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General discussions. For specific printers / electronics / fabrication methods / softwares, please see other sections.
Re: RepRap or conventional manufacturing cheaper? - 17 years ago
Personally, I think I'd just grind up the molds, and re-use the plastic, and metal. I believe greensand is already reusable. Being able to print them out on demand, (with some small delay,) makes storage moot for anything more than sentimental reasons. Also, I believe this thread has gone circular.by Roach_S - General
Re: Support material header - 17 years ago
My understanding was the waterdrop shape, the one used as the reprap symbol, was chosen/developed because the extruders could produce it without support material. I don't know if I like the idea of having a right angle in anything that takes stress, but for all I know the corner brackets may be overengineered as it is.by Roach_S - General
Re: 'Magic' bolt length? - 17 years ago
I don't have your answer, but if you don't get one, pack ziplocks and post-its. Put each size in a different ziploc, and drop a post-it, with the size on it, in the bag. Having the post-its pre-filled out, along with the needed quantity, could also double as your shopping list.by Roach_S - Mechanics
Re: RepRap or conventional manufacturing cheaper? - 17 years ago
Actually, with self assembling rep-raps, capable of initializing the new copies, or at least capable of producing the means to initialize the new copies, (read, reprapped robots,) and with dirt-cheap materials, (I THINK potting soil is probably more expensive than flour,) they would merely take up more space. They would not be slower. I think that was his point. Your 131072 repraps, AS a factoby Roach_S - General
Re: RepRap or conventional manufacturing cheaper? - 17 years ago
Thoughts. You don't stand a chance. Finger stamina alone wouldn't be enough. You have but one brain to conceptualize with. The best way to figure out how many unique and interesting ways a reprap can be put is to make a few (thousand), and check back in a decade or so to see what developed. Six billion people are so much more creative than a mere thirty or so. As for local craftsmen. Reprapby Roach_S - General
Re: RepRap or conventional manufacturing cheaper? - 17 years ago
You're willing to postulate a future reprap that can produce clothes, but not one, eventually, that is capable of self assembly? Also, that $400 target price, as I understand it, are for the parts that rep-rap can't make, as the raw materials for what it can are very cheap...unless you have to go through stratsys to get them. A future, later generation, reprap, might very well be able to produceby Roach_S - General
Re: RepRap or conventional manufacturing cheaper? - 17 years ago
Samuel, point by point. one. No further comment. two. repraps need only get down to the ability to make decent shoes for $20, (materials, wear, and energy,) and the cost of shoes has to be reduced to $19 to compete. Thus, for very basic and cheap items, mass-manufacture will almost certainly survive...but the price is forced to stay competitive or RepRap will simply route around it. Also, thby Roach_S - General
Re: RepRap or conventional manufacturing cheaper? - 17 years ago
Well... Remember people talking about hacking that cricut? Imagine taking something like Blender, scanning in a 3D model of the subject, painting the clothing onto the wireframe, then using a script to assist in slicing up the wireframe so it lays flat... then using a giant cricut to chop the resulting design out of a bolt of cloth. A human, probably, would still have to do the actual sewing,by Roach_S - General
Re: RepRap or conventional manufacturing cheaper? - 17 years ago
Personally. I believe both. I believe that RepRap will allow some things, for which there is not a sufficient market in a small area, to be produced on demand. This will allow two steps in the supply chain to be eliminated, transportation and storage of finished goods. Consider convincing your shopkeeper to keep every possible variant of salt shaker in stock, at all times, in a community of lby Roach_S - General
Re: Positioning system ideas - 17 years ago
I could be in error...I've never held a stepper in my hand, (that wasn't still a part of a functional appliance, like a CD-Rom drive.) The way I understand steppers, is... charge a coil, the shaft turns a bit. Charge the next coil, the shaft turns a bit in the same direction. Charge the coil after that, the shaft turns a bit in the same direction...in such a manner that you could get a "typicaby Roach_S - Mechanics
Re: Extruder kit is here! - 17 years ago
Better yet. If castings made from the cast parts can be used to make functional parts. That way, one set of Stratsys produced parts can be used to make one mold, (then put in a safe,). That mold can be used to make a couple hundred parts, (which are shipped out.) Those parts can be used to make a soft mold, for producing in a region. Personally, I think if the first generation RepRap can prodby Roach_S - General
Re: Poor economics on front page? - 17 years ago
Okay, so reprap will present a strong threat to protectionism. Actually, I don't like "wealth without money" either, because my personal definition of "wealth" is comparative. I make more/less or have more/fewer things than my neighbor, thus I am rich/poor. When you get right down to it, the poorest individual in a developed country, probably still enjoys resources that either King Henry VIII,by Roach_S - General
Re: Is RepRap dying? - 17 years ago
I found why I thought so. says, clearly, "laser cut". But I found first, where a sidebar mentions one made from waterjet cut polycarbonate.by Roach_S - General
Re: Is RepRap dying? - 17 years ago
I thought the Fab@Home 'bot was waterjet cut.by Roach_S - General
Re: Spam in the wiki? - 17 years ago
