newbie, but enthusiastic

I really want to get started on building, but I have a few questions.
I have looked through the site thoroughly, but I couldn't quite find the answers I was looking for--probably because I just don't understand (өдө)

I know a good place to get just about any electronics, possibly some of the assembly as well, but I need to know what to purchase for a few things and how to set them up. I also seriously need help with the reprapped components as I do not have the resources to build a RepStrap machine (a matter of both finance and practicality, but mostly finance).

I'll start with the machine I want to build, a Darwin v1.? (sanguino update/customizations) Unlisted parts are as spec on the main site.

Electronics
Sanguino Controller (Breadboard type)
Thermocouple Sensor (RRRF kit)

Cartesian Robot
Lowest Bid RepRapped components (if anyone can offer!)
8mm Dal rod (is this feasible?)
ball chain belt (size recommendation? reprogramming necessary?)

I also have an environmental question!
Could the machine be configured to handle PET (Polyethylene terephthalate)? I have a great resource for it. If possible, how can I render my own spool? (basically, melting plastic bottles into usable material).

If successful, this may be the first RepRap in Japan

Two more questions! *forgetful*

In the BOM for Darwin there's a long list of electronic components and I'm not sure if these are for the various circuit boards or another part of the electronics... which? both?

Regarding PET, and other plastics as well, what kind of impact does melting these plastics have on your workshop? is there a smell or chemical vapor? Also, I do have a basic idea for a PET smelter, but I'm not sure if it will work....

also, please ignore "(өдө" no shift-jis here i guess.

It's one thing to melt a plastic. It's quite another to convert it to usable filament from it.

You can buy it as filament from

[www.plasticweldingrod.com]

The only problem with it is that it melts at 500F (260C). That is considerably beyond the temperature at which the current generation of extruders on Reprap can achieve. It is also uncomfortably close to the temperature at which the Mk II extruder's PTFE thermal break degrades into some unpleasant gases.

The short answer is that you're not going to be extruding PET on a Reprap machine any time soon.

Quote

Lowest Bid RepRapped components (if anyone can offer!)

Not yet. It takes a long time to make a full set of parts, and people with rep(st)raps capable of making darwin structural components are much more keen on doing other things with their time and materials right now

Currently, the best way to obtain structural parts is to have them laser cut from the plans on the website.

well, that takes care of the PET question... perhaps i'll look into developing an extruder for higher temperatures, after i get a machine started anyway.

on the topic of other unlikelihoods, what do you think of building the frame from wood (Dal rod) instead of metal? could it handle the shock? could the axis move freely (with or without special sealant/lacquer)?

do you mean the plywood cutouts?

I took a look at that as well. The measurements on Ian's site are in a different format than the measurements on the main site. The thickness is 4.0/4.4mm but what about the length/width? Is 'P3' "790.0 mm x 384.0 mm"?

Also, there's a list of problems with the designs on the main site... just how critical are those? if necessary, i can cut some parts on my own.

Also, any idea on the plans for the Sanguino? Could I just adapt the Arduino plans and leave the extra pins open for now?

Hi

I asked Zach about the Sanguino pins and he said the pin outs will be published shortly. You could adapt the Arduino plans but be prepared for a few pins to change to make use of the extra capability of the Sanguino.

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Regards

Ian

There are laser cut repraps made from plywood and plastic, to two slightly different designs, I do believe (but I could very well be wrong). I can't recommend one over the other, as I've had experience with neither

As for using wooden rods rather than metal ones... hmm. I'd be mildly skeptical about that, but there's no reason why it shouldn't work. You would need to lubricate the rods which support the X and Y axes quite thoroughly though. You could probably use wooden rods for the cross pieces on the sides, but I probably wouldn't want to use them for the main uprights and axus supports.

Quote

Also, there's a list of problems with the designs on the main site... just how critical are those? if necessary, i can cut some parts on my own.

If you follow the darwin design, you will have a working reprap. So its safe to say those problems are definitely not critical!

There's no reason not to do things differently, or even create a whole new cartesian bot design from scratch. You just won't be able to make make use of the experience of other darwin builders if you run into difficulty.

Quote

Also, any idea on the plans for the Sanguino? Could I just adapt the Arduino plans and leave the extra pins open for now?

It is safe to say that all the electronics are controller agnostic, and the firmware probably is. Therefore, it makes no odds which controller board you choose as nothing makes use of those extra pins *yet*

It would be sensible to get the sanguino, as it 'future proofs' your setup somewhat. It should just be a drop-in replacement for the arduino.

