Very elegant. The bracket will need to be rigid enough to avoid it flexing and then binding on the support. kyle: if it works it could be used to make the machine smaller, if the printing area is already large enough.by peteredworthy - Mechanics
Hooray indeed. I got mine Monday and have been covering my front room with parts ever since I think it's probably worth also mentioning some of the other stuff Ian's been up to: There are now video tutorials on the bitsFromBytes site for building The Heater Barrel and The Extruder Drive Assembly. He has also put cad files for the laser cut parts and their layout up in the reprap sourceforgeby peteredworthy - General
The problem of the leveling device leaving marks, 'streaks', in the powder got me thinking. Vibrating the container would make the powder behave more like a liquid and find it's own level, unfortunatly this isn't suitable if the power needs to be compacted.by peteredworthy - Powder Printing and Selective Laser Sintering
Another candidate, although possibly not on it's own is kapton. It has a large temp range, -269by peteredworthy - Mechanics
I didn't think of it not being listed because it was too low ;-}> Sorry for nearly leading you astray, thanks Nophead. It looks like the Junction Capacitance determines the switching time, which I had confused recovery time. Given that wikipeadia page estimates the switching time at 100 ps to 10 ns depending on the diodes power handling it seems calculating how much faster than 200 ns it is wby peteredworthy - Reprappers
Jitsukablue Wrote: > Which leads me to my first question. The diodes > in the 'new' stepper motor electronics are much > bigger and different voltages from the smaller > ones that the universal control board specifies. > Can I use these instead? Specifically these are > Mouser PN 512-SB360 (3A/60V Schottky rectifiers). > Otherwise I'll have to order the other diodes >by peteredworthy - Reprappers
Looking at the store and the wiki the information is there, but if you didn't find it I'm sure others will have the same problems. I think part of the problem lies in that the page linked to, from the rrrf store, while giving a lot of information about the item doesn't actually say which generation it is for or if it is optional. This information is available though on the wiki via 'Make yourby peteredworthy - Reprappers
mimarob; the Arduino already connects much like that with the stepper boards and limit switches: Step and direction lines for each stepper. A single active low line for each limit 'switch', although it would only be a software change to use active high. Parallel ports operate at between 2.4 and 5 V and normally don't supply much current, 2.5 ma is typical. They can sink more current, 20 ma, bby peteredworthy - EMC2
Dylan you mentioned 2W -> 5W diodes, are they already pulsed to reach that figure ? If not it doesn't sound far fetched to get the energy density required for cutting wood, even if the max power doesn't quite scale linearly. The final parts of the equation is checking the optics will do what we want, or finding some that will. Spot Size: about 50 microns or less, Focal Distance: enough spacby peteredworthy - Laser Cutter Working Group
hi Andy, I've been meaning to reply to your post for a bit but wanted to check with my brother who actually works with lasers first. First the bad news, combining 4 beams would be both very difficult to align and expensive for the beam combiners. The good news is that cutting wood is apparently easier than I imagined; They have asked if the above wouldn't work what it would take. My thoughtsby peteredworthy - Laser Cutter Working Group
Hi, Just trying to follow where my logic went wrong. I get with the half vs full winding current I was trying to keep the voltage the same where power and hence heat build up is the actual limiting factor. The current limiter also limiting voltage I'm having more trouble with, as I thought the effective resistance of a motor changed according to it's load. So under a light load/no load the motoby peteredworthy - Controllers
I'm a bit confused where the 1.4A comes from. You can either drive them 'half winding' using the center taps and one end of each coil or you can run them 'full winding' using the end connections of each coil. See page 7 & 8 for diagrams If you are running them 'half winding' then the full current can be applied to them, 1.82A in this case. If you are running them 'full winding' then halfby peteredworthy - Controllers
Having a C background will help make the syntax familiar, but despite looks Java is tailored for a very different style of coding than C. Probably the best book to learn from is 'Thinking in Java' by Bruce Eckels. He has the previous version available as a PDF at: The Gang of Four book is also a good read; that while not specifically about Java would make a great next step. Design Patterns: Eleby peteredworthy - RepRap Host
If you don't have a programmer at all then a 'JDM' style programmer is very simple to make and works well. I built one to program the 16C's but it should work with PIC24's. For the software I've been using winpic but there are also progs for linux supporting JDM programmers. I think there is a description in the wiki somewhere of how to build one on strip-board.by peteredworthy - Controllers
