Thick Sheets Cutting

Hello. My friends and I are building the Mendel, and we are a bit confused on how to go about in cutting the thick sheets. I read online that one person printed the drawings of the sheets and then traced them on to their board, and then cut them. We don't have a laser cutter at our disposal to laser cut the boards, so this seems as our only viable option. To view the drawings, we use DWGeditor. On what paper size would you recommend that we print the drawings on to so that we get the actual size of sheets?

Thanks for the help.

- rusdp

I can cut the thick sheets out for you on my cnc mill. The board that holds the stepper motors is a little to big for my mill, but I could make it in two parts. If you are interested I can send you some photos and a quote.

Josh

so this seems as our only viable option.

Hmmm...
Holes: drill press, hand drill.
Body: cnc router, laser cutter, scroll saw, band saw, handheld saws of various types, etc.

What size is it?
That's not in the docs!? Could someone who knows fix it?

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-Sebastien, RepRap.org library gnome.

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Remember, you're all RepRap developers (once you've joined the super-secret developer mailing list), and the wiki, RepRap.org, [reprap.org] is for everyone and everything!

Call your local trophy shops in the area, they can point you to reasonable laser cutting services.

Also BigBlueSaw will cut the mendel all in 1 sheet in 1/4 acrylic for a little less than $50 dollars.

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repraplogphase.blogspot.com

Well I would just go to the machine shop at my school and cut these boards out, but I can't get the dimensions of the drawings. Hence, I was thinking that I would just print the actual size of the parts (from the drawings that are in dxf formats), sketch them out on my boars, and then go to the machine shop and cut them out.

thanks for the responses so far.

- rusdp

There is also a set of thick sheet parts on Ebay right now with a BuyItNow price of only $33. They are birch plywood and have an alluminum build surface inset.

[cgi.ebay.ca]

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Kevin

Always use the right tool for the job, and the right tool for every job is a hammer.
Note - the above is not true but some days it feels like it's true.

[kevins3dprinter.blogspot.com]

I just finished cutting these out using a drill and a jig saw. Here's what I did.

I printed out all the parts in a 1-to-1 scale. Some parts are too big for regular paper, so I printed them out in parts and glued them together.

I used aerosol spray glue (got some at Michaels) to glue them onto the plywood. I like this stuff because it's a strong glue that doesn't soak into the paper, and it peels off easy when I'm done. Just spray it on the paper side and stick it on.

I used a drill to get get the circles out of the way. On the elongated gaps, I drilled on the ends.

Using a fret saw, I finished up the gaps. Since I already drilled out the ends, I just did a straight line across the circles and they fell right out. From there, I just used the saw to cut out the outlines.

The only reason for 2 of the thick sheets is to mount the electronics on.

There is no need to drill or cut every hole or slot I used 6mm or 1/4" MDF.
Placed the aligned the MDF to the frame drilled mounting holes to mount on the frame. Then placed the electronic boards as required drilled the holes to mount them 4 per boards.

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Bodge It [reprap.org]
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