About the Sanguino, my thoughts exactly. I expect Gen3 electronics for it will come out soon and I want to be ready.

Thank's for the info about the plywood! I guess that's probably the best idea for me. I'll be setting the machine up in a small tokyo apartment so the machinery for building a repstrap will be too big and too loud (as well as too expensive)

Also, mistaken identity.. I've been reading too much to keep things straight! the plywood cutouts are on Ponoko's site yes? Ian's site is Bits for Bytes, with the lazer cut, acrylic RepRap (which is beautiful...)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/2008 12:26PM by dadederakh.

>
> It would be sensible to get the sanguino, as it
> 'future proofs' your setup somewhat. It should
> just be a drop-in replacement for the arduino.
>

Until Zach or somebody actually ports the Darwin firmware to Sanguino and gets a real Darwin printing that is pure conjecture.

A few more questions about the plywood designs:

The main site calls for two sheets of technoply and one of MDF.

Do sheet_a.eps (full sheet of parts) and sheet_b.eps (could be rearranged on half a sheet...) go on the technoply?
Ponoko's site has a third sheet, two_beds.eps (full sheet of two beds and some brackets), but the main site does not. Should that be the MDF sheet?

Also, the zip on the main site includes a few .svg files, which i can just barely read (viewed in Adobe SVG viewer), of various parts. I think these were used to compose the .eps files. Is that correct?

These problems sound serious to me:
>Bed corner bracket completely wrong, wrogn, worng. (i see what you did there)
>Add X Carriage, twit. (um... is it ok to say that?)

And I don't know what this means:
>All wide MDF parts removed from ply (this was done or should be done?)

Also, has anyone completed one of these since April?

David

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/2008 03:38PM by David Pimentel.

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David

Forrest Higgs Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > It would be sensible to get the sanguino, as it
> > 'future proofs' your setup somewhat. It should
> > just be a drop-in replacement for the arduino.
> >
>
> Until Zach or somebody actually ports the Darwin
> firmware to Sanguino and gets a real Darwin
> printing that is pure conjecture.
>
>


A pretty solid conjecture though - my understanding is that at most what needs to be done to the firmware is swap around some pin numbers, and last I heard Adrian was already working on that. Is there more that I don't know about?

At the end of September I'll be going home for a little break (about a week) and I'll order things soon to be delivered to my parent's house in Oklahoma during/before that week to save on shipping, so I figure I have about a week or two to decide what I should buy. The trip will be short and cost a lot so I want to make sure I don't waste any time or money!

In the BOM there's a PIC Programmer listed... is this not obsolete?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/2008 12:56AM by David Pimentel.

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David

I've made a reconstituted BOM for the RepRap, minus the Arduino board which I will replace with a Sanguino as soon as the plans are published.

Could anyone tell me if there are any obsolete or missing components?

I'll use the plywood cutouts for the reprapped parts, and probably buy the PCB boards from RRRF. Electrical and structural components I can probably find around Akihabara.

I'd like to shop around for the PCB boards as well, but I can't tell if they are custom designs or something I might find at a tech shop....

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David

The ponoko designs should not be confused with these from Bits from Bytes designed by Ian Adkins which also in the sourceforge repository

The laser cut ply designs on sourceforge, presumably the same version as on ponoko are based on the designs by Toby Borland which were modified by Vic Olliver
From the info here [reprap.org] and having had a look at and worked on the svg files the designs are not perfect and require more work.
Remembering... It looks like some more work has been done on them since then [forums.reprap.org] I would hold off until there is an update

"Also, the zip on the main site includes a few .svg files"

Yes, svg is ponoko's recommended 'base' format for creating designs .eps is the 'final' format that is uploaded on ordering

Thank you!

I just mixed up the website names (o_o) because i am new.

How far off are the designs from being usable?

if adjustments can be made by a little sawing or drilling i could manage perhaps.

I think I will also ask Vik how it's coming along as well.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2008 04:03AM by David Pimentel.

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David

Following Vik's advice, I'll build an acrylic RepRap... I guess that means Bits from Bytes. Not cheap, but possible. Hopefully I can get away with buying just the laser cut parts.

I've reformatted the list of parts, and changed to the more common .doc format.

I wonder about the machined parts for the extruder. Can any of these be found in a hardware shop? I saw nozzles on RRRf. Also, is the 100k thermistor necessary if i build with the thermocouple? It seems to me this part will be replaced...


forgot file

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2008 04:09AM by David Pimentel.

