Intro post

How about a Baltimore/DC area group?

I live in the south Baltimore area and could probably act as a hub at least initially (ie I have a house and email).
I know that Balto/DC(down to Mannassas?) is considered a metro area and folks commute from Penna in the north. East and west I'm not sure of the ranges but Annapolis is not unusual for day trips and west into Howard county. Not trying to exclude anyone from further away, but just trying to imagine an area within which it would make sense to have real life meetings. If folks are interested myemail is briandolgeATyahooDOTcom. I will be checking this forum as well.

Just as a reference I am in the gathering materials stage for a repstrap and a conventional gantry style machine known as a jgro which has a vigorous community behind it. It is normally used for 3D milling of wood and plastic. I want to modify it to work with the reprap tool changer to create a machine more oriented to producing desirable objects for everyday life rather than cheap plastic prototypes/disposables. The repstrap seems like a good, cheap way to get into electronics as well as motion control and 3D modeling/CAD software. My mechanical and woodworking skills are up to par and I have a decent shop (currently off-line) for woodworking, mechanical and jewelry work.

As usual I seem to have overtalked.
Brian D

I live in south Baltimore (Greektown), and I'd love to have a meetup day to help you make and assemble parts for a RepStrap. The jgro sounds interesting as well. We could meet once a week or once a month on a continual basis, and perhaps more often if we get on a roll with production.

I've been interested in building a RepRap or a RepStrap, and perhaps improving on it in an experimental capacity. At the moment, however, I have neither the money nor the space for my own. Let me know what you think. You can reach me at snappycrunch at gmail.

Hi, My name is David and I'm a 25yr old Electronics Technician from Harford MD. I grew up in Baltimore and driving to baltimore is a weekly routine for me so making a trip for User Group meetings would not be a problem.

I found this site through Makezine.com. I've heard about these 3D printers but never really even considered trying to build my own. It looks fairly simple from the little bit of information I've gathered today.

Do any of you have experience yet with these machines? I have a lot to learn still but would love to be involved in a group project.

David

Hi, I'm a EE grad from Virginia Tech working in Blacksburg now, I'm building something similar to a reprap, based on the mcwire, I'm planning on putting a router/dremel on it instead of a plastic extruder for now so I can make circuit boards and mill other things. But think I might make it so I could swap in a plastic extruder later. Right now I'm waiting on servos and bearings, I've got most everything else, and will start assembling soon. Would be interested in working with this group.

Mike

Hi guys, my name is Jay Swift and I live in NW DC. I am a high school student, and my dad and I are building the Darwin Ultimately. Now I don't really have much experience in any of the fields that are needed to build a Darwin, but my dad is a computer programmer, and I am a kid who grew up on K'Nex, sooo any help I can I will be.

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Jay

Nice to meet all of you. Current E-mail discussions have us doing a meet and great somewhere in January. We want to get the holidays out of the way. E-mail Brian at his address above in his first post so you can get on the e-mail list. I think we have abotu 4 or 5 people now. Exciting!

Just discovered this posting- I live in the DC area, and I have been building a RepStrap machine, leadscrew and steppermotor driven. You can see some pictures of it under construction on Flickr at:

[www.flickr.com]

and I gave a presentation on the RepRap project and my machine at DorkbotDC ( [www.dorkbot.org] ) this January.

I would love to participate in a local group working on RepRap projects!

Very cool. I would like to see what you have accomplished. I have not had much time lately to work on my project but I am working on a McWire. We have had two meetings so far and both were fairly productive. At the first I gave a small soldering course and at the second we played with my father in-laws milling machine. I'd love to have another meeting but I don't have the time currently to work on my RepRap project. I've bit off a little more then I can chew doing side jobs.