Contacts info for a get together

Hi Hamish,

We could always have a 'build-up demonstration' going during the day, I have a machine in mind I would be happy to build-up on the day. (I'll come with pre-made electronics) - still would be a challenge to get it made and printing in one day.

Happy to discuss, evenings are better for me after the little ones are in bed ~7:00 PM onwards.

Cheers,

Rich.

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

Hi Rich,

Sounds like a great idea, thanks. Sorry I didn't call in the last few days, then ran out of weekend - tied up with urgent stuff - will call tomorrow night after 7, thanks.

I plan on getting a press release out Tues morning for publication in the local paper at the end of this week. ...And possibly do another one for the Hereford Times for the following week.

Cheers,
Hamish

Please add my name to the meeting list

I am based in Cwmbran. South Wales but am happy to travel the Bristol area


I am about half way in building a 3D PRUSA printer


Paul
auej43@dsl.pipex.com

Hi Paul,

Great to hear from you! The best thing I think you can do is subscribe to this topic - there's no mailing list as such for coordinating meetings. (In fact to reduce possible spam you may want to obscure your email address like this: auej43 (at) dsl (dot) pipex (dot) com or just keep it in your personal profile.)

Why not pop up to Ledbury on the 24th? It's only 20 minutes more travelling time (each way) beyond compared with Cwmbran to central Bristol. The small pointers you'll pick up from the likes of RichRap will help get you up to speed way quicker than 'staring into the internet' for hours - that was certainly my experience when I went to Bristol for our first get together back in September.

No worries if you can't make it - look forward to meeting some-place soon.

Cheers,
Hamish

Guys, I'm not sure if updates are notified by email subscription, so below is a quick reminder/update (the full post is on page 3).
Cheers, Hamish

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.

Hamish,

Thanks for the update. I was thinking of posting to see if things were on track, so good stuff.
See you there.

Mike

I will come to your 24th meeting at the Ice Bytes Cafe in Ledbury

thanks for letting me kown

Paul

Guys and Gals,

Attached is an A4 PDF poster I put together to help advertise the Ledbury event.

Feel free to print and distribute.

Look forward to seeing you all there.

Cheers,
Hamish

I've got at least one mate whose coming with me,

He's never seen my machine yet, (its permanently broken i swear), but he's very interesting in getting hold of something

Properly another friend as well although slightly more touch and go here,

And ive been quizzed at work on behalf of a blokes daughters Tech teacher (no idea which school) again probed to attend, no further feedback here though

Mine is looking hopeful, I've just successfully printed new LM8UU X ends and Z stabilisers (4 off), in abs.

Back in pieces tonight, having tried fitting in the week and my weedy Z motors wouldn't play, so new beefy jobies from Zapp arrived this morning

Happy Days, looking forward to the 24th

Great stuff Rob!
Permanently broke - don't worry, I know the feeling - I've yet to get around to upgrading my PLA bushings, extruder, attach the electronics...
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To avoid any possible clash of events in April, here's a copy of Adrian Bowyer's blog post advertising the next Bath Master Class:

RepRapPro Ltd is running a RepRap Community Masterclass at Bath University - the home of RepRap - between 13-15 April 2012. As this is for the RepRap Community we have tried to keep expenses as low as possible. The cost is £688 including a RepRap kit for each attendant together with full tuition, accommodation and all meals.

Details and booking are here.


Cheers,
Hamish

Excellent News, Its alive again!

Think ill stop breaking it down and upgrading bits until the 25th of march, but loosing the PLA bushings was a great move, it eliminates so many areas of error, im now on full LM8UU over all Axis, ive been on them for the X axis for a while, the Y since early Jan and finaly the Z's in the week, each time the difference has been staggering

I'm now thinking, to avoid breaking mine so often i might try to print a printerbot and build that, might even go with some LM8UU shaped PLA bushings for a bit to see if they are any better than the original prusa snap fit ones,

Plan is to leave the printer-bot with my O/H, its good when even she is taken by the idea

I Believe Adrian's Master-class is fully booked, or it was when we looked last Tuesday

Shame I think both mates would of booked themselves on there and then at £688

I would print them the bits but i'm not that confidant yet, plus it leaves me as the contact for info an a regular basis, at-least Adrian knows what he is talking about, ive spent 10 months to be happy it can replicate, so a weekend is pushing it.

