Where i work we use the FTDI USB/Serial chips to add USB connections to smaller controllers without USB interface. I'm not shure tho if this is what you're looking for. The idea is to only use the USB as physical connection and having a virtual COM port on the computer and basically use the same communications as for an RS232 connection. The main reason we do this is because a lot of our older soby Protonite - Controllers
Kinda hard to get the Gen 3 electronics i think... I've been monitoring makerbots store for some weeks (months even?) now, and it seems like something is always out of stock. (Or am i that unlucky?) The V2.3 Stepper Driver seem to be the biggest problem to get a hand on... Would be nice if they had the full Gen 3 DIY electronics kit back in stock.by Protonite - Controllers
Did you try to turn your motor "manually"? Just wire a bunch of buttons to your driver board to simulate the step and direction signals. You should be able to turn your motor like that. If this works, you already know that the problem is not the driver itself but rather something on the controller board or the wire that connects both boards...by Protonite - Controllers
Jumping back to the inital posting here... Interesting microcontroller indeed, but i would say it is not really what the reprap project currently needs to perform any of the tasks it has on his hands. I am still very new to the project, so correct me if i'm wrong somewhere. As i can see it now, the microcontroller is only running down a "simple" task of moving the toolhead along a given path pluby Protonite - Controllers
I have some powertools to cut and sand metal (angle grinder, jigsaw). Should not be that much of a problem to cut that stuff, and if it does not work, i'll find a friend or workshop who has the right tools...by Protonite - Mechanics
Thanks for your input Grogyan. Currently i am still considering 0805 or 0603 component sizes. I still prefer the 0603 size, because i think anyone who can place and solder the DRV8811 can handle these sizes of discrete components too. 0805 may be the better choice for the bigger audience tho, so i'm still not really shure about this. The final decision will probably come in when i have a basic sby Protonite - Controllers
Okay, thanks. So i'll go stainless steel. Aluminium was never an option for me. I had a feeling the thread would get eaten up pretty fast and i'd end up with a lot of play. What about the steel quality tho? Is the 8.8 steel a lot more durable in this application and recommended, or is it simply better in terms of bending and traction force it can endure and the 4.6 quality will do just fine in aby Protonite - Mechanics
Maybe you can hack a laser mouse and use that as a sensor. With the resolution these sensors have today i think you could get the precision high enough. Just an idea. Haven't really looked into the details and if these sensors got hacked for other applications already. The optical gate would definately be cheaper and easyer to use, as long as you manage to get the precision needed. Still, it willby Protonite - Pick-and-Place Electronic Assembly (and robots!)
I know mylar gets used in gardening applications, to reflect the light at the walls of greenhouses, especially if artificial light gets used. The only places i know of that sell the stuff comes back from the days where i was growing my own hemp indoors, most growshops sold that stuff.by Protonite - RepLab Working Group
Just rechecked again how much the difference between a 2-Layer and 4-Layer PCBs is these days, because having 4 layers would definately make some very compact and clean electronics and i would help a lot with reducing EMI problems... I was using PCBCore to get the following numbers: (order of only 5 boards, 50x100x1.6mm) From what i could tell, tooling-costs pretty much explode quite a bit when yby Protonite - Controllers
ACK That would be something very handy to have. Making it with conventional tools is very hard if not impossible, so extruding that threaded part is a perfect job for an extruder.by Protonite - Let's design something! (I've got an idea ...)
Hope your mom is getting better quickly! As for the STM32 Cortex M3, i'm really looking forward to see more of your progress here. I am still in the stage of planning details of my first repstrap, and i was actually already playing with the idea of making my own controller-board with an STM32 too. I am not familiar with these Arduino/Sanguino chips used in the original repraps. I am way more famby Protonite - RepRap Host
I'm more from the electronics side of life and don't know all to much about steel and mechanics, just some basic stuff i picked up a while ago during education. So, i was trying to get some steel parts organized and checked out our local hardware stores online catalogues. Now, the problem i have is to decide what kind of threaded rod would be the best to use as spindle. I can have different qualby Protonite - Mechanics
Did you ever see how a real industry grade pick and place robot works? All the machines i've seen so far use some kind of camera where the toolhead moves over to measure the exact position of the part on the vacuum head before it gets placed onto the board. As far as i understood this is mainly needed for components that get delivered in tubes or trays, where the position of the component is notby Protonite - Pick-and-Place Electronic Assembly (and robots!)
One problem i see with driving a H-Bridge thru LPT is that you have to be very careful about switching on the right FETs at the right time. If you try to do stuff too fast, you could provoke "shoot-thru" between the low and high side FETs, and that would mess with your powersupply and can heat up and even overload or destroy the FETs in the bridge. The problem here comes mainly from the fact thatby Protonite - Controllers
Hello there. If you followed my other thread about EMC you probably already know that i want make my own improved electronics. In this thread i'll keep you posted about my progress, (almost like a blog) and of course try to get some community feedback to see if my ideas are messing with the bigger picture or if you guys have even better input. Keep in mind that i don't have a working robot as oby Protonite - Controllers
And another one from me (finally registered ) I took the time to check out the Stepper Motor Driver v2.3 a bit more, especially using the GCPrevue tool to inspect the layout (pdf and png are kinda to low quality/resolution). Anyway, to make it short and brutal, because of what i saw there i now decided to definately make a redesign of this board. I'll not go into detailed description of what iby Protonite - Controllers