing phase will be less than a month then I'll be printing my own parts with no issues (I've spend the 6 months getting to this point, working on it mainly over weekends in a piece-meal fashion).
Vik Olliver (at the other end of New Zealand to me, go kiwis!) is quite a bit further on but seems to be more concerned with smoothing out issues for the rest of us rather than immediately printing out a full set of parts
> - Does it only use plastic right now?
There are a number of people working on different kinds of plastic but you are substaintially right. We're concerntrating on plastic at the moment to get to the point of self replication, then then next goal is to get printed circuits and other materials working.
> - What are the different major ways of
> constructing a RepRap/RepStrap? What is a support
> extruder and which designs include one?
People have run the gambit from making a RepStrap from Lego/Mechano to wood to metal. The current faviourite is the 'seedling' Repstrap. You can get some instructions on that by following the link on the main wiki (reprap.org).
I would suggest at this point that you do with building the full Darwin if you're thinking it will take you a couple of months to get to the point where you need the plastic printed parts. Currently you can buy the parts but they're quite expensive compared to what they will be when a lot of people are printing parts.
The support extruder is needed if you're going to print something that has a part hanging out in the air. The idea is that it puts down some sort of water soluble solid for the overhanging part to hang on to (i.e. be supported by, hence the name).
The support extruder has been a little neglected till now and there a couple of people trying to redesign the reprap parts to be able to be printed without one.
Ultimately though, if you don't want to be severely constrained in what you print you will have to include it.
> - Keeping in mind that I'm completely new to this,
> what would be a good way for me to join in on the
> project? I have tried to install the host software
> (for WinXP), but I'm having some trouble getting
> it set up -- I suspect that I have not installed
> the external Java packages properly.
See [forums.reprap.org] for where you might want to put them. If you can't easily fix it however, there are plans afoot to make that particular issue a thing of the past so if you're not really interested, just leave it and move on to something else
Have a look round and see what your skillset is suited to. Chances are you'll be totally overwhelmed by the quality of people attracted to this project and think you can't really do anything (thats what I thought :-)
If nothing else though, if you keep a spreadsheet of where you get all the materials you buy, what the product code was and how much you paid etc. you'll be able to help out your friends and others in your geographic area when it comes time to help them build one.
I would suggest you learn from my mistakes and not just buy things one at a time but split everything into the 3 main components: electronics, extruders, and cartesian bot (along with software of course), pick one (I'd suggest starting with the electronics) and get a full list of the what you'll need and start buying.
As you put things together you may hit some issues. Just post to the forums and somebody will try to help. Try to figure it out for yourself first though, and see if its a hole in the documentation you've slipped through, in which case tell us and the documentation will be changed to suit.
Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.