That's really cool that you guys got extruded clay to work. I guess I'll put it on my to-do list!by wayland - General
Hm, I might actually change my mind and go for the Seeduino; I think I need to do a little more research first, though. I'm afraid I'm kind of derailing this thread, though. Jakob, tell us how the usbtiny works out!by wayland - Sanguino(lolu)
I was planning on having the male headers on the sanguino and the drivers and things and making female-female jumper wires with the female headers to connect them, but now that I think of it, soldering onto one end with a female header on the other seems like less work while keeping the flexibility. Hm. But yeah, it kind of threw me off how some of the stepper drivers in that schematic had someby wayland - Sanguino(lolu)
Where did you get a seeduino mega for under $40? I'm probably going to go with a preprogrammed sanguino and the usb-ttl cable, mostly because I can see myself temporarily stealing the usb-ttl cable for future freeduino projects. I could totally see buying a usbtiny if I were going to use it for future projects, because it works out cheaper that way.by wayland - Sanguino(lolu)
Why is the sanguino wiring diagram so confusing? I'm about to buy a bunch of male and female headers to go along with the pololu stepper driver and the sanguino, and it seems like each stepper driver has things that go all over the place. Here's what I'm talking about: . Is it a trifle to rearrange things in the programming? Or should a just buy a thousand 1-pin female headers?by wayland - Sanguino(lolu)
I'm pretty sure clay can be extruded, but that might cause all kinds of problems when firing if there are bubbles in it.by wayland - General
to the machine assembly question: honestly... why? It seems like a lot of work for something that would take much less work. We can improve documentation, plus building a 3D printer is half the fun, as well as making it easier to troubleshoot.by wayland - General
Unless I completely don't know what a ball screw is, the McWire repstrap uses something similar, except without a ball bearing. The main problem encountered there is that they're too slow, but I'm sure that could change with a different pitch. If I'm not mistaken, the mendel z-axis almost uses ball screws, too.by wayland - Extruded Aluminum Frames
I think wax would work. It doesn't need a high temperature, so it would liquify at PLA or ABS temperatures, but isn't it pretty easy to change temperature? And of course you can't buy strings of wax, but it would be pretty easy to make a gravity-fed, heated wax hopper. I'm experimenting with lost-wax casting with scrap aluminum and will definitely try this when I finish my reprap. It would be pby wayland - General
that's a really good idea! thanks. I should have looked at the mcwire a little moreby wayland - Mechanics
My repstrap design calls for a stepper motor to directly drive the threaded rod for the z-axis (like darwin).Unfortunately, I have no access to printed parts. My motor shaft is 3/16" and my threaded rod is 3/8". I was thinking about finding some way to attach them using a coupling nut and drill a hole in the threaded rod and coupling nut. My motor shaft has a hole in it that seems to be made forby wayland - Mechanics
thanks! I will try some of these on scrap and report back when I order the belts.by wayland - Mechanics
wait, so drive belts are two easily separated layers? do you think I could sew them myself? edit: oh, or do you mean cut top off one and bottom off the other with respect to the z-axis? or the y-axis? assuming the belt is parallel to the x-axis.by wayland - Mechanics
I'm looking at drive belts mcmaster-carr ( ) and they seem to sell them pretty cheaply by the foot, plus I may need odd lengths for my cobbled-together repstrap. How do you think I could join the ends of a belt to make it into a loop?by wayland - Mechanics
could you measure the distance between the two rods that the carriage goes on?by wayland - General
this extruder looks so nice! I'm building a repstrap machine and am wondering what parts from the mendel set I need printed; I have an online friend who will print a few parts for me. Is it just x_carriage_lower and x_carriage_upper? I'm not very familiar with mendel design. here's adrian's blog post: and the wiki page: thanks! edit: to clarify, I will be running the carriage on two stainlby wayland - General
I agree that nothing can (or should) stop this creativity, but if we're headed towards a design that we cannot sustain, we want to gently nudge away from that before we get too heavily invested in that design, you know?by wayland - General
Disclaimer: this is just my (admittedly radical) interpretation of these things. Efficient how? If you mean electricity-efficient, I feel like reprap provides much more flexibility for using sustainable energy sources. It's easier to power your reprap with homemade windmills than a manufacturing plant. If you mean cost, you're not factoring in profit and labor. It may be cheaper to make a paby wayland - General
I may have a different point of view than most, but here it goes: An assumption with a lot of economic reckoning is that it's a zero-sum game; that, if one person doesn't manufacture something, somebody else will because there's a demand for it. This is pretty untrue. A modern industrial society perpetuates itself - people buy things from companies because the companies pay for marketing which nby wayland - General
Yeah, definitely don't do this just because you feel like you have to.by wayland - General
the voltage for a capacitor is insignificant as long as you stay under it. What you really need to pay attention to is the capacitance - usually in microfarads (uF) or farads (F).by wayland - Controllers
Thanks, but I'm already pretty well-read on how stepper motors work. Right now I'm concerned mostly with building the actual cartesian robot and buying the electronics. The pololu drivers seem perfect for what I need, though. I will report back when I have everything set up.by wayland - Controllers
I really recommend openSCAD. I am not a programmer and started messing around in it a few days ago and it's very intuitive to me - instead of actually 'drawing' an object, you describe it as the shapes that make it. The only tough part is hat the documentation is a little weak. The tutorial on iheartrobotics.com ( ) is really helpful, and so is the wikibook openSCAD manual ( ).by wayland - General
@ triffid_hunter: my mistake, I think I saw the mouse encoders and assumed you used them as rotary encoders for your steppers - looking back I have no idea how I reached that conclusion. @ mfssamuel: I think you misread - my motors are 18 degree, not 1.8 degree. I actually just looked back at the store, they have no current specs, so apparently my subconscious made up the "between .5 and 1 amp"by wayland - Controllers
I vote for the extruder - you don't necessarily need a set of mendel parts to build a reprap/strap, but you need an extruder regardlessby wayland - General
someone should probably add these guys: from the wiki page on ABSby wayland - General
How about a reprappable antikythera mechanism?by wayland - Let's design something! (I've got an idea ...)
I'm building my repstrap and wondering: how much filament does it take to print the average object? About how much filament does it take to print the mendel parts? Thanks!by wayland - General