Plastic feed availability...

Etra (etratrading.fi, former Etola) sells Polyethylene (hopefully HDPE) 3mm welding rod for 5.8

im from estonia not finland but i havent found any place here to buy hdpe here so i would be interested in a few weeks(when my darwin is assembled)

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wow i think i finally found a place that makes that stuff, waiting for them to reply. will tell you results if i get it cheaper than you do

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guess i'll be needing hdpe from finland afterall

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2008 09:16AM by r2kordmaa.

I'm potentially interested.

Building the electronics now (anyone know of any shop in Helsinki region that sells 0.5 Ohm 2 Watt resistors? - I'll probably end up ordering them from Elctrobit in Sweden). I'll likely order the new laser cut plastics kit from BitsFromBytes when I get a bit more information about it. After that I'll be in need for plastic.

Btw, it seems threaded rods are relatively easy to come by, but any idea of a hardware store in the Helsinki region that sells smooth rods?

The salesperson in Bebek told that 0.5 Ohm resistors are basically deprecated (Not in the USA it seems), and I just bought something like 0.56 ones. Someone on the forums said that the value needn't be that precise since you have to calibrate the current with the pot anyway. And you can always put bigger resistors in parallel... I'd also like to know of guaranteed straight rods, I just bought the best ones that were available at a K-Rauta nearby.

Yeah, 0.56 seems to be more common. I ended up ordering 1 Ohm ones from Vaasan Elektroniikkakeskus along with some other stuff (cooling fins for the PWM board, and an atuomatic wire stripper - amazing tool for under three euros, no more careful use of a cutter, trying to cut just the isolation and not the wire).

I also saw that K-Rauta has some good looking rods (aluminium) for not too expensive (around 3 euros for a meter IIRC).

I completed the electronics and test drove it with the host software - it seems to work. I ordered the laser cut parts from BitsFromBytes - kind of expensive though. Maybe I should have tried to cut them out of a wooden fiber board instead, it looks like most parts (except the extruder) would be easy enough to manufacture with just a drill, powered saw, and some screws and glue.

I'm a Finn but currently living in California. It was nice to see there is a Finnish LUG!

You might want to look at German suppliers, we used to live there and they seemed pretty well stocked. The currency is also the same, in contrast to the U.K.. I can't remember specifics (or don't know who delivers online) but I remember the pricing was competitive with the U.S. Ie. something costing $3 would cost roughly 2 eur.

Ordering from the U.S. is also usually OK, mouser.com charges a flat $25 for shipping, mcmaster.com also seems to ship internationally. You get to wait a bit longer and pay VAT, but given the current exchange rate that might end up being more affordable. batchpcb.com also delivers internationally, don't know about the rates.

Happy building and be sure to post pictures!

I haven't been able to find any ABS welding rod re-sellers in Finland, at least not through internet. Should maybe still mail etola or some of the other companies and ask, but at least etola didn't seem to list any ABS welding rod (http://www.etratrading.fi/ep.php).

Has anyone been able to locate an ABS welding rod supplier in Europe?

It seems the only ones with nice browsable product catalogs are located in the US, and the rrrf store was cheaper than the one I found. It would be nice if Bitsfrombytes also stocked some ABS welding rod, so Europeans could avoid the import tax and transport times and costs from US. Could someone who speaks German check if there's any ABS plastic welding rod resellers there?


[www.muoviportti.fi] seems to sell (recycled) granules, although they don't mention prices or minimum orders. I guess it might be possible to get granules from some other local re-sellers too.

For now I'll order ABS from rrrf.org, but later it looks like a granule extruder would be the way to go, if it can be made to work.