I think it is almost cheaper just to take apart a new dvd or blueray burner for a high power laser. >200mW use that laser and its optics should be cheaper than buying stock from anywhere. here is an ebay auction for 76$ if you want a kit, but a lower power laser diode here is an auction They ship these kits to finland. it should be noted to always have protective shielding around lasersby jamesdanielv - General
Personally It would be a good idea for a community place in general to be available for scheduled times so that 1 off items could be made. Would something like this need donated time, or tech for hire to work on the machines? Have any reprap clubs done this?by jamesdanielv - General
does anyone have 20101221 version?. i can host it.by jamesdanielv - Firmware - mainstream and related support
I read a few days ago about this firmware. caruKlip - 184 mm/s and a clear description here: any way i hear keeping it in production mode... Man the one thing i hate is messing with something, when it behaves the way it is suppose to.. even though it could be better, it may develop a nasty personality.by jamesdanielv - Firmware - mainstream and related support
actually the speed is determined by pps (pulses per second) for the motors. the tiny motors can have 2500 full step pulsed per second over-driven to 24v. A typical 48oz/inch motor hybrid design can do 10000. this is of course without a load attached. you can probably reason that forward or backwards the tiny steppers are not going to move fast with the gear reduction. Still i purchased 5 of thby jamesdanielv - General
abs completely vaporizes by around 1500c according to this on so you would clay around your abs material. vaporize abs, and fill in cavity with metal of choice. its simply genius! 1 print head though... I think we need several print heads inside the same heater core. that probably is in the works.by jamesdanielv - General
I'm about to post the solution to the wiki for the codec for solving data that arrives in 3 sets of bytes. I have to still test this and am sure that some parts will not compile exactly as they are below. The reason to post it is for people to know about what is being done to solve the FEC. The forward error correction only works if it has 3 bytes in buffer. I tried to make it as simple as possibby jamesdanielv - General
The firmware will respond to the codec, by sending 32bit data back for positioning data. just to be clear no data is sent back as floats . Positioning data is sent using long signed integers. 32 bit signed integer long is from -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647. This is overkill, but that's find for me. you can read more about data types and how they work and store integer numbers hereby jamesdanielv - General
ok, we are getting something here. Position coordinates in 32bit resolution xyze (4byte long) Extruder temp Bed temp Error rate calculations – the current error rates detectable from .01% to errors > 1% (up to 3% of errors are correctable) 4 bytes for i/o changed states or status checks (things not invented yet, laser scanner feedback, for example) This information is updated by the codecby jamesdanielv - General
I agree. So some time needs to be spent defining a protocol for codec’s as well as implementing this codec. Luckily there are references out there to look into. I'll post again after updating the wiki page. Currently just implementing the method of the codec, but the protocol of announcing what codec it uses in firmware sounds like it needs to be there. Especially if I get enough buy in to haveby jamesdanielv - General
Not everyone has your experience nophead. I would recommend people read nophead's blogs for setting up precise flow rate here Although it still will take time to tweak settings. I still think making z height changes on the inside of part is a smart move. Not everyone has a fancy firmware hardware setup.by jamesdanielv - General
I think that many people are using the rafting, also skeinforge 40 has skirts or so I've been told to keep parts from cooling too quick. skirts basically wall around the object when there are corners. there is steep learning going into the latest skein versions, so below is the way to modify your stl to print. It is a lot less painful to print something without a raft, so I created a few wall oby jamesdanielv - General
it should not be an issue, it is a power supply capable of running several voltages and frequencies. The rapman i ordered came with a laptop power supply. it is auto sensing between 110-240v ac. and 50-60hz. you will need to by a cord for it that plugs in the side to the wall. the rapman is an excellent machine.by jamesdanielv - General
would you not just want to leave the current settings the same, but raise the max voltage to the motors, and change the rate of decay? only do this on a stepper with a chopper circuit, preferably one with pwm. The torque curve may be extended by using current limiting drivers and increasing the driving voltage. the drive voltage increases the torque. the current limiting enables the higher voltby jamesdanielv - General
