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General discussions. For specific printers / electronics / fabrication methods / softwares, please see other sections.
Re: Where art thou Utopia? - 14 years ago
Utopia is coming soon! Just like always. Seriously, I would consider Mendal a 0.2-0.3 release, so allow us a little time to complete the project. Universal liberation takes time ya know. In an even less sarcastic vein; it is true that Capital (or Spectacle) has a profound ability to absorb technology and reduce it to Consumables. There is a distinct possibility of the evolution of the Mattelby BDolge - Reprappers
Intro video in MPEG? - 14 years ago
I am looking to make a Powerpoint presentation to run as a loop on our RUG table at an upcoming Maker Faire in the DC area. I would like to include the Intro to RepRap movie from the front page of the website, but I am not sure I will have net access at the site. Is there anywhere I can get a stand alone file of the movie? Preferably MPEG but mov or winmedia are OK as well. Thanksby BDolge - General
April 24th B/WRUG meeting - 14 years ago
Hi all, This months' RepRap users group meeting will be going on all day at our table at Robotfest. Plans are to have 1-3 Makerbots running as well as possibly a Darwin on display and a Mendel under construction. Talk about lots of RepRap Goodness on display! We will need some folks to help staff the table,but that mainly involves making sure nothing runs off and sharing whatever you know aboutby BDolge - Baltimore/Wash. DC (and environs) RUG
Jan 2010 meeting - 14 years ago
After a year plus a little bit during which I built myself a garage/workshop, I am pleased to announce the next B/WRUG meeting will occur at my house (6 Wade Av, Catonsville MD21228) at noon on Saturday the 30th of Jan. Our new guy Michael will be bringing his Makerbot Cupcake CNC and will be printing stuff as well as showing off the Mendal parts he has been printing. There are a lot of them. Tby BDolge - Baltimore/Wash. DC (and environs) RUG
Re: Aluminium bars - 15 years ago
I have also been thinking about Al rods for the same reason. Al foundries are simple to build out of scrap and can be fueled with almost anything. Al casting is very efficient relative to creating new Al and steel. Al scrap is freely available worldwide whereas steel rod is not. I have thought that one of the first things I would like to put on Thingverse are the models for casting a Gingerby BDolge - Mechanics
Re: How might the news in this post affect Rep Rap? - 15 years ago
@ quadshop: The other big difference between patents and copyrights (presently) is that patents expire in a reasonable time, whereas copyright(in the US anyway) has an effective duration of "30 years more than Mickey Mouse is old". This project is in fact built around the upcoming expiration of the original FDM patent(in the '80's) by Stratasys. Once a patent has expired it cannot be renewedby BDolge - RepRap Host
New printable batteries - 15 years ago
An article: Some guys in Germany created a battery via screen printing. Not a whole lot of technical info, but unless the layers really need to be that thin (.05 mm if I recall from screen printing class) a syringe type head should be able to print batteries fairly straight forwardly. The Zinc-Manganese reaction is from our old friend the original dry cell carbon core battery. The good news hby BDolge - General
Anyone interested in Meeting a Yank? - 15 years ago
I'm on vacation, and will be in Dublin the nights of June 27th and 28th, and in London on the 29th. Anyone interested in meeting at a pub somewhere to swap lies about or RepRaps and general stuff? Reply to my email and we'll see what we can set up. Hope to see you, Brian Dby BDolge - United Kingdom RepRap User Group
Re: clear plastic - 15 years ago
You might look at Viktor's work with syringed epoxies and LEDs , I know that some epoxies are very clear and if the layers join smoothly internal reflection might not be a problem.by BDolge - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Re: Larger RepRap machine? - 15 years ago
Another problem related to a larger print area is that of layer bonding. With the smaller print area it is easy (or unnecessary) to keep the previous layer warm enough so that the new layer can bond firmly to it. Again this is a print time issue on a small object the layers print quickly enough that the previous layer retains enough residual heat (with perhaps some help from a lamp or hot air bby BDolge - General
Re: Mechanical Engineering Project related to RepRap - 15 years ago
I would agree that the area of RepRap most in need of attention right now is the extruder, I would even go so far as to specify the heater/nozzle component. It would be nice to have a good characterization of the effect of various factors on the thread produced. The important inputs I can think of are plastic type, tube temp, feed pressure, and nozzle size. The outputs might be output rate,by BDolge - General
Re: Wax Print Heads? casting parts? - 15 years ago
Actually, the lost wax process only produces a single metal copy for each wax copy. The wax copy is attached to sprues and vents (also wax) and then enclosed in investment (similar to plaster of paris). The wax is then melted out and later the resulting cavity is filled with metal under pressure. The benefit to the process is that wax is easy to make into amusing and useful shapes, whereas solby BDolge - General
Next Harford Hackerspace Meeting April 5th @ Noon - 15 years ago
Hi guys, I'm passing this along to all the RepRapers in hopes of getting some interest up for David's project. A hackerspace could be a great resource for folks like us so try to stop by. Reply to David for details, including the location. See you there, Brian --- On Wed, 4/1/09, David Powell wrote: From: David Powell Subject: Next Harford Hackerspace Meeting April 5th @ Noonby BDolge - Baltimore/Wash. DC (and environs) RUG
Re: Lasers! - 15 years ago
One possible media is powdercoat plastics. These are very fine powders, generally polyesters with a melting point around 180 C. They are available in a variety of colors. The main drawback is cost which runs around $5 US for a 1 cup (236 cc) (about 1.5 oz). The powder is fine enough to spray like a liquid. The material that results is tough, slightly flexible and chemically inert. Just a thby BDolge - General
