chrissketch Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > I don't waste my time > telling you what the best spoon is to dig a hole > when you can afford a shovel. +1!by julianh72 - General
chrissketch Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You might be able to make it a bit cheaper if you > print it in red with a few yellow stars =D LOL!!!by julianh72 - General Mendel Topics
@TTYlater: Yes, OK, we get it! But where is the community of tens of thousands of CNC Millers who are making copies of their CNC Mills, distributing the plans, upgrading the designs incrementally, milling parts for other would-be CNC Millers who are just getting into it - AND making useful "stuff" (as well as some not-so-useful "stuff"!)? If / when the CNC Milling (or any other RP technologyby julianh72 - General
@wixi: I don't know if these comments apply to the specific STL files you are referring to, but I have had some issues with some STL files generated by some applications (including Alibre Design PE) being readable in some applications but not being readable in other applications. This is a known issue with some valid STL files in RepRap host for example: When doing a bot of digging, I found thby julianh72 - General
comwarrior Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > julianh72 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > the print goes from -200.0 mm to 26.1 mm in Z > > and is 226.1 mm high > > Erm, i believe your Z axis should not be going > into the minus. > A minus means it's going to put your extruder head > THROUGH yby julianh72 - Skeinforge
Sorry if this is answered elsewhere - can someone tell me how to activate / calibrate the calculation of how much filament is used in a print? I am using SFACT / Pronterface. Whenever I load an STL, the skeining process always finishes with a block of text something like: 300.0 mm of filament used in this print the print goes from 24.246 mm to 151.254 mm in X and is 127.008 mm wide the printby julianh72 - Skeinforge
Andrew, To be honest, I don’t think I am ready to take on the responsibility for promising to print such large parts for you. My machine is very new, and I am still calibrating and upgrading it. I can get errors from time to time even in short prints (2 – 3 hours duration); the likelihood of getting an error-free 12-hour print of a part that fills the print bed on my machine right now is probablby julianh72 - Australia - for sale
Andrew, Yes 4 mm columns would probably print fine - the surface might be a bit rough looking, but they should be OK otherwise. My biggest possible print is about 165 mm x 165 mm x 150 mm high. Height shouldn’t be a problem, but the 1:500 m model will just about max out my horizontal size limits. 1:250 would probably need to be split into several smaller models. Also, please not that doublingby julianh72 - Australia - for sale
Some more photos. I'm not sure that these printed parts are of "merchant quality" yet!by julianh72 - Australia - for sale
Well, I had a bit of a catastrophe - I had a momentary power black-out with about 5 minutes to go! Anyway, I have posted some photos, so you can see how it was going. Two things to note: 1. My "raft" lifted off the "Blue Tape" at three of the corners, deforming the base of the print. (Note to self: always replace the "Blue Tape" before a major print job!) 2. As I feared, the fine detail partsby julianh72 - Australia - for sale
Sketchy, Just starting to take a close look at your model - the finest features are still VERY fine - 1.0 mm shells, 1.0 mm column stubs, etc. I'll have a go at printing it, but I think for best results using RepRap printing, try to keep the following parameters in mind: 1. 1 mm shells are certainly possible, but the model will be a LOT stronger if you can limit shells to say 2 to 3 mm thicknesby julianh72 - Australia - for sale
Sketchy, Is this a student project, or a real commercial commission? I am not sure my machine is up to commercial expectations for quality yet. In general, hollow shells are probablyy better than solids for items like this - much faster to print, and much less material required. Basically, I would only use solid when you NEED it - e.g. parts which have to carry real loads, etc. My machine is sby julianh72 - Australia - for sale
Overhangs are not necessarily a problem per se, as the software will automatically add "support" material where necessary, which can be broken away very easily with your fingers. The problem is with very fine isolated parts (like 1 mm slender columns), which the printer will try to build, but is right at the limit of the technology. I was rounding off the imported dimensions a bit. Yes, the softby julianh72 - Australia - for sale
I imported the model and it scales as 86 mm x 56 mm x 26 mm high. (See attached). How big do you actually want it? It looks like it should mostly print OK - I'm a bit worried about the posts that support the walkway canopies etc - they could be so fine that they may break off - especially as there will need to be some support material to hold up the overhanging elements, and it could be tricky tby julianh72 - Australia - for sale
@makeme: You keep accusing me of "unfair comparisons" - i'm not TRYING to compare "like for like", i'm just trying to answer the OP's original question about whether RepRap is suitable for making military figurines. In my opinion, RepRap almost certainly won't be able to reproduce the sort of fine detail they are wanting to see at the scale required - yet. But there are other 3D technologies likby julianh72 - General
I realise this is an old posting - but I thought i would boast share my success in getting my Prusa Mendel to print wirelessly using two XBee modules - full details on my blog:by julianh72 - Controllers
