Easy way to print 2D scale views of parts?

I'm wondering if there's an easy way to print out 2D views of various parts at 1:1 scale, so I can glue the print-out to some wood and cut the part out to get my repstrap on? Have poked around in both AoI and blender but haven't found such an option yet.

That's something that's usually done with CAD software, as opposed to animation software. If you find a way to do it with a reasonably priced package, I'd love to hear about it.

I used InkScape and Skeinforge.
I used Skeinforge Carve tool to slice the STL and
Opened up the file in InkScape,
Print and done.

(InkScape has serious problems with scaling that you need to keep a close eye on)

Windows users can get 2D dimensioned drawings out CoCreate Personal Edition if you have the step or iges files.

I did it recently to make a drilling template that matched a 3D part I had designed. It puts crosses on the centres of holes in the 2D drawing, so it is perfect for drilling.

Getting it to be 1:1 was a bit tricky. I think there is a bug in the plot dialog. If I set it to scale and left the default value 1 it just did scale to fit. If I actually type the 1 it works.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

I could try to draw the Mendel parts. It's not too difficult with SolidWorks.


(Let me know if you prefer Letter [8.5"x11"] or A4 paper, by the way. This is letter)

Here's a test file.

I would be extremely interested in this. Some of the parts look much more complicated than the Darwin ones, with holes drilled at strange angles and such. I'm not sure that a Mendel based repstrap is practical.

Barney.

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Oak & Silicon

[homepage.ntlworld.com] <-- this PDF, page 73 onwards seems to have a good way to do it. unfortunately, blender doesn't run too well on my laptop or I'd try it now.

this should probably be compulsory reading for anyone modelling reprappables in blender

Looks good, Triffid_Hunter. This could be such a boon to repstrappers. Why hasn't this been done yet and put on the wiki?

I wonder if I could print this out on clay coated paper and iron the toner right onto say some white cutting boards for drilling and stock removal?

I prefer letter, being in the US.

sorry,
Thanks jbayless, looks good.

pica: dunno if that would work.. toner transfer works by melting the toner, so your chopping block would probably melt too.. if you want to try anyway, glossy magazine paper is far more available and has pretty much the same effect.

I'd just glue the paper on and cut through it

... look here: [dev.forums.reprap.org] ... especially at the atached image in my 3rd post: [dev.forums.reprap.org]

With paperwork you can make some really complex 3D-parts out of 2D-sheets ...

Viktor

looks similar to blender's UV unwrap function mentioned elsewhere in that tutorial, could work very nicely especially for stuff with odd angles

>glossy magazine paper is far more available and has pretty much the same effect.

Yes, we're on the same page :-)
glossy slick magazine paper is almost always "clay coated"

I used to be a short-run digital press operator. Look up the "pica" in the dictionary and you'll see my points. All 12 of them :-)

(for the record, I also like spicy food :-)

>toner transfer works by melting the toner, so your chopping block would probably melt too

I googled up HDPE and LDPE and polyethylene (what toner is made out of) They are close, but I believe that the toner is made of a type of polyester that is meant to melt at a lower temperature for the range of polyester types. Clearly some experimentation is in order. My other concern here is that the toner sticks. We don't even need 100% coverage because we are not etching copper.

If you think it would be helpful, don't forget to put up the pdfs for the wooden cut diagrams up on the wiki:
[objects.reprap.org]

I've seen a lot of interest in wooden mendels lately, it may be worth documenting that pathway to reprapping.

There are differences between the stls and how you'd make them from solid stock. The stls' holes have greater clearance, and I found that the Mendel corner brackets are asymmetric, which isn't apparent or marked, so it mustn't have been deliberate, but could cause difficulties in assembly. Even cheap commercial CAD makes this sort of analysis and printing so much easier.

Hi

Sorry to go slightly off topic

But what an excellent way of creating a repstrap.

1) Download a PDF and print it.
2) Buy some wood
3) Cut out the paper template and stick on wood.
4) Use a Jig saw and pillar drill to it out

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

regards

Stephen

Not quite that simple, as barney noted, but certainly possible I believe.. perhaps we'll need paper templates that stick onto the faces of cuts made from other parts of the template or something.

Some of mendel's parts require cuts that simply don't lend themselves to a stick-on cutting guide, and will require either a slight re-design or a multi-stage approach or possibly both.

I'm going to have a good play with blender's uv unwrap feature as soon as I have my desktop machine back up to speed.