RepRap Tuga - Concept design

A couple of months ago i was sourcing parts to build a Delta printer and while i was doing i realized that i would prefer to have a big horizontal print area instead of a vertical one.



So i created this concept to respond to this points:

-Static motor arrangement
-Speed of movements (X and Y)
-Big horizontal build volume (rectangular 400x180mm)
-Bellow 500€ cost

The resulting printer dimensions are aprox. 830x500x500mm





Some Weak points:
-Large horizontal printer size (double of the print bed).
-No heatbed for the first version
-Possible x/y axis wobble
-Arms mechanism untested in this arrangement.

Future Design Goals:
- Small version (250x120mm print bed)
- Try Vslots
- Replace side acrylic panels with printed ones (maybe prints holds to a wall)
- Put both horizontal carriages using the same smooth rods.

Right now i have the first prototype almost ready (missing the build plate9 and Repetier has included a its develepment version a Drive System for this motion mechanism, its DRIVE_SYSTEM 4 (Tuga), but its not yet functional.

Next step got to github and try to upload the stl and sorce files (it did not went very well the first time i tried...)

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[reprapstyle.blogspot.pt]

This is very cool! This gives me tons of ideas. I did have one question. Why do you have two separate sets of rails for the for the arms? The carriages never have to cross.

Edit: I can read. I see that you plan to do just what I asked. :-)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2014 04:18PM by nicholas.seward.

Tanks,

I don´t know why i did not start the build right from the start with only one set of rails...

I´ve just publish the files here: http://www.openbuilds.com/threads/reprap-tuga.265/

Maybe someone wants to build and help on the firmware adaptation (my programmer skills are zero).

I just realized that with the double pair of rails you could move the slave to either side of the long arm and increase your print area by the length of the long arm. Of course there is a singularity. Momentum can carry you through it or you can lengthen the slave arm and offset the shoulder the same amount.

It is a bit of a silly idea but fun to consider nonetheless.

One crazy idea that i just had would be to mirror the print bed and the arms, so that with the same number of motor and rails it would print two objects in just one print job.
But they would be mirrored i guess.maybe if each carriage had both a long and a small arm it could do just fine.

I don't think you can mix and match like that. I think having two small arms on one carriage and two long arms on the other carriage is as good as it gets. If you mirror the z too on the other side then you get two of the same object. But that is silliness.

One thing you can do easily is put two sets of arms on one side so you can print two objects side by side. Or three or four. This idea works better with two sets of rails.

Hey, I'm making a drawing robot that has a related geometry: [inventorartist.com]

I really like yours which is practically a Cartesian system!