Adesina - A Wooden Mendel RepStrap

Just made a wiki page for my wooden mendel - http://reprap.org/wiki/Adesina_-_A_Wooden_Mendel_RepStrap

This is my first wiki page ever, am I doing it right? And, is this interesting to anybody?

I think I've made some bad choices on file names initially, so there might be some duplicates now, and more later on. Is it possible to delete images from the wiki?

>And, is this interesting to anybody?
It is to me. That's one!

Someone that has made a wiki page will have to answer your other questions.

Hi there; nice page. I have a rather simpler construction [ I see you copied many of the complex shapes ] in my wooden version - ultimately wood is easy & cheap to get in large, stiff sheets, which can make the supports much simpler.

Anyway ! gears ... I (like you) wrestled with gears for some time, until I discovered the perfect material: nylon kitchen chopping block ! :-)

If you grab a relative's chopping block and just cut a strip off the end, you will be amazed at the material properties. If you get the templates from: [www.gnome.org] - and print them out.

Then with a bradawl make holes through the paper onto a corner of the block; then (using the 1mm drill you will need for your extruder) drill through those holes as vertically as possible. Make a too-small (say 4mm) hole in the center.

Now insert panel pins (thin nails) through all those holes. They have a diameter of around 1.5mm mine do anyway), and go in nice and stiffly. File your stepper motor thread down, and 'drift' (ie. belt it) onto the spindle (while supporting the other end of the spindle.

I get a near-perfect gear; that drives my mendel beautifully.

For the larger gears, a pair of ply-wood discs is just fine - since there is more space and less chance of breaking out. You would want to drill the holes of both discs concurently through top & bottom.

HTH :-)

@Michael Meeks
That's great! Take some pictures. What an innovative idea. I've resisted the gear/belt because the gears are too expensive.

I might try that.

Picture save a 1000 words of writing and reading!

@Michael
If I understand you correctly, will that result in some kind of ladder-type gear? That sounds brilliant, make a wiki page about it

Made a new mold today, and it worked very good this time as well. The belt I'm testing with now is a T1.5 (i think) belt from an old scanner, so I believe it should be easier to use the proper T5(?) mendel belt. I have a few different belts and a ball chain on order, so we'll see.

@Arvin
A small update for you!

I believe the x-axis bracket is going to work, so I'm on to making the carriage.

@Nudel
I like the way you have the constraining bearings constructed. The hex shape and the angle brackets are brilliant.

I will incorporate(steal ) those into my design.

Thanks Arvin!

I had been thinking about it for weeks, before I just went and built a prototype. And I was kind of impressed by how well the design works, compared to how easy it was to build.

There is a tiny wobble on it though, which might be solved by adding bearings on the bottom of the motor side as well. And it is rather difficult to adjust, because the top and bottom move at the same time.

Please do steal them, and be sure to post your improvements!

It's already been copied!

From reprap

I'm looking at how to incorporate the y-axis too.

Haha Love it!

Brilliant idea with the angel brackets for the rest of the x-axis.

I put up a few pictures of the y-axis on the wiki. You need the proper saw to cut the 30 degree angels, but it seems like you have that.

I just have plenty of the aluminum angle. Don't have any cute little pre-drilled angles.

I do have plenty of power tools. Not a pro just dabble. Here's a picture of the start of the wooden mendel...

From reprap

The first try is in the background close to the little drill press.

I'd question whether the steppers would have enough torque, also the belts result in a gearing to reduce torque requirements and improve precision.

@Nudel
I went to the garage this morning to start on building the hex shaped bearing beams like I saw in Adesina.

What I did instead was to use the skates I had just removed from the last attempt at a cnc and came up with a way to use them. Little adjustments to make yet but I uploaded a video to show you what I came up with.


Found this on a baby names site: "The meaning of the name Adesina is 'She opens the way'."

Appropriate for me! Might make a reprap yet!

Great! A really elegant solution.

Tried to make a simple carriage today. Didn't come out all that stable, but might be usable. Still waiting for belts and electronics to test it properly.

Adesina can also mean "first of many children", which she hopefully is going to be.

Hi,


I'm trying to build a reprap from scratch instead of buying the parts. I was wondering what you guys did to make them. I've been experimenting with a couple software programs but haven't found a good one to print 2d patterns of the 3d structures.


Thanks
Matt