Mendel Parts for sale! frame-vertex_6off

Hello all,

I have been working on building a Mendel. I have a CNC mill which I build and is working great, so we decided to mill some of the big Mendel parts that take around 3 hours to print each. We just finished up the 6 frame vertex parts. We made then in two pieces that bolt together and they work great. I believe they are actually be much stronger then printed ones.

So we decided to see if we could help anyone else out. If you would like a set then send me an e-mail at jupdyke@gmail.com. I am thinking that $50 sounds fair, for the time it takes to make them. Attached are some photos of what you would get.




What do you guys think?

cheers,
Josh

Making a mendel using anything but an extruder is non-canon, un-RepRaplike, and we don't tolerate forks here.
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It sounds cool, actually. When you make some next time, do you want to tack up a few pictures on the wiki under Mendel/Milled?
[objects.reprap.org]

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Also, you realize this means we'll need to figure out how to make a mendel mill stuff. And you'll have to put an extruder on your mill.

Way cool,

it is to bad somebody could not find a way to mass produce these it might help jump start some more.

it would be cool to do this maybe with other parts that there are also multiple of like bar clamps then you might have a better chance of selling these to recoup.

Awesome work! I hope a lot of people buy it from you.

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repraplogphase.blogspot.com

Actually my plan all along was to put the extruder head on my mill, but we have been waiting for the programming cable to program the extruder controller. So in the mean time we started looking at the Mendel parts to see if we could mill some more.

I have 4 people who already want a full set of Mendel parts, so I am already making quite a few of these. I figured if anyone else wanted some I would throw a few more on the to do list.

We also milled the x-carriage-belt-clamp. The part dimension is 31mm.



and we are planning on trying to mill this part as well, but we need to pick up a new bit first.



I will post some more photos as we make some more stuff.

Josh

Joshua: The middle 3 holes of the frame-vertex is not used.
So I think you could spare a bit of time to not make it.

Look for example to this picture:


(ok, the motor holder, leadscrew-base are upside down, but the frame-vertex are right)

Best regards.
[blog.arcol.hu]

I feel better about mounting my motor holder and leadscrew-base upside down now!

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Darwin clone, Gen 2 electronics, Arduino Duemilanove w/ AtMega328, 5D Firmware, Pinchwheel extruder
[www.codeerrors.com]

I figured out that the center holes are not used after I cut out a set. Since the code is already programmed, I am just gonna leave it in. Unless someone want me to take it out, but I don't know why you would. Either way, I am hoping to get some more milled parts. These cut a lot faster then they extrude and if we can mix and match milling and printing parts, we should be able to get more parts into the wild. The more Mendels the better.

josh

hey, I'm making these as well, do you want my cnc files so you can make them too? the files are not pretty, but work.


what setup do you have? machine/software? i see that the corners have some cleanup needed and the top looks vertically cut, what 3d cad program are you using, and are you using pencil clean up? pencil clean up will clean out the corners, also cut the plastic thinner and at a faster speed to prevent plastic from melting.


james

James,

I have been building this cnc router for a while now and finally got it to actually start cutting some useful parts out. The basic set up is a precision lead screw based system. The Software I use is Mach3 and lazycam. Neither is particularly amazing, however I just got a copy of MasterCam, which runs inside of Solidworks and I am going to try that out.

My machine can reasonably do 15" per min as a travel speed. I have tried to bump it up to 20" and had mixed results. So right now 15" is where we are at. I also cut those parts out using a roto-zip bit, which seemed to do well, but obviously not the best bit. I just picked up two end mill bits, 1/8" - 4 flute, and 1/4-2 flute. Those were the only thing I could get in town, and honestly I was surprised to find those. I am gonna give them a try and see what happens.

The pictures are from the first set. I tweaked the settings a little and the second set came out even better. But I already mailed them off.

What are machine / software are you using? do you have any photos of the ones you cut?

Josh

if you switch your motor cnc controller to 1/2 step you will have better results, using a screw setup, oil it and you will probably gain about 5 IMP, using 1/8 1/16 provides too little torque at high rpms, many cnc controllers can not do 1/8 or 1/16 correctly anyway.

I use mach III/ emc2, and use a program to generate gcode called meshcam. it is worth every penny and includes a 30 day trial full version (BTW, i am not associated with them at all, just Google meshcam). it is a godsend as it optimizes paths and shaves off about 1/2 the machine time and properly does the calculations for you. my favorite feature for plastic parts is that i can ruff cut .045 inches per pass leaving .01 left over on stock and then do a finishing pass at higher federate without overloading the tool or bit.

I'll be posting pictures of parts this weekend.

James

Hi, Joshua,

What is the green plastic you are machining? Delrin? HDPE? I am considering a hybrid approach to Repstrapping to a Mendel (since our McWire repstrap is *not* a speed demon).

Thanks,

-ethan

I am not positive about the material, but I believe that it is polyethylene. I cut them from some plastic that I get locally and they just list it as plastic. It is very hard though and machines rather nicely.

Josh

We have been so busy with making parts and building 4 repraps in town, and helping with another 6 or seven out of town, that we never posted any pictures of the frame assembled with our milled parts. Just in case anyone was worried about the parts working, here is a photo of the frame assembled.



More later, but if anyone is interested we have got these down to a science now.

cheers,
Josh