are you saying to do something like send a command to arduino "FEC" and have it switch mode? I don't know. It will be hard enough to implement the changes, document the instructions to set up the virtual comm port and write a version of the codec program. I think clear documented instructions will be beneficial here. for now i am just going to provide examples of how to do it, implement exaby jamesdanielv - General
has a way to remove z height change blobs from the outside shells there is some merit to spiraling up and having z axis be continuously increasing. the reprap hardware is not capable of doing this with precision as of today, as there are backlash issues in many reprap designs on z axis, as well as issues with speed of the slowest axis (z axis). I tried the spiral method on my rapman to removby jamesdanielv - Plastic Extruder Working Group
this is the same code, but ran thru the sanguino compiler. I did need to make a few changes. again let me know if there are any issues. here is the revised version. once more. I hope this improves your speed. like i said there is still more to be done.by jamesdanielv - General
here is a video showing a laser half-toned image of a wolf being printed on abs plastic. it shows that tone control, is possible. I just used a wades extruder i had lying around to print on. i used a laser powered up to 10watts and a black and white images that was originally a color image and converted to black and white with Floyd_steindberd dithering for halftones. the way lasers work, youby jamesdanielv - General
This is a good question, that i think needs better explanation: here is the page that makes the usb to serial chipsets An arduino is basically a board with 2 main chipsets on it. One is the ftdi chipset that processes serial information and the other is the 'brain' or the atmel processor 168,328,... and so on. what the ftdi chipset is is a hardware usb device that supports a virtual comm portby jamesdanielv - General
Just a thought, you could do laser engraving on abs. the white and yellow abs, brown and then go black. You will want to have air flow so the lens stays clean. The reason for laser engraving is mainly for pictures and text. Details that is difficult to print. Laser will go strait down, and as long as your surface is within the focal length everything should show fine. my laser cutter cuts about .by jamesdanielv - General
I think there maybe something else going on. Can you change the lines with errors back to digitalWrite? see if the rest compiles. I will take a look at it when i get back home tomorrow. good luck and thanks.by jamesdanielv - General
brnrd I Also posted this in your firmware discussion. this is a copy of your firmware, what i modified was the fast writes to replace digital writes and a step delay of 2 instead of 5 for pulse delay. see if you can get it to work. if there are issues with steps let me know. I have not tried this as i don't have time tonight to switch firmware to sanguino, i just know it compiles ok. If itby jamesdanielv - General
this is a copy of your firmware using fast writes to replace digitalwrites and a step delay of 2 instead of 5 for pulse delay. see if you can get it to work. if there are issues with steps let me know. I have not tried this as i don't have time tonight to switch firmware to sanguino, i just know it compiles ok. If it works, then it should allow a 40% increase in speed. all the time savingby jamesdanielv - Firmware - mainstream and related support
this is better than the 5/16 coupler idea i mentioned to someone! please let everyone know how long they last! thanks!by jamesdanielv - General
Not so. FEC can be incredibly simple. My method is sending each byte 3 times. Any time a byte is seen more than once it is accepted as data, within a certain pattern. There is 3x the overhead of data being sent, but then again no turnaround time waiting for acknowledge. Any time a byte is seen more than once it is accepted as data, within a certain pattern. There also is a flush of data whenby jamesdanielv - General
here is a started wiki page for the above. Hopefully soon i will update it on how the forward error correction works. Jamesby jamesdanielv - General
hey, i got one of my printers to do the same. skein forge assumes that you are starting at 6.2mm high. make sure your stl file object is level at zero, and on platform. use replicator-g to center and put your object on platform, then run skein forge to saved stl file.by jamesdanielv - General
thanks this was helpful for me. I'm going to diligently check power supplies, lengths of wire and ground connections!by jamesdanielv - General
anyone have the brand names of the nylon plastic products purchasable? a lot of plastics used for weed eaters are polypropylene. also a lot of them are not labeled with what they come with. if it melts between 130c-170c it is polypropylene. if it melts between 190c and 350c it is nylon.by jamesdanielv - General
this is awesome! too bad that it is available only in fine powderby jamesdanielv - General