Contacts info for a get together

Looks like a great event in Cheltenham last month

Who's up for coming over to Ledbury - on the afternoon of Saturday 03rd, 10th or 17th December?

I had a chat this afternoon with a local internet cafe owner with the suggestion that his cafe might be an ideal place to host an event. It's on the high street and has plenty of space; potentially an event there could generate even more interest in the movement from passers-by. In principle he's interested. He intends getting back to me toward the end of this week (18 Nov), after he's done a bit more reading up on what RepRap is all about.

If the cafe/high street option doesn't work out, and people are still prepared to travel, I will in any case host an afternoon and evening event at my place on the same (preferred) Saturday in December.


Cheers,
Hamish

Hi Hamish, Sounds great, I'm in.

Anyone else interested?

Andrew was also planning a meetup in Bath nov/dec time I'll check if any dates are being proposed.

Cheers

Rich.

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

Hi Hamish, Sounds great too

I've been keeping my eyes pealed for Andrew to post a date just in case,

Solved so many issues from the last meet, it was working beautifully the other weekend on some PLA,

Shame I melted a connector and its not been quite right since, Still got that pumpkin to give a try

Looking forward to it

Rob

Cheers guys,

Great to hear your printer's output is improving Rob; I felt the same after the first meetup in Bristol. Rich you've been doing some pretty cool stuff lately - looking forward to seeing it in the flesh!

Any more news about the Bath event? As per the discussion a few months ago, I agree, It would be much better if two events didn't clash on the same weekend, let alone the same month - for the meantime anyway.

I heard back from John, owner of Ice Bytes Cafe, in Ledbury - he's very keen to host an event.

I invited him to join in this thread in my latest email to him. John, if you do post here, how about you suggest a date to suit directly? That will save relaying messages and keep everyone who wants to be involved in the loop. The only caveat is 'can you wait until we hear something about the Bath event?' If you want to go ahead and risk a clash of dates, I'll be available with my printer, CAD software, projector and screen regardless - it would just be more fun with a few more faces, printers and previously printed objects.

Looking forward to a festive printing session, where-ever it happens,

Hamish

Greetings all,

I've been meaning to introduce myself to you guys for a little while, just been finding all my spare time sapped away recently.

A few of you may have seen me in IRC, under the handle 'spcs', and if you have you'll probably know that I'm located in Plymouth, and make a living selling repraps. You may also know that I attend the Exeter Hackerspace every week, and have been trying to get more folks to come along to that, including folks with printers.

It would be great to attend a meet up with some of you folks. I can get to anywhere that is near a train connection, and would also be able to host a meet at the Hackerspace in Exeter for anyone that can get there.

Anyway, just throwing that into the mix. I look forward to getting to know some of my local reprappers!

Stewart.

Hi Stewart

We seem to be gaining momentum again,

Cadical is at Southampton, i know there was talk of something that direction at some point,

So lots on the horizon

I think ive traced my currant problems to a dickey thermistor, Hopefully ill fix that next week.

Rob

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2011 07:45AM by ijmok.

Hi Stewart,

A RepRap event at Hackerspace in Exeter - sounds good.

I might be able to make it in December, even more likely in Jan.

Keep us posted!

Cheers,
Hamish

hairykiwi Wrote:
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> Any more news about the Bath event?

Hi Hamish,

Andrew is planning for something mid December in Bath, he should have more news on this soon.

These events are getting better and better each time, Cadical was planning to demo a 3D capture system for the next one...

Hi Stewart - thanks for the intro, it would be great to meet up with you, I'm up for the Hackerspace in Exeter if you can set a date.

Hi Rob, I'm glad things are still improving with your machine, Have you printed anything in purple yet?

Cheers,

Rich.

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

I’ve managed a pumpkin at 6 x 6 (no lid yet) and its screwed up a bit on the bottom,
A DTI holder and some other bits and bobs, (ill get some pics at some point)

Since you last saw it I’ve replaced the bead with a PCB one, replaced X&Y steppers and tidied wiring up a bit. Been busy with college so progress as usual has been slow,
Dead thermistor has put a stop to play for a bit (hopefully the new will arrive today)
I’ve got next week of work so hopefully I’ll get on with it a bit then, getting a little lathe as well so I’ll be able to knock up some nozzles and various other bits and bobs,
Beyond that I’ve got to finish levelling my build plate and it might be alive in time to print Christmas decorations

I've spoken with the powers that be at the Hackerspace, and the best time for something to be held there would be in the new year - We are currently in the process of moving to a our own workshop (at present we are hosted by a local company, but they will soon be unable to continue offering their space to us).

Basically it's just a case of deciding on a date closer the time that as many people can make.

Thought I might share some work my friend has been doing with a RepRap in London, which has a tasty festive twist.

[movingbrands.com]

Merry Christmas!

Any news about the Bath event?

Or was it a washout?

Bath...washout... sorry - bad joke.

Merry Christmas to everyone - look forward to catching up somewhere in the new year.

