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Re: Driving a mix of G3 and pololu steppers from G3 motherboard - 14 years ago

Yes, for a brief while, I had the Sanguino connected to Pololu drivers, before I migrated to TZ electronics. I have not checked the Pololu updates, so there may have been changes in the Wiki; but basically the process was as follows: 1. build the Pololu strip board, as per pololu wiki - Adrian basically designed this circuit, and I added 1.5A fuses just in case 2. Investigate the ATMega644p pino

by BalanceSeeker - Controllers

Re: A few ideas... - 14 years ago

@garak, I have written a C/C++ application using openCV to monitor the mendel axis movements. Essentially, the vision-app reads the gcode, and sets the target position, then tracks the respective axes, and determines how far the axis is from target position. In the next few days, I will focus on completing my extruder, and then return to computer-vision control of mendel. The next step, will b

by BalanceSeeker - General

Re: forum for JHB, SA - 14 years ago

Hello, I have posted some thoughts on camera-in-the-loop control for RepRap, on my blog. As always, your input and suggestions as welcome. Marius Botha, Pretoria, South Africa

by BalanceSeeker - South Africa, Johannesburg RUG

Re: Thermistor LED on Extruder Board - 14 years ago

@steveo290, On my machine, the heating LED behaves exactly as you describe: steady during startup-phase, and then bang-bang, during printing phase. Good luck! Marius Botha Pretoria, South Africa

by BalanceSeeker - Reprappers

Re: Extruder wires - 14 years ago

@Bob yes. mm NOT cm! @steveo290 I did not change anything with respect to the Ni-wire. I find it interesting that you mention build-up of black residue, since I have had the same experience. I put this down to the small wire-gauge that I am using. Maybe someone else, in the know, can confirm or debunk this notion. Though, in my case, the residue did not inhibit the performance of my heater. No

by BalanceSeeker - Reprappers

Re: Extruder wires - 14 years ago

I bared / stripped the end of leads, going to extruder board, by 10cm-15cm. Wrap that around nichrome wire. Heatshrink the wrapped portion. Crimp wrapped portion with head-less bootlace ferrule (brass). Regards Marius Botha Pretoria, South Africa

by BalanceSeeker - Reprappers

Re: TechZone Stepper Boards - 14 years ago

evo/ryan, The power LED must light up on all boards. If you swapped out boards, and the fault follows the board i.e. power LED remains unlit, then you most likely have a faulty board on your hands. Depending on your tenacity, and availability of equipment, you might want to test the power net, on the offending board, with a multi-meter, to see if you have an electrical connection all the way to

by BalanceSeeker - Controllers

Re: TechZone Stepper Boards - 14 years ago

evo/ryan, I have had the techzone electronics for a while, and it functions, perfectly. With regards to your problem: you might also want to connect your opto switches, if they are not connected already. Without the opto-switch boards connected, your stepper boards will send the briefest of signals to your motors, and all you will hear is a brief 'clicking' sound. This will be the case, since t

by BalanceSeeker - Controllers

Re: TechZone Stepper Boards - 14 years ago

Ryan, the z-axis will not high-light "all" green LEDs. Although, you should see the power LED come on. I suspect that you do, since you mention that you can jog all three axes. Can you confirm that the board that does not display all LEDs, is your z-axis board? If this is not the case, then you need to possibly inter-change stepper boards, and see if the fault follows. Regards Marius Botha Pre

by BalanceSeeker - Controllers

Re: forum for JHB, SA - 14 years ago

Hello to all, please find latest update of Mendel progress on my blog: Feel free to contact me, in this regard. Marius Botha, Pretoria, South Africa

by BalanceSeeker - South Africa, Johannesburg RUG

Re: forum for JHB, SA - 14 years ago

@Sebastien thankyou @MarcelN, yes, Sebastien is right. You should consider the WolfStrap, which is the latest popular/workable incarnation of the RepStrap. In case you do not know, the RepStrap/WolfStrap is the route to "bootstrap" the RP parts for a workable 3d printer such as mendel. From what I gather, the WolfStrap for all intents and purposes is a fully functional 3d printer in its own righ

by BalanceSeeker - South Africa, Johannesburg RUG

Re: forum for JHB, SA - 14 years ago

@MarcelN, if you are going to build the mendel RP parts from wood, I would recommend you speak to a user that frequents the main forum, called Triffid_Hunter. Now, he has no idea who I am, nor does he know that I referenced you to him, so please introduce yourself, and state clearly what your intentions are, either in the open forum, or if you prefer, in a PM to him. His blog is the following:

by BalanceSeeker - South Africa, Johannesburg RUG

Re: Etching Your Own PCBs - 14 years ago

@3:37 The Gen3 boards are double-sided. I started making these boards some months back, and it is possible but I should point out the following: 1. You need to clean your double-sided copper board, thoroughly. There must be absolutely no finger-print marks or any dust on the board. You can hold the board at an angle and watch for clear reflection from the surface. If you can, wear gloves while po

by BalanceSeeker - Controllers

Re: techzone remix.. how to connect all?? - 14 years ago

@mostley et al have you managed to solve the temperature reading issue? If so, may I ask how you did it? I am having similar problems with my Techzone extruder board. After loading the firmware sent by Lambert and Kimberly, I still had same problems with temperature readings. The symptoms I experience are as follows: 1. Motherboard reports temperature of between 1C and 3C irrespective of wheth

by BalanceSeeker - Controllers

Re: Building a RepRap in ZA - 14 years ago

I have had no luck sourcing local filament. Dont know about reprapsource. Cheers Marius

by BalanceSeeker - South Africa, Cape Town RepRap User Group

Re: forum for JHB, SA - 14 years ago

@Martin, you are most welcome! If you have any questions, I will be more than happy to assist, wherever I can. Cheers Marius

