Create Vancouver forum

Hi,

I'm Enrique Perez
perez_enrique@yahoo.com
604.221.2360
Kitsilano, Vancouver

Would you please create a forum for my balmy home town of:
Vancouver, Canada

Thanks,
Enrique

Forum created, Enrique.

You may want to check out:

dorkbot-vancouver
[www.dorkbot.org]

and

The Vancouver Robotics Club
[vancouverroboticsclub.org]

Good luck.
Sebastien

Hello fellow web-footed hobbyists

I've decided to build a reprap.. I'm fairly new to electronics but doing alright so far. My PCBs showed up and, after getting part way through them I see I've used the wrong bill of materials to order components but I think I have most of the important and hard to find bits. does anyone else in the area have one of these guys up and going?

Cheers,

-Tyson

Hi Squalus,

Good to see another reprapper in Vancouver. Unfortunately, I'm not building a reprap, I'm just working on the software for now. If anyone is building a reprap within an hour of my place, I'd like to help out or at least see the thing.

I live in Kitsilano, where do you live?

Cheers,
Enrique

Hey Enrique!

Unfortunately I'm not too far yet with the reprap's construction. I have the PCBs here and about half of the electronics and am building away. Unfortunately I won't be ordering the rest of the electronics until next payday but it's soon enough

I live in the west end near the foot of the burrard bridge so pretty close. There isn't much to see yet but I'll let you know as soon as I have enough of the electronics done to do something interesting. I'd be curious to see what you're up to with the software as well. It goes without saying any help will be welcome and, when it's up and going, you're totally welcome to use it.

Cheers!

Thanks for offering your future reprap; I'd like to someday print a boat

In the meantime I'd be happy to try a few test shapes.

I've written scripts for reprap. The first is a javascript to to get order of magnitude estimates of reprap economics at:
[members.axion.net]

Another is an Art of Illusion script to generate gear couples. It is finished, but there is no documentation for it. To use it download into the scripts/tools folder of Art of Illusion, then go the the "Scripts" submenu in the Tools menu and pick Gear Couple. It is online at:
[members.axion.net]

Yet another is an Art of Illusion script to slice and dice Triangle Meshes. It is useful, but not finished. It is online at:
[members.axion.net]

You're welcome to call me at 604.221.2360. It'll be good to actually talk to a reprapper.

Cheers,
E

Hi Enrique,

Good news. Payday was this friday so I can continue building. Orders for the rest of the electronics components are going out this week. Once that stuff's in I can at least hook the electronics up and give them a try.

FYI I'm going with the arduino based electronics. I have the Arduino unit here in front of me but I haven't hooked it up to mess with it yet.

Once I start getting closer on the electronics I'm going to start ordering the moulded parts, threaded rod, steppers etc.

I'll give you a ring once I have the PCBs all soldered up and a test board ready to go in case you want to have a look at the electronics before the rest of the machine is built.

Cheers,

-Tyson

oh.. and what type of boat did you have in mind? That sounds fun

Glad the electronics are coming and that you're using the Arduino. The Arduino looks easy to use, which is all that matters.

For the boat, I was thinking of an open kayak to start. It's a kayak with a thick, hollow floating base. Water comes in from waves, but quickly flows out because the top of the base is above water level. I used to have one that was about three meters long by forty centimeters wide. I think it could be compressed to about 1.4 m by sixty centimeters, which would be small and slow for a kayak, but still big for an extruded object. I speculate that at the rate the reprap project is going, there will hopefully be a design capable of making objects that size by the summer of 2009.

Cheers,
E

Sounds like a good design for a kayak. For a large format version I had it in mind to make some moulds for fibreglass body parts used on race cars. The front end is particularly hard to make. There's a lot of ground to cover between here and there though.

I was at an industrial trade show last night and saw a simple 2axis robotic cutting table. The elecronics look very similar to those used in the rep-rap which I thought was interesting. It leads me to wonder what other applications this sort of configuration might have

Hey all,

I've Just been introduced to the RepRap yesterday from this /. article:
[hardware.slashdot.org]

I'm an engineering physics student at ubc and considering building a RepRap or improving it in some way for a project course I have coming up. Or just for the heck of it, because my own prototype printer would be awesome

Squalus: I live up the street a bit on Burrard. I'd be interested in seeing what you've got going for the electronics when you have a test setup.

Cheers,
Andy

For sure. I'm in a holding pattern right now waiting for components to arrive in the mail but I'll be posting here as I make some progress. The more eyes the better (only we need something to look at)

*looks at the mailbox anxiously*

-Tyson

Update!

I have the rest of the electronic components (still minus the steppers) and am nearly done soldering. So far the three boards I have passed the basic power on test. I have two of the stepper driver boards left to complete but one is almost done.

Once I have that done I'm going to wire up what I have and test what I can using some of the test programs for the arduino (which is a really cool little board btw).

If all goes well I'll have the above done this coming week. Next up: getting my hands on some steppers and ordering the plastic components from the UK and a bunch of hardware from amazon (threaded and unthreaded rods, belts, screws etc).

I'll get some pictures posted soon

-tyson

Some progress so far. It would appear that bitsfrombytes is having a supply problem so construction is, again, at a standstill until I can get parts. The good news is he's going to be taking orders again at the end of the month. In the meantime:

[8833.ca]

hey gentlemen, just noticed the vancouver group and while im not in canada im right across the border. been working on my reprap/repstrap for a while now but dont have it extruding yet. Too much work and kind of lost steam after the first little bit. But having others in close proximity helps keep the motivation up
BTW im in Blaine.

Rober

Hi all,

The project was overshadowed for a little while by more pressing matters but it's on again! I just ordered the laser cut plastic parts kit from bitsfrombytes.co.uk ($500cad). I was going to order the frame kit as well but it bumped the shipping up to $200cad so I'll be looking locally for that stuff. If anyone knows of a good source let me know.

Updates soon

-Tyson