Rob

Hi all,

Through the press releases I just made for the March event I realised the URL for this thread is a bit of a mouthful, so I just made some tiny urls here:

tiny.cc/WestOfEnglandRepRap
tiny.cc/westofenglandreprap
tiny.cc/WestOfEnglandRUG
tiny.cc/westofenglandRUG
tiny.cc/woerug

all of which point to: tiny.cc/wrz1aw - which of course redirects to the first page of this thread.

Obviously we could all make our own tiny or goo.gl shortened url, but I thought it might be useful to be consistent for advertising our events - what do you think?

The last three 'plain-english' tinyURLs when read in a press release, look more like something to do with floor coverings than 3D printers, so my preference would be to use the first two. Any thoughts? If you can think of any improvements, lets discuss it.

Cheers,
Hamish

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2012 08:12AM by hairykiwi.

Hi Hamish,

Cracking job, I can't wait.

Just one comment on the poster - You have the thingiverse address wrong , and I would make it DIY 3D PRINTING, is here now!

Do the eMaker lot know about the event? Would be good to post on the eMaker forum, we had quite a few Huxley's at the last event in October.

Cheers,

Rich.

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

Pants!
Well spotted Rich! Thanks.
Update: Saved by thingiverse - they registered both.
I'll fix it one day.

I did however use your 'DIY' suggestion in the online events listing provided by the local newspaper: http://tiny.cc/RepRapDay-HR8-2012-03-24

I did put a post on the eMaker forum a few days ago - nothing heard as yet.

Cheers,
Hamish

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2012 05:36AM by hairykiwi.

Is the meeting on the 24th meeting at the Ice Bytes Cafe in Ledbury going ahead.

How many are coming ?

Any other info aon the meet

thanks

Paul

Hi Paul and everyone,

RepRap Day in Ledbury sure is all going ahead! 24th of March at Ice Bytes Cafe, 38 The Homend, Ledbury, HR8 1BT Google Street View

I'll be there from 10-ish to set up a table and get my printer going for the public to see.

Feel free to come earlier, but don't bust a gut - it might be a long day.

I'd rather see some other people's machines up and running however, so I'll be stowing mine as soon as we have a full table. We might be able to get 5 to 6 printers running at once, with a few smaller tables available for any construction or minor repair (unfortunately no soldering - it's a cafe). We might have to be a little flexible with the number of operating printers - it really depends on how busy the cafe gets during the day.

Numbers attending: It looks like 5 or 6 of us from WoE RUG should be there with machines in various states (Mike and Rich confirmed by phone with me). Also, the event has been advertised around the town and in the local newspaper's online events public notice section - so it will be interesting to see just how much interest there is. If you plan on bringing a machine and don't have my mobile, give me a PM. That way you can call me, park almost outside (there's a pelican crossing right outside) I can give a hand bringing machine & stuff in, then you can go park-up. That said, THEY (and other drivers) are pretty relaxed about any loading/unloading in Ledbury high street.

We'll have a trestle-table (of village hall regulation dimensions most likely) we can use to set up machines on, in one part of the cafe, with another sturdy 'worktop' width table on standby.

If you bring a printer, you should ideally bring a (smaller the better) laptop. I'll have a couple of old Windows XP laptops with pronterface installed and some multi-way sockets just in case.

Space available in the cafe: The event is something of an experiment for both us and the cafe owner. It could be mutually beneficial - I really hope so. John and Shoku are very keen to host us and are pretty relaxed people; however I think we also need to remain aware throughout the day of how much space we're taking up especially if things get busy - and Saturdays can be busy with mums and small kids especially. Like I said, it's a bit of an experiment - so we'll just take it as it comes.

One of the Cafe's Internet machines will be available for doing any CAD demos. I've got a 22" monitor I'll bring along and a projector+screen a can bring. It may not be practical to set it up however. If anyone has a monitor larger than mine and wants to do a CAD demo, feel free - bring it along.

Parking: I've still not scouted out all the available free parking, but I will do so and send you each a PM. (I don't want to P-off any locals with a public announcement.)

And of course, there will be steady stream of good food and real coffee throughout the day. For those who make it to 5pm, we can adjourn to the pizza pub across the road where they sometimes sell pizza's for £6 before 6pm.

Looking forward to a good day!


Cheers,
Hamish

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2012 03:06AM by hairykiwi.

Thanks for the meeting details, look forward to the meeting.

I am sorry to say I will not be bringing a machine; mine is back in bits for a redesign aimed at giving greater accuracy.