BTW, have you seen the freezy around printrbot? Funded to US$830k, when all they sought was US$25k! Impressive effort for a start-up business. Good luck to them.

Cheers,
Hamish

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2011 07:24AM by hairykiwi.

Belated happy New Year to everyone!

Rich, looks like you're busy with Slic3r - very interesting.

Any plans for a Feb meet up?

Any news about a meeting in Exeter?

Belated happy New Year to everyone aswell

Just thought id bump to Suport the motion of a meeting at some point possibly?

Where did you get with Ledbury in the end Hamish?

Rob

Hi Rob,

Life reared it's ugly head, so unfortunately nothing happened in Ledbury in December, sorry. In hindsight, a last minute meeting in December probably wasn't the smartest move in the book.

Poor show, I know, so my sincere apologies to everyone who expressed an interest in coming over in December.

I'll have a chat to John, at Ice Bytes Cafe this week and we'll firm up on a date for this month or next. He was still very interested last time I spoke.

If anyone knows of any dates any events are already planned for in the next 8 weeks, please say. That said, the 'protocol' that BigDoug suggested during the first meeting, of posting a date and sticking to it is probably a very sensible approach.

Cheers,
Hamish

Life! Tell me about it,

Id open the hall up if i had more time, but i don't at present, hopefully later in the year

So far as Big Doug's Protocol, it seems the only way, given enough notice i'm sure most people could rework things or accept they cant attend

Looking forward to some news

Rob

I'll join in with the New Years.

The Exeter Hackerspace has recently acquired our own space (we had previously been making use of a workshop belonging to another company), and so I can probably arrange for us to make use of that for a meetup at some point, if you are interested in travelling down South a bit.

I'm also happy to travel anywhere, pretty much any time, provided it's near to train/bus routes.

Stewart.

I'd be up for an outing to Ledbury. 'Bout 45 mins. drive for me so my partner could explore Ledbury's shops if its during the day.

Hamish,
RepRap_Project

Says reprap blog started 23/March/2005 - nearest I can readily find to a 'birthday' - so how about March 24th : first Sat after that?


Mike

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the suggested date Mike...

John and Shoku owners of Ice Bytes Cafe in Ledbury have kindly offered to host a RepRap Day on 24 March 2012.

Where: Ice Bytes Cafe, 38 The Homend, Ledbury, HR8 1BT Google Street View

UPDATED 07 MAR: Time: Shop hours are 10am - 5pm - actual event time: 11am - 4pm
I'll be there around 10 - 10:15 to set up some tables. If we plan on a 4pm finish, we might be out the door by 5pm.

What: An all day RepRap session - Tweaking, tuning, talking, printing things for people to take away... and generally inspiring anyone who cares to drop in off the street - actually I'm pretty excited by the potential to fire-up the imagination of a few passers by; it'll be an interesting test of general public interest in the technology. Just to help things along, I'll be sending a 'press release' to the local newspaper, maybe they'll even cover it on the day - so please do help spread the word.

There's room in the cafe to safely set up between 3 and 5 Mendel-size printers at any one time, perhaps more, but I'd rather err on being cautious to start. If more turn up, lets just reassess and take the day as it comes.

Parking can be difficult at times, so I'll update this post with some (ideally free) alternatives to the pay and display car parks in the middle of town. For those able to bring their printer, you'll probably have to drop it in to IceBytes, park up, then return on foot.

I spoke to John about setting up a projector and screen and while there might be room to do so, lets not count on it. I might try a dummy run with my own equipment and report back.

Any suggestions, or things to think about doing the same or different from the Cheltenham event would be appreciated.

Looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible! And do bring the family - there's plenty else to see and do in town and about.

Cheers,
Hamish

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/07/2012 08:40AM by hairykiwi.

Brilliant,

I've got just over a month to reassemble what I've disassembled tonight

There wasn't much organisation on the Cheltenham meet from me,

A Room and Power,

Take it as a bare bones minimum, so it would be good for people to critique it and build on the experience (be viscous I wont take offence)

Cadical's Cad tutorial seemed to go down well,

Faberdasher's Challenge was a great idea Shame more of us weren't in a position to give it a serious try,

RichRap Really showed what can be achieved, lord knows i went away with many thoughts and ideas, (Still got most of the Purple PLA im afraid but the machines been totally rebuilt and is showing some hopeful signs

Thanks for sorting it out Hamish, i look forward to it

Rob

Great!

I should be there (although I must say, Ledbury is pushing it quite a bit with train tickets from Plymouth) and can bring one of my Prusa's, and plenty of business cards

Rob, my printers happily print at 0.05mm layers, and I'll probably push them lower between now and the meet, and I even use purple PLA as well! So happy to help you, and anyone else, getting the most out of their machines.

Stewart.

Good to hear from you Rob and Stewart.

I'm looking forward to seeing some lower layer height prints. What software/firmware & nozzle diameter are you using Stewart?

Stewart, the train journey to Ledbury is pretty convoluted with 3 changes and 4hours+ travel time. I thought about picking you up myself from Cheltenham, but the earliest arriving train would be cutting it too fine to get back and set up. And you might not want to set out of Plymouth at 6:05am!

