New member +

Hi,
I (Rob) and my son (Nathan, 12) are considering building a RepRap. To be precise, a Mendel.

We are both pretty good at cutting code. Nathan has some electronics experience and training (including a course at Box Hill Tafe).
And we have a little Arduino experience.

After long hours web-surfing we realise that we need to talk to some people who have actually done it.

We plan to attend the next Hacker Space meeting on July 30th in Camberwell (handy, as we are in Kew). Will there be anyone from this group attending that meeting?

Rob Blair

HI..

Welcome aboard.

Instead of a mendle you would be better off building a Prusa and running with RAMPS, there a re a few benfits of doing so and the biggest is the cost.
[www.reprap.org]
[www.reprap.org]
Australian suppliers
[www.reprap.org]

A Prusa is a cheaper and fast printer to build plus it uses less parts.
I own a Prusa and I'm very happy with it.

I also supply RAMPS kits and PCB, Hobbed bolts for the wade extruder and hope to offer hotends again soon.

Hope that helps

Auzze
Ballarat

There will definitely be people at the Hacker Space that have done stuff.

I'll be there, and maybe I'll get off my butt and get my Mendel working. I'm also probably going to build myself a Prusa (much simpler) and/or convert my Mendel into a sort of hybrid.

PS: If you haven't contacted AndyG at the HackerSpace (CCHS aka HackMelbourne) about the location yet, do so now, otherwise when it gets closer, you might have trouble getting hold of him (and the location details).

I'm also hoping to turn up. I should have the mechanical part for my Prusa by then.

Hi guys, welcome to the group. I too started my career with a TAFE electronics course, that was a looong time ago

With all due respect to Auzze I think the machine you decide to build should be influenced largely by what you plan to use it for. If you have a specific application in mind then Prusa is, by all accounts, a good decision since it's cheaper and less hassle and probably more reliable. If you're more interested in experimenting with RepRap technology itself then I would argue that Mendel might be better suited since it's a more established machine and is being designed specifically for expansion (multiple extruders etc).

I've only built a Mendel myself and I've found it to be a somewhat finicky beast at the best of times. It's a huge amount of fun though, there's nothing quite like that first moment you see your machine actually print something. My own son is only 3 months old but RepRap is the kind of hobby I'd love for us to be able to do together once he's old enough.

Mark

Hi ,

welcome and it is allways good to see people at the group.

FYI hopefully by then I will have printed more parts so we can get the Y axis complete and pissibly some of the Z axis going on the club Prusa that we are assembling atm.

Currently I am printing parts for 3 prusa's , one for Rob, the second for CCHS and the third for myself. so hopefully there will be enough going on with 3d printers to keep peope interested.

Feel free to turnup and get your hands dirty. Hopefully ill have my repstrap there printing and the clubs loan cupcake might even be printing as well if we are lucky.

Also feel free to put your name down on the wiki page for the melbourne group so we can try and keep track of everyone around.

Peter