DOH!!!!! I had the UART / DLINE switch on the XBee Shield switched to DLINE instead of UART. (No, I don't know what it means either! I just know you have to have it switched to DLINE to upload new sketches to the Arduino by USB cable, and UART for wireless comms to work.) Flicked it back to UART, and it seems to be working perfectly - I can now drive my RepRap from another room! Full detailsby julianh72 - RAMPS Electronics
I have managed to get my Arduino (with RAMPS 1.4 attached) to talk wirelessly to my PC using XBee with a simple test program, but I can't get Pronterface to talk to the RAMPS (with Sprinter) via the XBee. I can't attach the XBee shield in the usual way (i.e. stacking shields on top of each other) because it is only a standard sized shield, not a Mega shield, so I can't put it between the Arduinoby julianh72 - RAMPS Electronics
Good luck with your project. Just a thought - have you considered building a RepRap such as a Prusa from scratch, rather than buying a ready-made kit machine? You would need less money to start (or could build more machines with the same initial capital), and the participants would get so much knowledge and experience out of the process of building it themselves!by julianh72 - General
+1 for the Wiki Calibration - it improved my print quality enormously! Thanks for the TitanPad link - it has some more tests and instructions which I will have look at to see if it addresses a few more of my issues.by julianh72 - General
My hot end (the standard "Geared Extruder Nozzle" with 6.8 ohm resistor, which draws about 1.8 Amps / 20 Watts at 12 V - see: ) gets up to temperature in a minute or two. (I have never timed it, as it happens quite quickly.) I don't have any insulation, other than wrapping the whole assembly in a couple of layers of Kapton tape to keep the wires etc in place. It sounds to me like you might needby julianh72 - Reprappers
To get a PC power supply to work as a general purpose power supply, you NEED to put a load on the 5 V line (e.g. permanently solder in a 10 ohm / 10 Watt power resister between the 5 V (Red) and ground (Black) wires. You also NEED to connect the Brown "Power Good" line to a low voltage supply (e.g. an Orange 3.3 V line). The heatbed on its own should be drawing something like 8 to 12 Amps (100 tby julianh72 - General
CeeThreeEs Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You can prevent the arduino from resetting when > you connect your usb cable by putting a capacitor > between gnd and the reset switch (as described > here). Not sure whether this is feasible on a > RAMPS board as I don't have one - I have built my > RAMPS electronics on a solder-pad board so there >by julianh72 - RAMPS Electronics
makeme / jbayless, You missed my point - I said: " ... your own RepRap printer - which WON'T be able to achieve the finest level of detail that can be achieved with the best commercial 3D printing techniques, but should be able to get close to commercial FDM." Yes, a well-tuned home-built RepRap should be able to "get close to commercial FDM" (by which I mean the sort of FDM machine used byby julianh72 - General
makeme Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You might want to try sending your 3d files to a > printing house first. That would let you see just > how much detail you could get without buying (and > getting frustrated with) your own printer. E.g. take a look at Shapeways (sorry for the "advertisement" - I have absolutely no affiliation with them) or similby julianh72 - General
I have been working my way through the calibration exercises on the Wiki page - and have been seeing some significant improvements in my print quality as a result - thanks to everyone who has contributed to this information! I worked my way down to the "BridgeTestPiece.stl", but this piece imports REALLY small (a cube 2.8 mm to a side, with 0.4 mm penetrations through it). I scaled this part upby julianh72 - General
buket, I have been following your other posts but haven't been able to contribute much, as I don't know exactly what electronics a Glider comes equipped with. The manufacturer's website is a bit obscure, because they talk about both RAMPS and GEN6 - I thought these were different systems. Could you post a photo to help us work out what you actually have? RAMPS is an add-on board that goesby julianh72 - Australia, Brisbane RepRap User Group
emj Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Someone just uploaded an new image on Commons, not > sure if it was from here. I like the Tower feel of > that one. Yes, that was me! (I tried to keep the images "uncluttered"; my machine, on the other hand, has a quite "cluttered" look to it - but I like it that way. I don't WANT my machine to look like I bought itby julianh72 - General
progomez Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > i personally think self replication is a hindrance > sometimes as a good few build a reprap just to > make money building repraps. This argument has gone completely circular: Q: What makes RepRap special? A: The fact that it is self-replicating. Q: But can't all tools self-replicate? A: Up to a point - but Repby julianh72 - General
As Jeremy Clarkson (presenter of BBC car show "Top Gear") would say: "There's no such thing as too much power!" As long as you only hook up a maximum of 12 V (i.e. don't short the mains voltage to the 12 V side, and don't hook the -12 V to Ground, coz you might get 24 V total!), and connect to your RAMPS with correct polarity, you can't really "overpower" the RAMPS, and your unit has enough poweby julianh72 - Reprappers