Mendel90 pre-cut panel sources

re: mendel90 (and maybe its future wiki page?)

I think I'll be cutting my own sheet, mdf is to be found everywhere in shops, but some ppl might find some use to sources of mail order pre-cut sheet.

For example, a quick search for France gave this:
[www.woodeos.com]
a 500x400 sheet of 16mm thick mdf is about 12 Euros (+ shipping costs I suppose)

If you know about sources of MDF or similar panel for you places, it could be sueful to report them here:
- URL
- price
- geographical region
- if available, shipping costs
- if available, tolerances of the cuts

In the UK you can make it from this sheet from B&Q [www.diy.com] for £12.48. They cut it to size for free. It is generally within 1mm but no great accuracy is needed. I have 2mm clearance all the way round. If they follow the cut plan the two main sheets will be exactly the same width which is good for aesthetics.

You can get acrylic cut to size and rounded corners here for example: [www.cutplasticsheeting.co.uk]

You need to cut out the window in the gantry yourself but I have a switch on the model that makes it out of three rectangles meaning no cutting is required.

Yes I will put the instructions in the wiki after I release the files.

I also intend to sell the sheet parts pre drilled.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

I know im being impatient but any idea how soon you will be releasing the source files. too much longer and Ill just have to make it up as I go

My best guess is to release the files sometime this coming week.

I hope to finish the design this weekend and then I have to make the make files and work out how to use github.

Wiki instruction will take longer, but as it is a full model, with everything in apart from the electronics, I can make all the pictures with openscad, rather than using photographs.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

sounds good. I dont realy need any instructions. or at least im pretty sure I dont, the pictures and diagrams Ive seen on your blog are pretty self explanatory for me. Just looking for the printed part files and the hole locations for mounting.

Yes it is very easy to put together and you don't get into the situation you get with Mendel where if you miss off something inside the frame you have to dismantle it again. You can also remove any of the bars without losing it's alignment allowing any of the axes to be dismantled.

The holes are specified by the DXF files for the sheets and I have hacked together a Python script that converts the DXF to an SVG showing drill centres, diameters and optionally X,Y coordinates.

I am currently moving all the holes around and tweaking the sizes and the thickness of some parts to unify the screw lengths. I also added the option to use thin sheets for the gantry and stays and use nuts and bolts. That involved moving everything a little bit because the nuts clash with things on the other side, which doesn't happen with thick sheets and wood screws. I also have the option for tapped machines screws instead of wood screws for acrylic.

Even at this late stage, all the DXFs and a lot of the printed parts are slightly different to how they were yesterday so it doesn't make sense to release files that are not finished. With a fully parametric design everything is interrelated. People have to patient. I am working on this every scrap of my spare time.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

s'ok mate I am patient, just not very and since my intentions are to make it out of welded stainless sheets It will probably be necessary to make some minor alterations.

just a note: it appears something is going on with your blog page. unless the problem is in blogspot its self. page clears with a blank page after loading.
checked my blog page and a couple others and they load fine so at a guess there is a script running on one of your posts thats clearing the pages.

hmm, it seems to have something to do with a comment on your posts. if i look at the overview (now) i can see your posts but if i go to a specific entry everything blanks out when it loads the comments

It all looks fine from my end in Chrome. Which page and what browser?

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

I can open the blog fine in Firefox and Chrome,
but MS IE (8) does actually appear to lock-up at about the point it has loaded the main part of the page and should be loading the comments.

If you switch windows then come back to IE, it is blank.. so I think it's a symptom of an IE lockup rather than something actually clearing the screen...

If I save the page source to a local file, and open *that* in IE, it pauses for quite a while at the same point, but then the comments appear...

nb

Yes any page on my blog with comments seems to lock up IE8. Google changed the comment format in the last couple of days. You can now reply to individual comments and it nests them. Looks like the new script is too complex for IE8! Odd that other people's blogs are OK.

Fortunately only 14% of my readers use Explorer. I haven't used it for years. I switched to Firefox and the Chrome.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

When your done with the files, will you put it on thingiverse?

Yes. The source will be on Github but I will put some STL, DXF and SVG files on Thingiverse.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]