> The opto sensors are open collector, but unfortunately they pull low when not sensing the flag so cannot be simply wired together. I think they can be chained together with the sense line from one sensor going to the next sensors Ground. The only potential issue is using a virtual ground on all but the last sensor. If a sensor goes high resistance the voltage drop between Vcc and Gnd on thby peteredworthy - Controllers
It's listed as 'small heat sink'by peteredworthy - Controllers
I like the idea of less parts, but I'm having trouble imagining how the pin would be mounted. I've done a little diagram of what I came up with, but it involves putting the pin holder above the heater. I can't see that working as the plastic is still solid there. Also how would we insure that the barrel moved to the same height each time? Thanks in advance, Peteby peteredworthy - Mechanics
Dylan Just brings up a reply box, I can't see any posts.by peteredworthy - Plastic Extruder Working Group
I, and I'm sure others, also had the string thought. eD gave it a lot of thought back in 2006 BitsFromBytes have a wire based Z stage, not much on the site about it. I understand that Ian is sending out a batch of kits based on this imminently. Assuming I can put mine together, and no-one else has done theirs faster/better I'll photo the mechanism and post here ;-}> Wrapping the string/wireby peteredworthy - Mechanics
A better google search is Which lists all patents assigned to Stratasys rather than all those that refer to Stratasys somewhere within them. It comes back with 52 patents, I've not checked if they are all different though.by peteredworthy - General
I know acronyms can be off putting but they are often more successful when searching than a phrase. There downside is that they are often used with multiple meanings all of which will be returned unless a further search term is used. Below are the results of searching, via goggle, for "fused deposition modelling" and "rapid prototyping" as phrases and acronyms in order of number of 'hits' found.by peteredworthy - General
Hi, The URLs for the host SVN sub-repository on is missing the selection of the branch and of the main reprap dir. OLD>> ACTUAL>> The final check out all address should probably include branch information and the main reprap dir as well as otherwise a separate copy for each tag and branch will be downloaded. OLD>> NEW>> Thanks in advance, Peteby peteredworthy - General
A cheap arm7tdmi platform is the GBA, adding extra IO isn't trivial but has been done by others and so is probably documented somewhere. >Im more curious to look into the PC side of things, I want to make a C,C++,C# port of it Without wanting to start a debate on which programming language is the best, as we all know ML would win ;-}>, I don't see much to be gained by changing the platforby peteredworthy - General
Hi, The original PIC electronics were based on a ring network where further boards could be added/addressed. I seem to remember that the Arduino based system can also be networked to include further boards to expand I/O capabilities. I think the single Arduino system is mostly the result of the higher cost and higher processing power of the Arduino making it sensible to control as much as possibby peteredworthy - General
There's still having it mine the raw materials and fab the IC's ;-}> As far as I'm concerned the point at which given one I can make another using only commodity parts was when it reached as self replicating as I need. From here on it is making it more useful and the replication easier/cheaper. PCB Milling covers both nicely. tofletcher: What tool-chain are you using to build the firmware?by peteredworthy - General
I'm not sure how important producing commonly available parts, such as micro-controllers is, but being able to add simple control systems to reprap's creations would be very useful. In the field of micro-fluidics there is also 'bubble logic' It may not be practical yet though as I don't know how large the channels can be made before the bubbles stop repelling each other enough for it to work.by peteredworthy - General
Actually it's the opposite; javax/swing/GroupLayout$Group only exists in Java6 up-wards. It is the result of using NetBeans to generate the GUI code. NetBeans uses the latest JDK GUI components unless an option is set so I assume the last person to generate the GUI code hadn't set the 1.5 compatibility option. As a first attempt I'd suggest updating/installing and configuring the JDK by: >by peteredworthy - RepRap Host
The NXT is great fun but it has a few handicaps for using the motors with the reprap. The NXT motors achieve their 1 Deg. resolution using a course encoder driven from the motor before the large gear train that gears the output down. There is a nice picture here. Playing with mine the backlash, between the output and the encoder is approx. 5 Deg which would be hard to design around. The torquby peteredworthy - Mechanics
The PropertiesResourceBundle Reads from human readable properties files and doesn't need sub-classing per language. The sub-classing per language is only used when an algorithm varies by country. The standard example is field value sanity checking: Consider the Zimbabwe Dollar currently the exchange rate is ZWD 30,000 to USD 1.00. A value of 1,000,000 in a shopping cart application using USD sby peteredworthy - RepRap Host