Building a Mendel in Southern New Hampshire

HI all. This is my first post. I'm a design engineer by trade working with Autodesk Inventor and a Dimension printer in-house. Love our printer but they frown on personal projects as the stuff is pretty expensive at about seven dollars a cu in. So I'm building my own!

Plastic parts are being printed (on the Dimension) as I type this. The rods and hardware are in and I should have the board etched and drilled today... maybe the opto boards as well.

I'm about to order what electronics I need to populate the boards and order some 1.7mm filament from ebay. I plan on turning / machining my own parts for the extruder.

I know my way around electronics and mechanics but boot loaders, firmware and the like put me off. Sure would be nice to have a couple of veterans nearby to keep me out of the dark!

My business is making thin film thermoformed teflon (fluoropolymer) parts. It might come in handy for this project as well. We don't have any machinable ptfe or peek materials about... that's too bad.

If you live in or around Southern New Hampshire (USA) I would love to hear from you. We could share our experience and ideas and help each other improve our machines. I think I have a lot to bring to the table. I already have ideas on assemblies that snap in and out for ease of service or changes.

I should have most parts ordered today and have most of them by next weekend. I plan to go with 1.7mm ABS with the intent of approaching the quality extrusions I get from the Dimension printer.

If you're in the area drop a line.

Regards all!

Ross

Hey Ross-
Welcome, and good luck with your build. How far west in NH are you? (I'm in western Mass.)
Regards /James

Thank you James!

I'm not very west... bout as east as you can go. About ten miles north of Portsmouth, NH. Wish you were closer!

I got the gen 7 v1.3 board etched, drilled and partially populated with parts I had in stock. I've made a list on digikey of parts I need but haven't yet pressed the button. The Atmega chip is holding me back. I don't have a bootloader board so I'm looking at bit banging with a cobbed together parallel cable. Or I could just find someone with a pre-programmed chip and buy that. I don't know.

I also etched and drilled the sensor boards. Got a lot accomplished. Tonight I go pick up my plastic parts from the Dimension printer. Yeah!

More as things develop.

Ross

Good morning
I have built a reprap Huxley from techzone.
I'm in the process getting the firmware loaded on the host computer and talking to the huxley.
I was hoping to find a checklist "follow the steps" and start printing - not to be.
I have been reviewing reprap sites looking for this process without success.
I was recommended to use repsnapper firmware so I am proceeding down this path.
Any help would be a great help.
I live on the seacoast in NH.
Thanks

Hey Ross!

I'm in Boston. I have a self-sourced prusa that is 90% finished, and a makergear kit on the way. It sounds like you are going as DIY as is possible. Are you building the drivers yourself? If there is one thing that I learned from my first prusa it is that it is _ridiculously_ easy for a self-sourced reprap to run over budget. Keep an eye out for things that are super time intensive and consider buying them. I probably spent double or triple of what I should have on fasteners alone!

I just reread your post. It sounds like you have a pretty good handle on the electronics side. I would still advocate buying a vitamin kit if you haven't already. I'd also suggest you buy a hot end that is proven. It's really a bummer to have 3 functioning axis, a functioning extruder, but not be able to print. In theory building a diy hot end is possible, but there are a lot of places to get caught up. Makerbot has gone through 7 interations of their extruder already!

I'd love to try to get a new england meetup together. It sounds like there are a few people around. Are you blogging your progress at all? I've had some sporadic updates here [blog.tinyenormous.com] Good luck, and keep me updated!

_Ross

Hi all,

Update: I've built the prusa, the electronics board, and have loaded my firmware. Now I'm wading through the software choices. Exhausting! I wish someone would just point and say, load that, that, that and this. Now push go!

Thanks for the suggestions Tiny. So far, I'm doing pretty good. I've turned a few parts to make the extruder. It's likely that I will have to play with it to get it working just right but I have the tools and the time.

I'd love to get together and share knowledge. What you think is easy may be what I'm struggling with and visa versa. I'll pm my phone number to you.

Regards!

Ross

Rep Rap Techzone Huxley, Arduino-0019 RepSnapper
I can control the huxley manually XYZ and send it to the home position.
Attempting to create a 'dry cycled' part the huxley appears to start, move very little, then return X and Y home positions, Z moves up 5mm.
has anyone had the same problem?

another interesting event - homing the z axis only all is smooth.
homing the xyz (home all in repsnapper) z shutters at the home position then settles out in 1-2 seconds??

stepper motors turning in the wrong direction use this link to correct; [forums.reprap.org]
this was holding me up for a week or so
thanks

I was able to get the Huxley dry cycling prints using BotMill software.
I tried Repsnapper and Skeinforge from the internet but they didn't run on the Huxley.
Downloading BotMill and following the YouTube instructions - everything came together.
Calibrating the Huxley to BotMill software is the next event-then printing.

Hi Ross, All-
Great to see so much action here in southern NH. I have a mechanical engineering background, know enough to be dangerous with electronics, and I'm a long time CNC addict (Bridgeport, lathe, engraver, dremel, etc.), and I have recently gotten into 3D printing with a Thing-O-Matic. Not satisfied with the build quality or build size, I'm working on converting the CNC engraver to a 3D printer with a 8" x 12" x 12" build volume. I am considering what to use for electronics/computer interface. I could simply buy an audrino and shield from Makerbot & plug the outputs into my stepper drives, -OR- continue to use Mach3 CNC software with an add-in to make it work, or see what else is out there (namely the RepStrap route).

I'd love to know if anyone decides to get a meeting together. I have lots to learn & feel I can contribute as well.

Also, if anyone is interested in CNC, let me know as I started a Southern NH CNC Club about 4 years ago, which meets a few times a year for assistance with all things CNC.

BTW - I am now addicted to 3D printing as well - which is why I need a larger format machine - my kids are loving it too...
[www.thingiverse.com]

Regards,
Keith

I'm in Portsmouth. I've built a modded version of Prusa's Mendel with RAMPS 1.4 electronics.
Currently running Marlin firmware, Pronterface frontend and Skeinforge.
I've started with Sprinter firmware (its very nice and easy to use, would recommend), but eventually moved to Marlin when saw how much better it makes the curved surfaces.
My Prusa Mendel has "bowden" filament drives and 2 extruders. The hardware has been up and running for a while and I've been all in the firmware changing it to support multiple extruders (https://github.com/dob71/Marlin/tree/Marlin_v1). Looks like I'm pretty much done with that and was planning to move on to making a 3D scanner after playing a bit with the multiple material prints.