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David

Hi David

Don't take this as a direct sales pitch But please cost up all the parts you will need to complete the Laser cut kit into a working RepRap as we keep our profit to a minimum and as we buy in bulk it is often cheaper from us than elsewhere, unfortunately the shipping is expensive and is out of our control, but if you have to pay to ship from many different place it might work out similar.

We are happy to supply as little or much as needed to help the project.

Our extruder differs from the core design (see our build instructions) and is designed to use as many non-machined parts as possible and no parts require a lathe, just a lot of care with a drill.

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Ian
[www.bitsfrombytes.com]

Thank you Ian!

The laser cutouts came today.

Now off to the hardware store for metal parts!

Then, maybe Akihabara for electronics.

I'll take lots of pictures and post my progress once I start building.

I'm sure I'll be asking this forum for a lot of help!

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David

Man, I wish I could go to Akihabara...!

Demented

Demented Chihuahua Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Man, I wish I could go to Akihabara...!
>
My son was there a few summers ago. He is a real gearhead, but was a bit underwhelmed all the same.

hmmm...I'm not sure if that makes me feel better that I can't go yet or worse that when I can go, it will be less than overwhelming...

Feh...

Demented

Demented Chihuahua Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> hmmm...I'm not sure if that makes me feel better
> that I can't go yet or worse that when I can go,
> it will be less than overwhelming...
>
> Feh...
>
> Demented

It really depends how deep you go into the town. Near the station there's one beautiful electronics shop, but it's in a sea of Duty Free shops all selling the same overpriced, useless junk.

Three or four blocks out you can find shops selling hardware, tools, components, boards, etc. including cutting edge and really outdated stuff. For example, just last weekend I went to look at tools and I found a mini-drill press for $15 and a portable dremel for $10. I didn't buy the latest solar panel usb multicharger, or the most cutting edge eeePC, but they were in the same shop. Across the street i could have bought an original imac for $1.

Timing is a little difficult. The beautiful electronics shop next to the station is actually composed of dozens and dozens of tiny, independent booths that have either been open since the dawn of time or go in and out of business monthly. All of them are one man shops as well, so their hours are subject to lunch breaks, slow days, families, etc. The range of products available is astounding however.

I'd suggest going there around noon when almost everything is open. And don't bother with the Duty Free shops. Spending too much money without paying tax is still spending too much money. If you get really lucky, you can find some of the old radio shops tucked away here and there, which are the reason Akihabara is what it is today.

Also, if your into it, it's FULL of Japanese geek pop. Video games, cosplay, anime, manga, maid cafes, idol video shops, etc etc.... but that's not for everybody.

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David

A new shopping list to reflect the parts of the Bits From Bytes kit.

This list shows everything I found in the manuals on Ian's site, but I've noticed some differences in the actual kit I received. Perhaps the parts set has been updated and the manuals have not? I sent Ian an e-mail about this already.

Anyway, this should be useful for anyone who wants to check their local hardware shop for the nuts and bolts and order just the plastic parts.

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David

dadederakh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Also, if your into it, it's FULL of Japanese geek
> pop. Video games, cosplay, anime, manga, maid
> cafes, idol video shops, etc etc.... but that's
> not for everybody.
>
LOL! Yup, that's what my son was there for.

>>Forest

How old is he?

I'm always hoping to make some new friends here, since I hardly know anybody in Tokyo. If you or he ever come by again, I'd love to hang out!

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David

David,

My son is 22. If the economy manages to right itself between now and about April, I expect that he will be shopping for a job in Japan, either doing technical translation or teaching English.

I'm sure he'd love some contacts in Japan. As for myself, failing getting Tommelise off the ground vis a vis revenue generation, I'm hoping to be based in Prague and doing consulting in Africa again this coming Spring. I'm sick and tired of the States, truth be known. I was gone to long to feel at home here any longer.

Forrest

>>Forrest

Technical Translation is possible, but if he can't get into it immediately he shouldn't be discouraged! Anyone with a college degree can teach English here, and it will help him develop his translation skill while he looks for the job he really wants. I also came here at 22 and worked for two years as a teacher, now I work for an IT company. If he winds up near Tokyo I might be able to help him (but he might steal my job! hah!).

I know how you feel about America... The perspective you get living outside is really eye-opening. I have no plans to move back.

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David