by BalanceSeeker - South Africa, Johannesburg RUG

Re: Printers and Organs - 14 years ago

I thought this might be of interest in this forum. Regards Marius Botha Pretoria, South Africa

by BalanceSeeker - Tissue Engineering

Re: hand held 3D scanner - 14 years ago

@JohnWasser, a very brief visit to the vi3dim-demo page on www.bestofsoftware, is very revealing. From your mail and from various clues scattered on the download page, it seems very likely that the vi3dim software is based on CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) technology. You may, at the very least, need a CUDA-enabled (NVIDIA) graphics card, or there is also an emulator (or way to com

by BalanceSeeker - 3D Scanners, Book Scanners, and Optics

Re: 35mm film driven repstrap - 14 years ago

Viktor, I have played around with OpenCV, which has some nice IR algorithms. Haar (used for general object reco eg face), Optical-flow (Lucas-Kanard), Hough (used for basic shape eg line or circle), and Kalman-filter (tracking motion) The implementation of these libraries are totally in C and is INTEL specific It would be interesting to attempt Hough with Kalman in this problem and see how far

by BalanceSeeker - Reprappers

Re: 35mm film driven repstrap - 14 years ago

@Viktor, DIAS looks very interesting.... It seems to be a high-level scripting language. The literature references are mostly in german, and the only english language reference seems to be broken I downloaded, and installed the DIAS application, but this is completely in german, and the help-file is no longer supported on my windows-vista laptop Some of the DIAS applications seems very interes

by BalanceSeeker - Reprappers

Re: 35mm film driven repstrap - 14 years ago

@mlagana2, if you need help with motion tracking through, I can offer some assistance. if you want, you can send me sample video footage, and I can see what can be done. I am tracking this thread, or you can email me: moveaftermove _at_ yahoo _dot_ com Marius Botha Pretoria, South Africa

by BalanceSeeker - Reprappers

Re: Introducing The Mendel Uni-body - 14 years ago

foton, I would be lying if I said, "my heart did not skip a beat!" From an aesthetic viewpoint, it looks beautiful! Excellent work. I must re-iterate what has been asked already; can you post some videos with a loaded frame? Specifically, that x-axis looks like it might need additional support, in order to minimize deflection. Love the fold-out tray, btw.... Excellent work, sir. Marius Botha Pr

by BalanceSeeker - General

Re: Reprap Electronics Devolpment - 14 years ago

Let me throw my hat into the ring, For what its worth, I think the concept of a plug-and-play electronics platform, on which to perform "modularised" electronics R&D, is an important avenue worth persuing. I think that most reprappers simply do not see the need for such YET, simply because most reprappers (I assume), like me, have not completed construction of their first printer yet. But I c

by BalanceSeeker - Controllers

Sanguino/Pololu interface - 14 years ago

Hello all, I have spent the whole of yesterday connecting pololu stepper boards to my mendel. Unfortunately, there seems to be a problem, specifically with stepping the Y-axis. I did some troubleshooting, and found the following: 1. The X-axis steps, perfectly. As does the Z-axis. 2. When I move the Y-pololu board to my X-axis connector(from the m/board), i.e. disconnect Y-connector, and reconne

by BalanceSeeker - General

MakerBot Plastruder MK4 - 14 years ago

Hello everyone, I have nearly completed my mendel with the exception of the extruder mechanism. I have been scouring around, and found the MakerBot webpage with their MK4 extruder. So here is the question; Is the MK4 extruder compatible with Mendel? Does anyone have opinions on this? Or better yet, does anyone have practical experience with this? According to Bre, there might be some interfacin

by BalanceSeeker - General

Re: Interest in assembled mk4 plastruders? - 14 years ago

goinreverse, I am interested in purchasing a fully assembled plastuder mk4, and willing to pay for shipping, as well. I live in South Africa...... Let me know if the offer still stands. Thankyou in advance, Marius Botha Pretoria, South Africa

by BalanceSeeker - For Sale

Re: drive-pulley_3off.par - 14 years ago

@khiraly herewith a brief, albeit very late, report-back, thankyou for your assistance. I have implemented your pulley solution, and its working perfectly. @nophead I have implemented the diBond print bed. Have not tested it, but it looks pretty good! Also, the pololu steppers, coupled to sangiuno w/ modified headers works well. Thankyou for your advice and help. Regards Marius Botha Pretoria,

by BalanceSeeker - Mechanics

comms error - 14 years ago

Hello everyone, I have connected the sanguino m/board via usb cable to host software and receive the following error: comms: G-code: M105 dequeued and sent [17.160s/0ms] comms: GCodeWriter.waitForOK() - temperature reading: T:0 [17.176s/16ms] comms: GCode acknowledged with message: ok EB [17.176s/0ms] Error 0x1 at /home/bob/foo/rxtx-devel/build/../src/termios.c(2497): Incorrect fu nction. com

by BalanceSeeker - RepRap Host

Re: what material for thick sheet parts? - 14 years ago

nophead, what kind of Dibond are you using? I am currently in discussions with local suppliers, and apparently there are different kinds of DiBond. Who knew? Thankyou in advance. Marius Botha Pretoria, South Africa

by BalanceSeeker - Mechanics

Re: Q: Height of extruder nozzle above the print? - 14 years ago

A farout idea: what about measuring the acceleration of the extruder head, i.e. the force exerted on the extruder head. It seems to me that the amount of extrusion leaving the head should somehow be related to the re-action force, as per Newton 3. dForce = dVol * density * accel - Mg , Newton 1, where M = extruder-head mass. dFlow * dt = dVol dForce = dFlow * dt * density * accel - Mg Is re-actio

by BalanceSeeker - Reprappers