I am making the following changes:
1. Bearings on the Z axis and better support guide bar support
2. Ridged aluminium side frames
3. Aluminium base plate
4. Large WORK area
5. New Hot End

I am a retired engineer (probably your oldest Prusa builder !) and have built many engineering type projects over the years and I am going to use my skills to obtain a PRUSA SPECIAL in terms of work area and design tolerance

I have spent many years working with 3D models and will bring a CD along with 3d models on if you would find the models useful!

Would be very interested in studying the various software setup and use etc.

Anyway that’s a bit about me.

Look forward to seeing you on Saturday

Paul

Have fun guys, no chance I can make it, but look forward to hopefully making a future one.

Hi everyone,

I just sent everyone a PM with parking details and my contact phone number.

Let me know if you didn't get it and/or need any more info.

The only thing I can think we might run out of is power sockets. If you have a multiway extension (2 to 5 m), please consider bringing it - better to have too many.

Looking forward to tomorrow's session!

Cheers,
Hamish

Hamish

Thanks for organising the 3D printer RepRap meeting at Ledbury on Saturday 24 March 2012.

It was a very interesting day, great bunch of people, lots of different 3D printers, each showing variations from the basic design. Learnt a lot and in particular would thank Richard who had an in-depth knowledge of the ins and outs of the various 3D printers

Was a good location and would come again to the next meeting also thanks for the Cake, coffees etc.

Please email me the picture of us all eating the cake and any other interesting photos of the group (email: auej43@dsl.pipex.com )

Hope your watch design project goes forward without any problems or delays. Would like to see the finished prototype

Any date, facts etc. about 3d printing please email the data

Thanks again for organising the day it was a great success

Next time I hope to bring my machine !

Paul

RepRap Day Ledbury -

Happy 7th birthday blog.RepRap.org! (Any old excuse to mix cake and precision mechatronics will do.)


Great to see you all there! Another great cake (Thank you Shoko!). Another great bunch of interesting and interested people.


Here's some pics from yesterday. If you have some pics you'd like to share with everyone, PM me your email address and I'll send you an invite to share and add to the dropbox folder.

One of the highlights - and major milestone for me, was was being able to print out some replacement, next generation parts - y-axis LM8UU linear bearing holders for 3D2B (Mike) 'the new guy' - so he'll now be able to get more accurate prints and do his own upgrades and repairs - and help someone else in a few months from now. Very satisfying!

Looking forward to doing it all again somewhere else in WoE - definitely within three months to keep up the momentum - lets say not later than the end of June. Rumour has it Faberdashery is planning something exciting after they get their new premises in shape. C'mon Faberdashery - spill the beans... give us a tempter!

Last, but not least, a special thanks to John and Shoko for hosting us at Ice Bytes Internet Cafe - great food and coffee, chilled out atmosphere and super cake!

See you next time.

Cheers,
Hamish

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/2012 07:45AM by hairykiwi.

Hi Everyone,

Just thought id like to say thank you for a great day,

Great to see all the exciting developments on our door step, as well as get a refresh to be more adventurous,

When I got in I did as I always do and stripped the bed and rebuilt it minus the springs, seems to be working wonders for first layer issues,
Since then I’ve put another 12 hours or so printing some concepts for my HNC, nothing like a bit of extra credit, but I know prior to Saturday I wouldn’t have even tried it.

Even with a blocked nozzle that’s more progress than I’ve made in the last 2 or 3 months put together

So a few people asked about a few bits and bobs so ill try and share them here:

My Funky red ABS was from [www.kdipolymerspecialists.co.uk] via [www.ebay.co.uk]
Price seems to of gone up from my memory (33.50+P&P last time)

Marlin on Sanguinololu– the version I was running has been updated, new version fits much easier, even with SD card support, it now incorporates M303 (auto PID tuning) ill let you know how that goes, in the long term but it seemed to settle my hot end temp form a 5 deg variation to .5 deg variation last night)

Endstop:
The Z endstop was from [mauk.cc]
Seems to help with holding the Z but as RichRap showed not mandatory more a nice to have

Once again thanks it’s been good to do so much printing again, looking forward to the next one

Rob

Hello All,

I just wanted to add to the thanks for organising such a great event on Saturday, it was a really great day, and evening and night!
Thanks to Hamish, John and Shoko for such a great location and thanks to all the great people we met on the day.

