Mendel90 parts dimensions?

I just got my first 3D printer up and running and I'm not crazy about it... I spend more time trying to keep it square and in alignment than anything else. I saw the Mendel90 and love the simplicity, looks much easier to maintain than what I'm using now. Anyway I'd like to be able to get the parts into AutoCAD so I can maybe modify some to work with some hardware I have on hand which requires a DWG or DXF. Even someway to get accurate measurements off the existing STLs would be helpful. I've tried some free file converters and not having any luck there. I've downloaded the scad files off github but cant do much more than look at them in openscad, there doesn't seem to be any kind of measuring tool built in and trying to export to a DXF is just giving me errors. Meshlab has a measurment tool but seems mostly useless. I'm new to both those programs so maybe there is a better way then what I've tried.

I'm wondering if somebody has already done this or can give me a better direction to follow.

Thanks for any help,
Ryan

Hi,

There was a thread here, which got quite heated at times, from a potential Mendel90 builder who wanted assistance in porting the design to AutoCAD.

nophead has chosen to design the Mendel90 using an open source toolset and has no wish to see the design imported into more restrictive, proprietary, technologies.

It is unlikely that you will receive assistance in your endeavour and you will be very much on your own.

Regards,
Neil Darlow

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I try to write with consideration for all nationalities. Please let me know if something is unclear.
Printing with Mendel90 from fedora 25 using Cura, FreeCAD, MeshLab, OpenSCAD, Skeinforge and Slic3r tools.

Thanks for your response Neil,

I'm not sure if I misspoke or not but I was in no way saying anything against the format in which nophead chose to share his design. I'm looking for a way that I can use what he has generously provided with tools that I have access to and am familiar with. Though it sounds like there is a real bias against programs like AutoCAD and the people who use them. I am willing to work with them in other programs. However, openscad seems more like programming (and I'm not a programmer), and Meshlab doesn't appear to have any real tools built in. Is there other software you can suggest?

Thanks,
Ryan

Hi Ryan,

You might want to look at FreeCAD.

It has an OpenSCAD module which might be able to read the Mendel90 files and it can export DXF files. I am not saying this route will be easy but it is worth investigating. You could probably determine if it will fit your needs in a few minutes.

As FreeCAD is open source, and provided you share any modifications as FreeCAD format files, that should be acceptable.

Regards,
Neil Darlow

---

I try to write with consideration for all nationalities. Please let me know if something is unclear.
Printing with Mendel90 from fedora 25 using Cura, FreeCAD, MeshLab, OpenSCAD, Skeinforge and Slic3r tools.