Tool Head Wish List

OK

Just to start the ball rolling, My wish list for toolheads.

(I not assuming that what ever is currently on the Darwin will be in this one so will list it too)

--Start List--

1. Dremmel and/or dremmel type drill head

2. Syringe Dispenser adjustable for different syringe sizes (Cheap so you could have several to hand.

3. Vacuum pick & place (although could be an adapted syringe thing)

4. Airbrush/mini spray head

5. Paste Dispenser

6. Polymorph extruder

7. Glue Gun, glue extruder

8. A dispensing head that takes a standard caulking gun type refill and opens up the range of dispensable items to anything coming off the shelf from the hardware store in a caulking gun refill. (They even have their own nozzles)

--End List--

aka47

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

Only one thing I want badly...Printable Circuit boards! Whatever toolhead that requires, I want it.

Demented

tbh, to do that all you need is some way of depositing some etch-resist on the PCB, hell, even the current HDPE may prove suitable here, quite simply, more testing needs to be done.

The paste extruder head may offer the PCB option. Picture making the PCB out of plastic extruded from the REPRAP, making a sheet with the holes for you components or pockets for SMT devices. Then you put your chips in the plastic, flip it and put it back on the REPRAP. Now a paste extruder head filled with conductive epoxy goes and bonds the chips to the board and draws traces to make your interconnects.

Jared,

I believe that is the approach put forward previously. Sound idea IMHO.

Demented

I think if your dead interested in the PCB production (Me Too)

the PCB production thread in the old mechanical topic is very much worth a read.

[forums.reprap.org]

The tools discussed there have magically found their way into the list above.

cheers

aka47

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

some Other ideas:

A dispenser for felt or other clothlike material

A multi-part(5 or better) mixing syringe (with variable ratios) to allow the production of foamed materials or composites

a syringe that can be refilled from a separate reservoir (small syringe gives excellent flow control but low capacity)

a head for laying down solder traces for circuit boards and integrated electronics

an pneumatic die cutter for cutting soft stone and metals

an EDM head for working hard metals

a head which deposits something transparent and mildly tough

a head which extrudes thermoplastic, but is capable of mixing it with pigments on the fly to produce a desired color.

food extruders- cookie dough, candy, jerky?

as discussed elsewhere a multi thread extruder for faster infill

not a toolhead but a couple of highly useful add-ons to the base machine-
a 3D scanner and
an easy to use, reasonably safe lost foam metal casting kit

Add one more

Laser cutting head.

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Bob Teeter
"What Box?"

3D scanner hmmmmmm

Now there's a challenge.

Don't know about you guys but that one is worth a discussion/thread all of it's own.

I am not sure if here is the best place though because this is something that could be implemented (and I am not sure that it shouldn't be, I can think of lots of reasons why it should) for Darwin.

I fancy doing some thinking and discussing on this one....

What do you guys think ??

aka47

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

Hope this is OK

I have taken the liberty of creating a thread for the 3d Scanner in:-

Other Fabrication Tech. (Computer Controlled)

This is not that any of the others are'nt worthy of the same (I realy think they are) it's just that I fancied this one too much to not make the effort.



cheers

aka47

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

On the subject of lost foam.

Add lost wax.

I am not that familiar with lost foam (can someone explain) but am with lost wax.

You can even get lost wax blanks for carving cheaply here in the UK from Design Technology (making things at school) materials suppliers.

So lost wax could be achieved in one of two ways.

Carve out from a block with a router head (Dremmel etc or some such) or extrude casting wax and print like with plastic.

With wax extrusion the degree of shrinkage/expansion is probably going to be challenging as my experience from making candles etc as a kid is that it is usually very large. (Maybe different formulation of wax??)

aka47

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

lost foam is lost waxes big and cheap cousin. Basically you create a version of whateveryouwant out of polyurethane (I think (I just know it as the pink stuff they sell in sheets down at the home store)) foam. You then add gates and sprues of the same foam and optionally coat the whole ting in plaster of some kind. Then you pack it in sand and pour in the very hot metal. Result: large noxious black cloud and a fairly close model of whateveryouwant. The process is used for precision casting in industry and less precision casting in various backyards. The main advantage over regular sand casting for the amateur is that you don't have to worry about relief angles and undercuts on your models.

definitely on the laser cutter or perhaps its cheaper cousin the plasma torch. Both however should be dead simple once we have a router head as they are just 2.5-D heads, the main problem is finding a way to minimize the mass to be moved and protect the user from system failure.

While we're at it how about a laser sintering head? Not for metal powder at first but for polyfoam or powdercoat material? Something recycling the lasers from DVD burners sounds about right. of course like the EDM head this would require some alterations to the table and some ancillary gear, but it opens up a whole new field of operations.

How about an Inkjet pen

I have seen/worked machinery that had these (very expensive)

It's sort of an ink jet head that relys on the parts moving under it (except that we move the ink jet head, it's all relative motion after all).

I worked with Ferodo for a time making brake linings and the machinery used these to write the part numbers on the edges of the linings as they went down a conveyor.

aka47

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

Tagging along with Andy Kirby, I'm really excited by the capabilities of inkjets being hijacked to dispense polymers (whether UV or temperature cured). The level of detail and the pre-made abilities to dispense multiple liquids (as in a color print head) seems like a natural choice. I'm thinking something along the lines of the PolyJet technology:
[www.2objet.com]

--clint

OK

Take a quick rummage through here. The guys are currently going at this one with gusto.

[forums.reprap.org]

aka47

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

What about a toolhead that would allow you to fit a whole bunch of different static attachments. Kind of like an x-acto knife, but also able to include things as simple as a ballpoint pen for plotting. just a thought

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Jay

Jay-

Good idea with the pen, but remember that an exacto knife has to constantly change orientation so that the edge always faces the direction of travel. Which is probably not a bad idea for a toolhead but would require a constant flow of info from the cartesian system to the toolhead and the interpretation of that data, and is thus not an easy one.

See you soon,
Brian D

Brian

The usual fix to this is to use a cutter that is in effect mounted on a very short swivel and therefore doesn't need motorization to reorient the cutting edge to the direction of travel. A bit like the castor's that are put on furniture and trolleys.

Take a quick look at Drag Knives and Vinyl Cutters/Cutting.

I guess the shape/length of the cutter etc also has quite a bearing on how well or not this sort of solution works.

I think the radial distances etc can have an impact on accuracy ie how well the cutting edge traces the pattern that you really want.

If the degree of variance is less than your application needs then it would be a good solution.

Laser cutting though doesn't appear to have these concerns......

aka47

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.