I can highly recommend the Coffee and Carrot cake at the Ice Bytes Internet Cafe (Yes, I had already had some Carrot cake before I knew we were having RepRap Cake!) - Happy 7th Birthday RepRap.

Hamish you need to post a picture of the great Cake, I'm not seeing the ones above, I think Dropbox is stopping them from viewing.

The RepRap 'hospital' worked quite well, we should make that a standard feature of these events. Can't wait for the next one!
It was most satisfying seeing a Prusa go from printing only random blobs to an almost perfect Makerbot coin by the end of the day, well as perfect as it can be with PLA bushings.

We discussed lots during the day, please remind me if I was supposed to get back to you on anything specific.
I'm sorting out the MendelMax info and a write-up of the event now.

A lot of people were interested in the J-head hot-ends - you can get them from Thingfarm.org and I see they are sold out today, so some of you must have bought them quick! - or directly from Hotends.com - I can't recommend them enough, a truly awesome hot-end.

The awesome plastic I was printing with was from Faberdashery, and the Thrust bearings I'm using are from Technobots online.

I popped up my photos on Flickr



And just as a side note - when I got back home I decided to change my Marlin Acceleration settings back to Ultimaker Defaults just to see what would happen on the MendelMax - so that's going from a normal Prusa compatible 900mm/sec acceleration on X and Y to 9000mm/sec (yes 10x faster) and it worked fine, the prints looked better with less pause between layer change/stop/start, and were quite a bit faster to print. I think I'm actually now achieving the print speeds set in Slic3r or Skeinforge. I'll need to do some comparative tests.
The flexible bracelet I was printing on the day is very scary to watch printing at this speed/acceleration, it's not making much more noise either. I'll try to do a little video of it.

I'm going to try printing the mysterious cube thing again... I'll let you know how it turns out.

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

I Rich

A very interesting day and very good to meet great bunch of people and to see their 3D printers.


I learnt a lot and in particular from you Rich, you have a in-depth knowledge of the ins and outs of all various 3D printers


Would come again to the next meeting plus more Cake, coffees etc.


Any date, facts etc. about 3d printing please email the data (email: auej43@dsl.pipex.com )


Thanks again for helping to make the day the great success

Now working on my machine and I hope to bring my machine next time we meet


Paul

Hi All,

Yes it was a great 'birthday party' wasnt it?
Thanks again for surgeons Rich & Hamish in the Reprap hospital.

The drive home was fun with two routes each roadblocked - got back ok though!

Sunday I caught up on non RepRap stuff, but last few days I've been sourcing parts for a MendelMax & updating the
Prusa Mendel in line with recomendations from the day. Had a pack of mirror glass in the workshop so acrylic
now replaced.

Rob thanks for the link on ABS, ABS is on my list of things to get. Paul thanks for the design drawings.
Loads learnt on the day, good to have stuff to get on with. Pleasure to have met you all.


Mike

Many thanks Rich, for writing the blog entry on the Ledbury Community Portal. John published it earlier today:
RepRap @ Ice Bytes

Hamish

G'day Guys and Gals,

It's about time we started thinking about the next get together - evening or daytime session - I don't mind. I'm happy to share transport as far as Birmingham or Exeter from Ledbury and in between - but let's do something before the end of June.

It's a little too soon to descend on Ice Bytes Cafe again - but if needs be I'm happy to host something at our place. We could probably have 6 machines running throughout the house - especially if Rich can bring his table.

Looking forward to any offers to host an event elsewhere in the region...

Cheers,
Hamish

Hi there Hamish,

I'd be up for another meetup, last one definitely moved things along for me. Early June's busy for me, but might be able to squeeze in on a Sat or Sun. I drop freer after the 21st though. Pondering on a venue, I have a clubhouse near me
dont know what it costs, wouldnt get it for free though. I drive so pretty flexible on location, I'll have a further think.

Today I started the build on a MendelMax, cut some threads on the ali extrusions. So that's 1% done!

Mike

Hi,

Id be up for something, even happy to look into borrowing the hall again, but its fairly fully booked June/July time, throw in college, a holiday and a few other bits i cant see that being a possibility for the next one, so put me down for one early October?

Still be up for something in June, just something i can appear at would be great, not sure its fair to land Hamish with it again, after his fantastic job last time

Rob

Hi,

I would be interested in attending any social events but would need a lift [from North Devon] as I'm not mobile!

Regards
tbod