KNEX Frame

Hello everyone! I am new here. I am from the USA, as are a few other reprappers. I was trying to think of easy ways to build a Darwin without owning a RP already. I thought of a few ways, but came up with KNEX building sets. It will require a lot of modifications to pieces to get everything to work right, but it was rather easy to make the frame. I even have the diagonal pieces. The best part is that all of the side rods are 500mm, just like the BOM said the rods on the real Darwin are. I attached some pictures of my current (10-minute) progress. Most of the time was finding the KNEX parts! For putting on special parts like the motors, I'll try to find a way with duct tape and maybe some superglue! Any advice for my little project would be greatly appreciated.

Edit- I forgot to add that frame2.jpg is showing what I used for the corner brackets. Also, the pictures are from my cellphone, sorry for the bad quality.

Thanks,
Matt

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/2007 10:10PM by mappum.

NICE!

from there you will probably want to go about building the Z axis. also, i *highly* suggest you procure yourself some 'friendly plastic' aka CAPA. this is something you can heat up easily (in really hot water...) and once it cools slightly, it can be hand molded. you might be able to use that to fashion custom mounts. it would probably even take a mold of a KNEX stick (..hint..) just search for it on google + reprap.

how stable is the cube? it seems it might need reinforcing. if so, it should be pretty easy. if not, well then you got a great start there.

ZachHoeken Wrote:
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> how stable is the cube? it seems it might need
> reinforcing. if so, it should be pretty easy.


Well, it is kind of bendy in the middles, but the corners seem to be pretty stable. I'll try to reinforce it as much as I can. It needs to support the motors and other hardware stuff. The diagonals did A LOT to help reinforce it. Also, where can I find some CAPA for sale? Can I just find something that works the same at a crafts store?

Thanks for your help Zach,

~Matt

no problem. you'll probably need to add more support... no biggie though. CAPA goes by the name 'friendly plastic' and 'shapelock' in the US.

[www.reprap.org] (that should be our page on it... but i cant seem to get the site up for some reason.)

I'm already making the Z axis with all KNEX. There are gears and KENX xhains, so it is working pretty well. For the capa, is $24.95 a reasonable price for 500 grams(w/ shipping)? It's just from shapelock.com.

Thanks,
~Matt

yeah, thats a decent price. i've done alot of searching and thats the best i could find (without ordering bulk) if you follow my link, the first store has slightly better prices (its the same exact stuff...) but yeah, basically you should be fine.