Another suggestion is that you get a train to Cheltenham Spa and blag a ride with someone else from that area - Rob? or Rich? Just a thought - sorry to volunteer you guys without asking. I could always run you back in the evening - even to Bristol if need be.

IceBytes has a number of PCs for their internet cafe side of the business, so one way or another we can get a CAD demo going - though I agree; a projected display is probably the best solution.

Cheers,
Hamish

Hi,
Sure we can Offer a lift if it makes it easier, I was going to suggest this,
As Hamish says it was really useful to see some of the best, and to gain an insight into what i can do to my example to improve it.
Rob

Some sort of lift may indeed be most helpful. Thanks for putting that forward. (Although I have no problems with early trains, I do in fact quite enjoy the peace and quiet!)

>I'm looking forward to seeing some lower layer height prints.
>What software/firmware & nozzle diameter are you using Stewart?

I'm currently switching between sprinter experimental and marlin, along with slic3r for nearly everything these days.

0.35mm nozzle, and until this Friday using T5 belts and printed pulleys. That will soon be changing to T2.5 and machined pulleys, as well as switching from heated tape to heated glass for my bed.

I've been throwing quite a lot of pictures on flickr this past week where you can see what I'm currently working on. Going to be some blog posts soon as well.

[secure.flickr.com]

For example, [secure.flickr.com] was printed with 0.05mm layers, but the machined couplings I got for the Z axis clearly failed me in that print! I'll be doing that print again with different couplings and some other changes shortly. Currently however, Fans.

Edit:

This fish shows off 0.05mm layers somewhat more like they should come out: [secure.flickr.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2012 07:26AM by stewartstarbuck.

Good stuff guys!

Cheers Rob.

Stewart your machine makes my Prusa (finished Sep 2011) look quite antiquated.You'll definitely enjoy printing on glass - that I've been doing from the outset.

While we're chatting, I had a look at the Exeter Hackerspace site yesterday. Is anything going on there at the moment?

18th August, 2011 is when I finished that one. It's currently a prusa1-2hybrid, with bits from both generations (but all the important parts being pursa2).

There is stuff slowly happening with the hackerspace, although I don't think the website has been updated in quite a long while.

They have just moved into their own workshop now in Exeter, and I believe there are plans for a big membership drive over the next few months.

Stewart.
(PS, I'm in IRC all day, every day available for chats, under spcs)

Hamish that's great!

Sorry for delay in replying, I've been away on work for a couple of days and just got back.

Confirmed that date is good for me.
I'm not sure what I can contribute - I have a built Prusa Mendel but recently built so not calibrated & not printing great as yet. OTOH it could be either (i) a deadline for my to get it sorted or (ii) a opportunity for a more experienced hand to point out what I should be doing. Of course I could just bring myself along!

Mike

Stewart, do keep us posted about the Exter Hackerspace events - I look forward to going, though I won't be a regular due to the distance. IRC really is a great thing, but I found I was glued to it and not getting anything else done. So as much as I liked it, unfortunately I stay away these days.

Mike, What delay? I was in a similar position as you suggest you're in when I showed up at the first meeting in Bristol. Best thing I ever did was to take my machine along. So what ever stage you get it to will be just fine. Mine hasn't actually physically progressed or developed significantly since then - and I haven't done a lot of printing at all, but what I have produced has been really useful and satisfying.

While it would be great to have at least one 'fully calibrated' printer on show for the drop-in public to see 'RepRap at it's best', I think these events should very much be for our own education, benefit and enjoyment.

Cheers guys,
Hamish

Hi Everyone,

Very late to this discussion, sorry. I seem to have lost this thread's 'follow topic - e-mail' it looks like things are getting going again for meet-ups again. Great!

I always up for meeting, count me in for the March one Hamish. I can bring along plenty of machines and other stuff - does anyone want to make it a build weekend? - we would have time to advertise and it could be great fun.

We would need to build Printrbot's as this could be achieved in a day. If we had some kits of pre-made electronics we could have them built in a few hours and spend the rest of the day printing

I have been doing my best to meet with people all over the place for the last few weekends. Things are moving so quickly in the 3D printer world, not a day's going by without something new being announced!

The Bath meeting is still on, but delayed for a while, but we should be able to get it back on track towards Easter time.

Cheers,

Rich.

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

Great to hear from you Rich!

You're sure setting a good pace of progress as evident by your blog.

Making it a build weekend is a great idea! However as it's not my place we're using, and out of courtesy, I better run it by John and Shoku. The only thing that immediately comes to mind is that we probably couldn't do any last minute soldering due to any fumes not mixing too well with their ongoing food sales.

I was thinking of putting a press release out 3 weeks before for inclusion in the local paper (end of next week). I think submissions are due by the Tues prior to publication, but will double-check tonight. I'll give you a call Rich to discuss, (in the next couple of days/evenings - say which is best if you like) especially as you seem to be getting a good insight as to what works at these events.


Cheers,
Hamish