random ideas

I'm new to the topic and found my mind (if not my body and or finances) drawn toward this.

I've this desire to suggest the possability of a sort of irising nozzle head, where the 'leaves' of the iris are fairly thick 'bars' set at angles that when pulled back dilate the opening for increased or decreased volume and speed of extrution?

I'm also inspired by those peg toys that have a board with hundreds of peg like needles, withing holes, that rise and and drop to differant topigraphical locations. Would something like that allow for vacuformed sheets to be a plausible addition or at the very least a support structure for things like the inverted cone without extruding wasted material to act as supports?

I'm not much further along than you...which basically means I've been reading a little longer. No hardware.

Irising nozzles sound great, but I can't see a way to make them practical. It'd probably be easier to just have two nozzles. One for course, and one for fine.

As for support material. Some support materials could be recycled, so this becomes less of an issue there. Also, imagine rendering a tube on its side. Now support the upper arch while it's being printed.
For vacuum-forming...makes sense, but you're talking a LOT of little pins. Personally, I think I'd just make a porous master on the rep-rap, (in sections,) possibly lubricate it, and lay it on the vacuum former.

Please remember, I've yet to handle a rep-rap, and I've never used a vacuum former. Weight all my comments accordingly.

Kossel 2020 Full 3D Printer Kit w/Auto-Level
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-List of filament to etruder nosle heat loss per mm/sec
-step by step X,Y,Z callibration for dummies (used level on plate
-Followed all setings from fabricant ok
could open source have setting packs named to printer models?
-Must read disorganised info on www sites, is nothing compiled into text files for ofline reading/studying
.Back to Arduino.cc to dig setting values in C++ language.