Just getting started

Hello everyone, I live down in Houston and have just gotten started on my long journey to having a Darwin. Saw the feature about you folks in MAKE magazine and figured I might be able to help out.

So far I have swapped my trusty laptop to ubuntu dual boot and installed the host software with trappings and recently finished my PowerComms Board! You can see a lame video of a Hyperterminal echo test here if you are bored:

[video.google.com]

Obviously I have a long way to go but I figured I would be asking a lot of questions in the upcoming weeks so this way you would at least know who I am.

yayayayyaya! its such an amazing feeling to see something that i (and others...) have worked so hard on being used. i know its just a small step, but its very exciting nonetheless. it definitely motivates me to keep working hard and fix the things that arent working perfectly yet.

good luck with your machine!

It's great to see that you got the host software installed and running without assistance; that has been a stumbling block for many until recently. Did you use the reprap-host-0.8.1.zip package and install the libraries by hand, per the instructions on the wiki? Or did you use the setup-reprap-host-dev-environment.sh script?

Any feedback on how easy/hard/whatever the process of that install was would be useful, so we can refine things further... any comments you care to make?

Thanks,

Jonathan

Well despite the fact that I used hyperterminal for the test I did install minicom on my ubuntu partition just not as familiar with that and wanted to limit the number of unknowns for my first test.

I installed a standard ubuntu partition and followed your instructions on the wiki to install the libraries by hand. Important caveat: I have not installed the development tools yet, just the host software, so that could be a bit more tricky.

I guess I should also say that I was a computer science undergrad so maybe I had a leg up on some of the other people trying to install it. I feel pretty confident about most of the electronic parts of the machine but am a little more concerned about the cartesian robot. I have no real experience in metal fab so it would be difficult for me to ramp up that much knowledge (and tools!). I saw that a cartesian robot part kit was on the store website for future stocking, are you still planning on making that happen?

I am sure I have a few more weeks of electronic work so not a huge deal but just wanted to let you know at least one person was anxiously waiting for it!

hehe... more than one person is anxiously waiting for it. basically the cartesian kit is on hold until we can either find a really cheap 3d printing service (pretty impossible...) or we actually achieve self replication.

honestly if i had to do it all over again, i'd throw down $3-400 for an off the shelf 3d cartesian machine and attach our motors and extruder and such to it. i dont know how long until we will be successful.

Okay, two last questions and I will stop bothering you for at least a little while:

1)
When I ordered my parts for the Power Comms board I downloaded a BOM that could be directly imported into Mouser's project system. This was great and easy but now I can not find that page nor the listing for the other boards!

Are they still around on the site somewhere, if they are and you could post the link I would be very grateful. I am sure they are around somewhere (as I found them before) but have been clicking away for a while now with no luck.

2) Did first test of Power Comms board with the Host software and opened up the stepper exerciser. In the terminal it activated the port and said device 8, 2, 3, 4 not present... is this correct. I saw in the instructions that in windows it says something else but wasn't sure if linux acted differently. I was also not able to adjust the position sliders in the window.

Thank you guys so much for the help, a project like this is only as good as the people running it and I think you are doing great.

TimmyH79 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Okay, two last questions and I will stop bothering
> you for at least a little while:
>
> 1)
> When I ordered my parts for the Power Comms board
> I downloaded a BOM that could be directly imported
> into Mouser's project system. This was great and
> easy but now I can not find that page nor the
> listing for the other boards!
>
> Are they still around on the site somewhere, if
> they are and you could post the link I would be
> very grateful. I am sure they are around
> somewhere (as I found them before) but have been
> clicking away for a while now with no luck.
>

i'll make a more public announcement later, and link to it from various places, but there is a bill of materials generator located here:

[bom.reprap.org]

i'd like to make a few more feature changes, but it works great so far, generates the electronics BOM's really well. if you want to see the raw data, check out this page:

[reprap.org]


> 2) Did first test of Power Comms board with the
> Host software and opened up the stepper exerciser.
> In the terminal it activated the port and said
> device 8, 2, 3, 4 not present... is this correct.
> I saw in the instructions that in windows it says
> something else but wasn't sure if linux acted
> differently. I was also not able to adjust the
> position sliders in the window.
>
> Thank you guys so much for the help, a project
> like this is only as good as the people running it
> and I think you are doing great.

TimmyH79 wrote:

> In the terminal it activated the port and said
> device 8, 2, 3, 4 not present... is this correct.

Yes. Those are the device controller addresses for the extruder controller, X, Y and Z axis controllers respectively. Until you have a UCB with a PIC talking our "SNAP" protocol, the RepRap host software doesn't have any devices to talk to. If you can jumper T and R on a PowerComms board and get an echo, you are doing fine. It's time to build a UCB and then turn it into your first Stepper Controller!

> I saw in the instructions that in windows it says something else
> but wasn't sure if linux acted differently. I was also not able
> to adjust the position sliders in the window.

That is as it should be -- the sliders will only become active when the system finds devices to control with them out there on the serial ring network. It's hard to test a non-existent Stepper Controller :-)

Incidentally, I'm another software-mostly person who is rather scared of the mechanical construction aspect of RepRap... you are not alone in that concern! Here in Southern California, Eric M and I have sort of "teamed up" to help and encourage each other; he has the hardware background and I have more of a software background -- it is proving to be a good combination! I drove out to his house one weekend to straighten out his Linux host software setup somewhat, and so we could meet face to face. If you can find another Reprapper fairly local to you, this sort of "buddy system" makes the whole thing easier to deal with. Eric and I have half-jokingly declared ourselves to be "SCRUG", the Southern California Reprap Users Group :-)

Even without a local Reprapper buddy, the forums and the IRC channel [chat.reprap.org] are definitely helpful places when you need advice or just want to talk to someone who actually understands what this weird "RepRap" thing is :-)

Jonathan

Thanks for all the help guys, I just ordered the parts for all my Universal Boards / Stepper controllers and testers. Should be a busy weekend!

I will look out for you guys on IRC next time I am online and we can chat in real time for a change.

"if i had to do it all over again, i'd throw down $3-400 for an off the shelf 3d cartesian machine"

I wasn't aware off-the-shelf cartesian machines existed. Have any links?

[www.sherline.com]
[www.taigtools.com]

And a whole lot of kits available on cnczone.com under DIY CNC routers...

Look at the blog entries about Lamarck on the builders blog, that is a converted Sherline...

--Blerik

Yes, Lamarck is a converted Sherline, and he's working pretty well so far, though please note that the $300-$400 mentioned above does not include the stepper motors, which will add another couple hundred to the cost (if you buy the standard ones). If anyone wants to go the Sherline route, please feel free to PM me and I'll provide whatever advice I can.

TimmyH79 - I'm usually on IRC, though not always at the keyboard. Feel free to hop on and we can help ya out with any little snags you may run into while building the boards.