Since my faculty already has a commercial 3D printer, I expect to print out a couple of proof of concept parts and then start churning out the Darwins! first one for me (Hi, I want one too, you know... ) and then sets for anyone who needs them for the price of the plastic, the shipping and a photo of the new Darwin and it's creator -Leavby Leav - Reprappers
Sweet! did you add yourself to the map? Good luck and keep us posted! -Leavby Leav - Reprappers
Hi ----->>>>>>>>Awesome! It's good to see a man of action on the forums! Thanks it's fun finally getting stuff done! ----->>>>>>>>How long did it take for the Objet to print out a Darwin? I really couldn't say since the printing of the parts was spread out over several weeks when the printer was free. I could try and guesstimate about 36 hoursby Leav - Reprappers
Hi Reprappers, Iv'e been around the forum alot ad until recently i've been all talk and no walk... So here is a small update from me and a small question/observation. I am very impressed with the rigidity of the frame. it is much sturdier than I thought it would be. Just a note: the 3D printer I have access to is an Objet one, which has tendancies to make any hole a wee bit smaller... this cauby Leav - Reprappers
"why is he pouring milk in the... oh! wow!" wow This could be awesome for RepRap! I'm just using my best asimov+douglas-adams imagination here but.... coupling the milk scanner with a milk-pump we would essentially have a 3d copy machine! sure, it has some major disadvantages: off the top of my head i'm thinking about scanning anything that has a cavity will not scan well and also anything thby Leav - General
If I am not mistaken, the RRRF has a policy where as they have to run out of the older version of the boards before they will ship the new ones.... It kindof makes sense - it is our foundation in a way and if we want it to be able to always order from stock, that means they have to have several sets lying around which are already bought and paid for. if we got the new boards every time they updaby Leav - Controllers
I'm not really a software guy, but i;m interested in knowing what benefits there are to using native USB... anyone care to elaborate?by Leav - RepRap Host
Forrest, While people are still working tightly with a computer, this makes sense. When RepRap starts spreading into places where the access to the computer (or the power) is limited, "print cartridges" (SD cards preloaded with designs) will become a priority. (or so I assume, I am not aa policy maker) ("print cartridges" are just one way of detaching the RepRap from the PC of course) -Leavby Leav - General
err... couldn't you just use a much much cheaper potentiometer ? -Leav edit: oh ok I get it... this is for when there is a load on the servo, and you want to read it's current position... (which will probably differ from the plce you are telling it to be...) not sure if this will actually work while the servo is running since the PWM signal is likely to interfere with the readings (maybe?)by Leav - General
Looks like it is very possible. Depends of course on the people willing to order from you.... I'd start taking back orders before considering buying something so expensive. Plus if you ask people for a deposit, that helps you with buying the machine in the first place. (a deposit seems to be a very reasonable request to me in this case) check this website out: Good luck! -Leavby Leav - General
Yeah i'd go along with the Arduino at the moment as well. wait. I have. (mine is in the mail ) Hopefully by the time you get your first Rep(st?)Rap donw, there will be some experience with milling PCBs (Forrest is working on that) and perhaps more. so that you could improve/build another RepRap much more easily than if you wait. Also, you sound like the kind of guy that would contribute to tby Leav - Controllers
I must say i'm surprised.. I would have thought that under high speed direction switching it would easily slip. are you applying tension to the chain in any way? -Leavby Leav - Mechanics
you could try to mold a pulley for these the same way the normal pulleys are made (check the wiki build page). -Leavby Leav - Mechanics
I'll take your word for it that 50hz is too low to be useful as a real-time positioning system, but... this could be used for homing, like peteredworthy said. Imagine you are printing 8 corner cubes (forgot the real name) - you could use the caliper to measure the precise location of each corner cube, basically offering improved repeatability and accuracy, without compromising speed. -Leavby Leav - Mechanics
Accurate alignment and tight tolerances are a must for accurate printing. That being said, there is a very high probability that we can improve on the method. perhaps the instructions should be more "aggressive" when they specify tolerances, for example: "It is absolutely critical to have this distance accurate to within 0.5mm, otherwise you will have to re-do it later on" or something of thaby Leav - Mechanics
