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General discussions. For specific printers / electronics / fabrication methods / softwares, please see other sections.
Re: MediaWiki link spam - 17 years ago
Spraypainting addresses to porn stores and sex toy shops on their residential doors would be nice too...by Roach_S - General
Where did the main page go? - 17 years ago
It's 2:56 pm locally, and the main page seems...sparse. The links down the left hand side are there, as are the google ads, but all the main body has is a footer for what looks to me like a wiki article.by Roach_S - General
Re: changeable print head - 17 years ago
Zach, Hmm. If you have it automatically throw client side settings to the firmware, then you could end up, eventually, with a reprap somewhere that someone screwed up so that it consistently corrupts a certain extruder model. And if you then drop a corrupted extruder onto a clean reprap, it'd load in the corrupted settings as the default. You might want at least a dialog box to offer to uploadby Roach_S - Reprappers
Re: changeable print head - 17 years ago
Hmmm. I'm no electronics tech., but could you get a readable address using a set of dip switches and a multiplexer? As I said. I'm no electronics tech. I'm good to remember the resistor code in the morning.by Roach_S - Reprappers
Re: interesting possibilities, found a used system. - 17 years ago
I'd love to go in "halfsies", but I can't afford it. The most I could justify would be about a 5% investment. That'd be enough to maybe get a set of parts out of it. If you want to take small investments, paid off in parts, then you'd be free and clear on the original, I would be willing to paypal you fifty dollars. Think you could find 18 other suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H customers?by Roach_S - General
Re: Whens RepRap likely to take off? - 17 years ago
Hmm. If you apply a current across it while it's still "wet", could you get it to self-organize? Could you paint on the copper, then condition it as it dried by applying a small current across it, or would that do anything?by Roach_S - General
Re: RepRap and lasers - 17 years ago
I have a feeling future repraps will go about as follows. Get a bag of parts. Mostly structural, some for one extruder head. Print the parts for a second extruder head...that you need, along with other parts that aren't critical in the short term, but really useful in the long term, (endstop boards, perhaps, parts for a shaft encoder.) Break the thing down, and install the omitted parts. Re-asseby Roach_S - Laser Cutter Working Group
Re: RepRap and lasers - 17 years ago
I think I want to rep-rap some sunglasses... I'm now wondering if you can get a phenomenon, akin to beat frequency, to allow the light to be UV only at the intersection of two beams, and outside the target wavelength elsewhere. Probably more trouble than it's worth. Especially as I've heard it's hard to keep an X-ray cathode smooth enough to generate a clean beam. As for cooking with an air lby Roach_S - Laser Cutter Working Group
Re: RepRap and lasers - 17 years ago
Have you seen those acrylic blocks with a 3-D image burned in them? Multiple beams crossing, with sufficient power at the intersection, to vaporize the plastic, I suspect. Something similar, using Fernando's UV polymers, might be a way to get vat replication reasonably cheaply. That is, assuming the density of the cured plastic doesn't vary from the density of the liquid, and the index of refrby Roach_S - Laser Cutter Working Group
Re: changeable print head - 17 years ago
Chain would be...difficult. I was thinking that using pre-manufactured chain for any future direct extrusion of metal would handle the natural stiffness of the metal. I suspect, although I don't know, that suitable single-metal chain can probably be had from hobby stores. As for rope. Bundle multiple strands together. Secure one end. Twist until it wants to kink. Release. Then wind theby Roach_S - Reprappers
Re: changeable print head - 17 years ago
Look up how to make rope. the stiffness can be partially dealt with, I believe, by using a thinner strand, and winding it into a rope for the final thickness. Much the same way that multi-filament wire is more flexible than single-filament wire of the same diameter. Again, look at my comment on chains of the stuff, although manufacturing of chains to handle the flexibility issue definitely incby Roach_S - Reprappers
Re: changeable print head - 17 years ago
Quite frankly, yes. My idea of mounting all the heads above the platform in a grid, or the other idea of a linear rack along one side, both account for this. The filament comes through where the tool was stored. If the filament can be taken back up, on my idea, or has a fishing weight threaded onto it, with the spicerack solution, (so gravity takes it up when the tool is reseated, but withoutby Roach_S - Reprappers
Re: Save time and material? - 17 years ago
Perhaps so. As I said, I've not worked with Aol. To me, subtracting zero from zero, ten inches from the item, should make no difference at all. If Aol insists on remembering that there is a void in the middle of nowhere, ten inches from the solid, that would definitely present a problem. With memory, if nothing else.by Roach_S - General
Re: changeable print head - 17 years ago
Personally, I think the client needs to know what it has to build with, as in the future, it may have to figure out if a given design presented to it, is manufactureable with the current set of extruders, or if the design needs to be modified to suit the available build materials. However...at the same time, it'd be really nice if a user could just snap in a new extruder and the client could jusby Roach_S - Reprappers
Re: Save time and material? - 17 years ago