Okay. Just banning Kr1Kd6 is insufficient. Kr1Kd6 is responsible for keeping one page, "List of techniques", full of spam. Each page that gets spammed also gets its own bot username, or more, to keep that spam present. Sometimes, more than one bot username ends up fighting over the same page. Whether or not this is the same bot, or two different parties, is unknown to me, but I believe theyby Roach_S - General
Re: Extruded filament diameter - 17 years ago
Yes, I meant the acorn nut variant. However, looking at the linked imaged, I still wonder if the geometry of the nozzle is effecting the behavior of the plastic. If so, it presents design limitations, but also design opportunities. Again, pure speculation on my part.by Roach_S - Mechanics
Re: Extruded filament diameter - 17 years ago
Hmm.. Nophead, is your extruder nozzle a hemisphere with a cone subtracted from it? Forrest Higgs, is your extruder nozzle a thin plate with a cylinder subtracted from it? If so, on both counts, perhaps the plastic is "curing" a bit in the thicker nozzle, and thus coming out a consistent size. Pure speculation on my part. I don't even know if plastic behaves that way.by Roach_S - Mechanics
Re: Extruder drive screw soldering instructions - 17 years ago
I've been wondering why you don't drill and tap the shaft, and put a screw through the cable.by Roach_S - Mechanics
Re: Next Steps - 17 years ago
You could make the corner pieces from two parts, with additional pegholes, and still use captured nuts. Your way is probably better.by Roach_S - General
Re: An oven using bellows - 17 years ago
Hence why I said repSTRAP in an oven over repRAP with bellows. One potential problem with positive pressure will be inflating it when making the initial laydowns. Actually, that'd be true of support sticks too. Essentially, in my mind at least, on the first few layers, the fabric will try to "inflate" into the mechanical elements of the XY system, as there will be surplus fabric to need. Thinby Roach_S - Mechanics
Re: An oven using bellows - 17 years ago
Personally, I'd rather build a repstrap in an oven than a reprap with a tent, but that's aesthetics. Have you considered a couple inflated tubes to support your bellows? Imagine a pyramid or tetrahedron of those balloons they twist into animal shapes, with the fabric of your bellows suspended between. Of course, you could just use sufficiently springy rods, such as found in dome tents, and sucby Roach_S - Mechanics
Re: interesting possibilities, found a used system. - 17 years ago
There was a story in the Oklahoman recently, about a non-accredited private school that had gotten funding from the Gates Foundation. It seems the founder put his school down for foreign exchange students...someone accepted. Now, it seems the DHS should have shut them down, had it been in their power to do so. The founder of the school is STILL behind on rent for the school and teachers salarieby Roach_S - General
Re: HDPE Filament production - 17 years ago
I just had a thought. This wouldn't be practical for long filaments, but for sticks, it might work. How about rolling out a sheet of the stuff, then using a jig and sharp knife to slice rectangular lines off of the sheet? The stuff would only be as long as the width of the sheet you were working with, but gets around any difficulties in either extruding or drawing. Of course, then you need a coby Roach_S - General
Re: vandalism in the object library - 17 years ago
Very well. I'll go digging. Edit: I've gone through, and I think I caught everything.by Roach_S - General
Re: vandalism in the object library - 17 years ago
Oh. The following page is currently vandalized. I reverted the other tux page that was vandalized, but there isn't an earlier version of this page that isn't simply blank. My line in the sand is, I'll replace a garbage page, with information that came before, but otherwise, I'm not willing to delete something based on my belief it is garbage. On this, I feel confident I'd be considered correby Roach_S - General
Re: vandalism in the object library - 17 years ago
This looks identical to an attack on another wikimedia I've found. I think it's probably one person, with a 'bot that hunts down wikis, and replaces the first line with a line of garbage. It appears that each junk page is given to a new, randomly generated, account, using random characters. The way the same "account" will fight for a page, while ignoring any other pages, and the way, when thatby Roach_S - General
Re: random ideas - 17 years ago
I'm not much further along than you...which basically means I've been reading a little longer. No hardware. Irising nozzles sound great, but I can't see a way to make them practical. It'd probably be easier to just have two nozzles. One for course, and one for fine. As for support material. Some support materials could be recycled, so this becomes less of an issue there. Also, imagine rendby Roach_S - Mechanics
Re: Cricut Automatic Paper Cutter - Hackable? - 17 years ago
So...selectively weld a bunch of periods together...at the smallest allowed font...by Roach_S - RepLab Working Group
Re: Cost and quality - 17 years ago
I'd be wary of putting the thermistor near the nozzle, but not on the nozzle. I could be wrong, but I suspect you won't get the accuracy, or consistency, of readings if there isn't a good union between the thermistor and something on there that's metal and close to the actual extrusion. Hmm... Has anyone considered burying the thermistor between the threads of the nozzle and the extruder? Is tby Roach_S - General
Re: Extruder Kit Costs - 17 years ago
I'm tempted, but I'm starting to remember the old song "One Piece At A Time". I'm not sure I could make a reprap bracket set 1.1.0, work conveniently with a boards set 1.2, work conveniently with an extruder kit 1.2.1, work conveniently with a host 1.4, work conveniently with the firmware that came with/out at the same time as the boards set...by Roach_S - Reprappers