Re: March 21st meeting to work on HacDC's Darwin - 15 years ago
To summarize: Who- You, I hope. Me. Some folks from HacDC and surrounding territory, maybe. What- We'll be getting together to spread the good word about RepRap and trying to finish work on the HacDC Darwin machine, so we can claim yet another working machine in the metro area, and the first publicly available! When- Saturday March 21st, Noon- 4 pm Where- HacDC's secret high altitude lair oby BDolge - Baltimore/Wash. DC (and environs) RUG
Re: March 21st meeting to work on HacDC's Darwin - 15 years ago
My understanding from the HacDC overlords is that their Darwin is about 2/3rds assembled, so we should probably plan on doing assembly and tuning/adjusting to get this thing up and running. Maybe we can print a minimug! The address is 1525 Newton St NW, (Near corner of 16th and Newton NW) Driving Directions: Take your best route to the DC beltway- Take exit 30 towards Silver Spring Stay onby BDolge - Baltimore/Wash. DC (and environs) RUG
Re: About opensource fablabs (a plug on openfarmtech.org) - 15 years ago
Forrest: As this is not a RepRap compatible topic, send me a private message if you would like to discuss the suitability of Cambrian and Pre-Cambrian environments for human civilization. The short answer is not good. Brian Dby BDolge - RepLab Working Group
RepRap gets some love from the Art world - 15 years ago
In an article on the rise and meaning of digital manufacturing in the fine arts:by BDolge - General
March 21st meeting to work on HacDC's Darwin - 15 years ago
The HacDC sponsored RepRap build was a huge success with lots of positive feedback and lots accomplished. The actual Darwin machine purchased by HacDC was about 1/3 - 1/2 assembled when last I saw it Sunday. After long and in depth negotiations with the Dark Overlords of HacDC I have gotten permission for our group to venture into the secret lair and work on the Darwin on the 21st of March onby BDolge - Baltimore/Wash. DC (and environs) RUG
Re: Etching: Speeding up with induction burners? - 15 years ago
adding a little citric acid to the FeCl (1 tsp/qt) will speed up the process and produce a cleaner etch. But the muratic acid etch is best, safe, fast and green (in more ways than one).by BDolge - Controllers
Re: Newb a question about TOOL HEADS - 15 years ago
This depends on what you want to cut and how finely you want to cut it. Over at Instructables there are instructions for using a diode laser from a dvd writer to cut black paper stencils. That is probably a decent hack to throw onto a Darwin, but be aware that the positional accuracy of a Darwin is around .05 millimeters which is considerably less than a commercial laser cutter. You might consby BDolge - Reprappers
Re: Reprap in wired blogs as an imaginary gadget - 15 years ago
While I love Sterling's fiction, I find his non-fic work very uneven. This piece seems to be a demo piece for how to misuse the cut and paste function in place of actual thought. 1.-Copy a chunk of someone else's writing 2.-add parenthetical snarky comments 2.5-upload 3.-PROFIT!!! Seriously, as far as I can see his argument is that RepRap is a failure because it isn't perfect, doomed to remainby BDolge - General
Re: a optical mouse sensor could do head positioning with a stop sensor. - 15 years ago
Currently RepRap uses belt drives (w/ opto endstops) for positioning in the x/y dimensions; lead screws are used for the vertical (z) dimension, but movement on that axis is slow and monodirectional and so there is no need for position tracking or corrections at this time.by BDolge - Controllers
Re: Rhinoceros - 15 years ago
Interestingly Rhino appears to be working on a Macintosh port after years of being Win only. I signed up for the beta program but I haven't heard back from them. I like Rhino easy to work with and fairly powerful feature set.by BDolge - 3D Design tools
Re: Position calibration & accuracy - 15 years ago
Firstly, while I am sure a webcam can be gotten anywhere those of us who are now building RepRap's live, the vast majority of the world lives without computers or cameras of any kind. It's known as poverty. And while attempts to alleviate it might well involve sending collections of parts to remote places, the fewer such parts ("vitamins" in RepRap terms) it takes to make a machine the faster aby BDolge - General
Re: Why is the host software written in java? - 15 years ago
One HUGE advantage to Java is its' "mindshare". My mother-in-law has Java on her PC and knows it and is comfortable with it. If she didn't have it I could tell her how to get it with minimal bother. If I told her she needed Python on her PC she would probably drop the whole idea as too snake related. Just a thought.by BDolge - RepRap Host
Re: Position calibration & accuracy - 15 years ago
Not that I want to stand in the way of progress, but I am not sure this would be it. Loss of position over the course of a print is not a problem I am aware of anyone having, due to the lack of backlash in Darwin. Even if this does present a problem ( as Wade mentions with his Z adjustments) regular returns to a test point are called for, unless you you plan for some very high end AI which canby BDolge - General
Re: Toolhead controller design ideas - 15 years ago
I am thinking that I agree with John, Why build a huge multi capability controller and shuffle lots of data back and forth when you can build small specialized boards that sit on the toolhead and pass minimal info to the main controller? The result is simpler, cheaper boards, fewer cables to get tangled and a modular system that is easy to expand/adapt. I would design the Cartesian bot/controlby BDolge - Controllers
Re: some thoughts about pick & place - 15 years ago
Pick and place is either trivial or incredibly hard, depending on the parameters. If you have known objects in known positions and orientations being moved to other known positions and orientations the programing is simple and the important variables are the tolerances of your robot and final product. This type of machine is great for mass production but of little use for reprap since we are mby BDolge - General