Hi Everyone, I have been working on a design for a useful motor that can be produced with a RepRap. Latest results are at: It uses rare earth magnets, 3D printed plastic parts, and a PCB for the coil. I think it would be cool to incorporate the drive circuitry onto the PCB coil board, so you could make a functional motor with one reprapped PCB, and some printed plastic parts (and magnets ofby MattMoses - General
I have done some work on the assembly part of the self-replication problem. You can see some of the results here: and here: While the work I have done is preliminary, I think in the future we will certainly see machines that can fabricate their own components and assemble them.by MattMoses - Developers
You guys might be interested in the Waxuum, a subtractive toolhead for cutting wax. In prinicple you could run it in reverse and use it to deposit molten wax. It has been noted elsewhere that extruding wax is different from extruding a thermoplastic because wax does not have a broad glass transition. In the words of nophead "it will not work because wax is too runny when hot". However, what mby MattMoses - General
Hi bacree, Your design reminds me a little of the Foton variant of Mendel. Another concept design you might find interesting is the Rhombot. There is also this well-known Makerbot variant which is made by gluing together printed pieces. Some wiki entries that discuss related problems of printing motors, printing circuitry, and so on are: Actuator Fabrication Automated Circuitry Making As fby MattMoses - General
There are many different candidate designs for printable motors. There is a big overview here , including ratchet-type designs . Also promising I think are solenoid-driven rotary motors . A while ago I posted a somewhat-printable motor design here . Technically I guess it would be called a brushless DC motor, but it can be driven like a stepper motor or a DC motor depending on how it is configby MattMoses - Mechanics
> Has there been any work done on "Living Hinges" > in the reprap community? Yes! Here is an example of a living hinge on thingiverse Many of FDavies' projects use all sorts of cool compliant flexures for bearing mounts and such. Technically a compliant flexure is not a "living hinge" but it is close enough to deserve mention. And also (shameless self-promotion) I have done some worby MattMoses - Delta Machines
I had to see this a few times before I appreciated how cool the design is. I like the flexures. Nice work! On the wiki, you mention that the clip "should be oriented so that any sideways force on the bearing should be on the fixed part of the center piece, not the one with the flexures." In some cases, especially with exact-constraint kinematic design, you *want* some flexure in some of theby MattMoses - Look what I made!
Thanks! I added a link to your file from the wiki article. -Mattby MattMoses - General
I posted some MATLAB scripts for drawing gears that might be useful here The involute drawing function is pretty clunky and basic, but it might be something you could modify to suit your needs. -Mattby MattMoses - General
Hi All, I started a wiki review article on Actuator Fabrication that you might be interested in: Many of you will be familiar with most of the information, but I would wager that even the most grizzled old replicators among you might find something new. Please visit and add your own contributions! -Mattby MattMoses - Stepper Motors, Servo Motors, DC Motors
Hi All, I started a wiki review article on Actuator Fabrication that you might be interested in: Many of you will be familiar with most of the information, but I would wager that even the most grizzled old replicators among you might find something new. Please visit and add your own contributions! -Mattby MattMoses - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Hi All, I started a wiki review article on Actuator Fabrication that you might be interested in: Many of you will be familiar with most of the information, but I would wager that even the most grizzled old replicators among you might find something new. Please visit and add your own contributions! -Mattby MattMoses - General
Cool! This guy uses black paint as an etch-resist for cutting steel. If the wavelength of your laser is IR, you may also be able to use an aerosol "clear coat" since many clear polymers are actually black in IR wavelengths... At any rate I really like the idea of combining laser and etching to allow cutting of metals.by MattMoses - Look what I made!
Yep, the compliant mechanism project started out as a proof-of-principle for the etching work. The point of looking at compliant mechanisms, in the big picture, is that they might be produced using some crude low-tech method (like wax-resist etching). The idea is: how do we build a precision motion stage without using precision components to begin with? Compliant mechanisms are of course just oneby MattMoses - Look what I made!
I had this problem too, but figured I was just doing something wrong. Glad I'm not the only one... -Mattby MattMoses - Administration, Announcements, Policy
A little writeup on some experiments with metal etching: -Mattby MattMoses - Look what I made!
Thanks for the feedback. I downloaded FUNdaMENTALS - it looks great. Added a link to it in the "See Also" section of the writeup.by MattMoses - Look what I made!
You might be interested in this small project on compliant mechanisms: -Mattby MattMoses - Look what I made!