Hmmm... I'm speculating, mind you, not having used Aol. How about making the solid, then making a shell of the solid, subtracting a template of a honeycomb from the original solid, and then adding the shell back in? I don't know if you can do this. I don't know if the result would be useful. As someone mentioned, it wouldn't consider needed strength, so the fourth step would probably be handby Roach_S - General
Re: Whens RepRap likely to take off? - 17 years ago
I know. I think that's what's shown in the opening credits of "Short Circuit", although I doubt they are that large now-a-days, not having seen many consumer electronics that weren't composed mostly of surface mount circuits. I was carrying it a step further. If the circuits can be "printed" upside down on transfer tape, then they can probably be made finer than off a spool of circuits taped tby Roach_S - General
Re: Whens RepRap likely to take off? - 17 years ago
I've long daydreamed of, well, a super rep-rap. Granted, this is WAY in the future, but something like enzyme assembled buckytubes with integrated circuits inside as a feedstock. Produced in a separate process that is itself reprappable, or even rep-strappable by a glassblower, using gen-engineered yeasts, bacteria and molds to produce the enzymes. More likely in the not-so-distant future. Yoby Roach_S - General
Re: Whens RepRap likely to take off? - 17 years ago
Why? I heard, anecdotally, something about making solar cells as paint. It does mean a new, specialized, feedstock, though. Point one probably does as well. Metal products...might be easier, in my opinion.by Roach_S - General
Re: Whens RepRap likely to take off? - 17 years ago
I'm of a similar mind. Rapid Prototyping will allow displaced communities to keep up technologically, and thus allow communities to become displaced without the drawbacks that have hounded every colonization since probably Columbus. The tendency to find that you don't have the means to reproduce for yourself what you've grown accustomed to having. There is a guy who wants to take one to Antarcby Roach_S - General
Re: Whens RepRap likely to take off? - 17 years ago
Buildings are not made as a single piece, but some of those single pieces can be several yards/meters long on one dimension. The way I see it, this will go in three/four stages. Hobbyists, making it because it's cool. Artists, making/getting it because it's useful to their rarefied interests. Everyone, making/getting it because so many useful tasks that have been discovered by those who got thby Roach_S - General
Re: electroplating as a assiting process - 17 years ago
It'd mean not putting the z-axis motor BELOW the working surface, for one.by Roach_S - General
Re: Whens RepRap likely to take off? - 17 years ago
You mention heat lamps. I was wondering, actually, if down the road the thing could be made in a heat mover. Since the thing will eventually override the insulation, and heat up the room, it'd be nice if that's where it got its heat from. Think of a refrigerator...built backwards. The hot coils on the inside. Still, I think this is something to consider only after we're using materials that doby Roach_S - General
Re: plating as a building resource? - 17 years ago
Use the same applicator head you'd use for overhangs. Probably a conductive paint head, possibly a solder head, (except it'd have fits with the solder. Also, mill each stage smooth to "straighten out" the plating process. You could either mill only the areas that are "set", or you could simply mill the entire layer. Anything that goes above the current level gets cut off before growing the neby Roach_S - General
Re: plating as a building resource? - 17 years ago
I'm not talking circuit boards. I'm talking about maybe reprapping in copper. Plate a "layer" of copper. cut out everything in that layer, that isn't supposed to be there for that height. Fill with wax, to both prevent the holes from just filling back up with copper, and to support later layers. paint with solder, or conductive paint, wherever you have plastic on the current level, but will wantby Roach_S - General
plating as a building resource? - 17 years ago
I got this off the blog, and figured I'd post it too. Soi Sentinel said... > Now if it was only possible to use electroplating > to grow larger, non-symmetrical metal parts I said... Why not? Plate it indiscriminately, then cut off what you didn't want to add. Use wax or oil as a final application to prevent the part from growing any more in that place. Plate foby Roach_S - General
Re: Whens RepRap likely to take off? - 17 years ago
I've been thinking an oven could probably be built around a reprap, but I don't think I'd want to try it. The idea of putting the corner brackets in an oven, for the express purpose of softening/keeping hot the very material they were made from, seems less than wise.by Roach_S - General
Re: Solution to chicken-and-egg problem - I found a cheapish FDM service! - 17 years ago
Are these voids important? Or are they just to avoid printing the material? Could the parts be made to match the faces, and work?by Roach_S - General
Re: changeable print head - 17 years ago
You could do it in mechanics and software, rather than additional electronics. Rig the table to descend to the lowest point, then a little further. The extra heads could be mounted above the rep-rap work surface, such that they descend a few inches when the table bottoms out. Then the arm moves to the slot assigned to the current tool, the table descends, the arm moves slightly, (sliding the toby Roach_S - Reprappers
Re: TODO: Easy Install Process - 17 years ago
I suspect the average user doesn't know what to do with nudegirls.jpeg.exe Fortunately, Norton and McCafee do. If it's blue-sky, then presumably it's also 2.0. I'm for sticking that "live CD" in a memory stick, that's part of the reprap itself. I've long felt that the drivers for USB components should be part of the component, whenever possible. So far, I've only encountered thumbdrives thatby Roach_S - RepRap Host