There certainly seems to be a lot of hype surrounding the site. So far, though, they don't seem to have done much more than chew through a lot of investment capital. Kinda reminds me of Pseudo:by degroof - General
I'm guessing it's the serial port configuration. For Windows, I had to change "/dev/ttyS0" to "COM1". I'm not familiar with OS X but, after poking around a bit, it looks like the serial device might be named something more like "/dev/usbc0".by degroof - RepRap Host
There's a new search engine called Cuil. It's getting a lot of press lately. I tried searching on "reprap" and got this: That's the first hit. The site's right but the associated image looks like a screenshot from a video game. Cuil claims "We pick images to illustrate the idea behind each page to aid you in your choice." I'm thinking not so much.by degroof - General
McMaster has 1/8" and 3mm I.D. PTFE tubing. Looks to be about $2 per foot.by degroof - Mechanics
A longer drive screw would increase the contact area but would also increase the channel contact area, increasing the amount of friction. I keep visualizing a set of 3 drive screws surrounding the filament but I can't figure out a sane way to connect a motor to all 3 screws. Some sort of compromise between a drive screw and a pinch roller might be interesting. Maybe two tank treads in oppositiby degroof - Controllers
I've used these things before: They're called box rivets, I think. Sort of a ratcheting push rivet.by degroof - Mechanics
You can scale the models using AoI. There's info on this page on how to scale from inches to mm. Just use 0.001 instead of 25.4 to scale mm to meters.by degroof - General
Just saw this article: There might be some beta accounts left, for anyone who'd like to get some 3D printing done.by degroof - General
I just checked. It's up to #28by degroof - General
I suppose it would've helped if I'd added a link to the actual instructable:by degroof - General
Tom McWire's 3-axis machine is up for an Instructables contest. The 50 entries with the most votes will be featured in an O'Reilly book. Since this design is the basis for the RepStrap machines some of us have built, it might be reasonable to show our support by voting for it. There should be a "vote" button at the top of the page. Right now, it's about #60 on the list, so it wouldn't take muchby degroof - General
TechShop is opening a site in Durham: It's located at 4022 Stirrup Creek Dr, Durham, NC (roughly at the Miami Blvd exit). It should have the usual set of machines, including a 3D printer. In theory, you could get STL files printed for repstrapping purposes. They're having a Pre-Opening party this Friday. I can't attend. If anyone here can, maybe you could post a report here.by degroof - North Carolina RepRap User Group
What I'd like is some sort of mash-up between an acronym generator and onelook's reverse dictionary . The result would be a subject-specific acronym generator. You give it an acronym and a few concept words and it expands the acronym using words related to the concept.by degroof - General
Interesting stuff. I'll refrain from making any jokes about watching paint dry. I wonder why they didn't show the Nexus machine. I found more pictures here:by degroof - General
Found some small drill bits. The set includes 10 bit ranging from 80AWG (0.34mm) to 61AWG (1mm). It's available through Amazon for $10.by degroof - Mechanics
Five Ways to Print Your Own 3-D Objects:by degroof - General
> And here is a second "FDM" Trademark item that is > specific to what RepRap is and does. I was just about to post this. Basically, it says that Stratasys has a trademark on "FDM" for "computer driven machine for making a physical embodiment of a graphic design by a material deposition process". There are other "FDM" trademarks out there but none are related to rapid prototyping. And, chby degroof - General
As Forrest mentions here: , Stratasys would prefer we didn't use "FDM" to describe the process RepRap uses to build objects. We could just call it RepRapping but that's a bit self-referential. I'm thinking something like: DTF - deposited thermoplastic fabrication EMM - extruded material manufacturing ALF - additive layered fabrication Any other suggestions? I guess it'd be a stretch to come uby degroof - General
> Stratasys has informally asked that we do not call what we do with Reprap FDM No problem. It'll probably become known as RepRapping pretty soon anyway.by degroof - General
This is an interesting graph: The spikes are getting bigger and more frequent. And just for fun, a side-by-side of RepRap and Fab@home:by degroof - General
This thing's been getting some press lately: Here's the specs out of the article: * Freescale's MPC5121e mobileGT processor, 800 MIPS (400 MHz) of processing power * 256MB of DDR2 DRAM * 4GB NAND Flash-based solid state drive * WiFi 802.11b/g Wi-Fi * Two USB 2.0 ports * One 10/100 Ethernet with RJ-45 jack * One VGA DB-15 display out jack * Headphone level stereoby degroof - General
I ended up making a coupling out of a threaded rod coupling and a couple set screws: I *think* I used a 5/16" coupling. Might've been 1/4".by degroof - Mechanics
gmsieling Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I'm hoping to be able to make those > easier by printing an extrusion of a pattern with > some backing. Rubber stamps can be expensive > ($5-$20/each) so I think if I can get it to work > it would appeal to scrapbookers. Yeah, I can see these being relatively easy to make. I guess the material would need toby degroof - Let's design something! (I've got an idea ...)
How about a windbelt? You could build one similar to how a Darwin's constructed. Use threaded rod for the length, making it adjustable. The only parts you'd need to fab are the end blocks.by degroof - Let's design something! (I've got an idea ...)
Slightly less sensationalist coverage here:by degroof - General
I contacted someone yesterday, through a dating site. We exchanged a couple emails and then talked on the phone for a bit. She (let's call her Jane) asked me about my RepRap journal. Wanted an executive summary of the project. I complied, being careful not to get too enthusiastic about it. I learned the hard way that the best way to get rid of a person is to go on and on and on about some obscureby degroof - General
Nostalgia time... In college I did a work term (1982, I think) at a company that had a bunch of DECwriter terminals. Basically a big dot-matrix printer with a keyboard. I was on a team responsible for keeping them running. They used a shaft-encoded servo motor to position the head. It had a metal encoder wheel and photocells to do the quadrature encoding. The encoding circuit was all TTL. Theby degroof - Mechanics