Thanks! I just checked this post to reply that I just modeled one in CAD and am going to try it out. I'll try out the one you suggested as well Peter, thanks again Attached is the STL for the gear I made, after the schematics over at: I'll let you know if either work out -Leavby Leav - Mechanics
Enjoy, and discuss if you like -Leavby Leav - General
I don't think this is the problem we should tackle at the moment. I suggest we focus on documenting the current design as best we can, so that the current design would be easily understood. after that we can worry about designing Darwin (or Mendel) with simplicity in mind. By the way I think things would naturally flow that way once a significant number of people have a Darwin. -Leavby Leav - General
Hi, Is there an STL for the toothed gear somewhere? It's funny, but it's actually easier for me to print out a toothed gear, than the mold and the use the molds. (because the mold plastic is hard to obtain). Alternatively I would also appreciate a link to the belt's spec sheet. Thanks, -Leavby Leav - Mechanics
at 195 degrees celsius, you don't have to use "hot glue" as far as I can see.... If you can get the ABS (or any other plastic you want) in the right diameter, perhaps you could use the hot glue gun. but... the big problem is that the mechanism used is not very easy to control.... I'm thinking that perhaps a motor with an arm and rod connection might work (thing of the way steam locomotives worby Leav - General
Hi Larry, Not entirely sure what we have (they will check the model and manufacturer on tuesday for me). They are really cute little machines: the mill is pretty much a 60cm cube, and the lathe is about 60cm*20cm*20cm. If I remember correctly the mill at least has a the big "ye-olde-printer" style parallel port which I hope connects to the drivers directly. I tried the EMC website, ofcourse,by Leav - General
Sweet! you actually used MLCAD I think that this could be a great idea. it doesn't have to be CAD (though that would be nice in my opinion), but a the general style of how Lego conveys it's instructions in such a graphical way as to not even need words is a great thing to strive for. the even better thing is that if we strive for no words, and then use words,it shoud probably be the most coherby Leav - General
yeah I think LEGO instructions are a great example! (Edit: for what we should strive for in the simplicity of our build instructions)by Leav - General
Hi Guys, Sort of off the RepRap topic, but maybe someone here can help me. My robotics team has a mini-lathe and a mini-mill, both of which are fitted for CNC (they have stepper motors). I could not understand how the EMC software connects to a machine. Is it through a serial port? I gather that there is need for a stepper driver card to be present on the machine. is this usually the case? Iby Leav - General
well that stretched my attention span to the limit I agree on the need for a simple, single, set of instructions, and I agree it should be adapted to the "internet attention span". I still view this as very possible to do within the "confines" of a wiki. this is simple, and is already used in wikipedia in several forms: ------------------------------- You are here: .....V [1][2][3][4][5][6][7by Leav - General
Sid, I'm sorry if this sounds as if I am dismissive of your hard work, but... are we even sure that the uber-complex branching is the behavior we want? seems to make much more sense to me to have a modular layout and have one main page as the tree from which we branch out. to fully utilize the tree analogy: Trunk - There is/will be a main design which will be the trunk. Branches - Alternateby Leav - General
uhm.. not reeally the right forum for this, perhaps? This is the RepRap forum.... :/ this is awkward... -LEavby Leav - RepLab Working Group
Had this crazy idea when I woke up today. could was be used as the bed material? basically I was thinking of pouring in a layer of wax and then have the heated head move around after the wax had settled in order to make it for the head. a bit more messy than the 3 bolt bed, and not entirely feasible, but just throwing it out there.... maybe it'll spark some ideas. -Leavby Leav - Mechanics
Wow Reece, that sounds like science fiction! Good luck and let us know if we can help in anyway (debugging, etc.)by Leav - 3D Scanners, Book Scanners, and Optics
no no i'll never do that. I e-mailed Dr. Bowyer and we'll see where it goes, but I won't press the matter beyond that. so.. are we focusing on kits? or is that just that they are easiest to add right away? As Forrest Suggested, i'm building a Darwin Right now so i'll document as best as I can and take responsibility for polishing up the cartesian bot page. Regarding format: I think I willby Leav - General