You are probably using too large a tubing. Go for a smaller one, dip it into boiling water for a short while to make it more flexible, and make sure you have at least 10mm on the motor shaft and the screw thread. You can also try a cable tie pulled very tight over the tubing. If this doesnt work, take a length of 1.5 square mm copper wire (from mains twin with earth cable), wrap it round the tubby philwaud - Mechanics
Ive really been inspired by Bodge Its efforts to make a "bodged" repstrap Mendal and have spent the last couple of days doing some bodging of my own. Some of you may recall my previous "CopperRap" efforts, but I havent done very much on it since August. Ive acquired two more old colour lasers and they take about six hours each to strip down, each has a NEMA 17, a NEMA 23, half a dozen fans, hundby philwaud - Reprappers
On the circuit board you will see that it has been printed with the names of the components, ie R1, C1 etc. They usually have a shape representing them, rectangular for resistors and circular for capacitors etc. The LEDs have a circular shape with one side shown as flat, hence "the flat side of the silscreen" I think its called a silk screen because its printed using silk screen printing, or atby philwaud - Controllers
Bodgeit, Im amazed at the amount of time you put into this! Its taken me a week to take apart Copperlab1 so I can clear some deskspace for my new version! Philby philwaud - Delta Machines
I will need to join the belt for the z axis, you need a continuos belt running round all four cogs.by philwaud - Mechanics
Yep, good old ASDA! I was a bit dismayed when you said that you didnt need all those 608 bearings as I had just bought 32 of them! I have since seen that a heavier build will need them so I am using them anyway! Ive just had a few days away camping in a teepee which gave me a chance to think things through. I am going to make a jig using two stepper motors, one of them will turn the shaft withby philwaud - Mechanics
Ideally you need a gear puller - sort of a large nut and bolt with hooks on. You hook on the edges of the pulley and tuen the bolt which pulls it off the spindle. I generally sacrifice the pulley - hold it in a vice and hit the spindle with a punch, but you could make a stout U shaped supprt that doesnt damage the pulley. Philby philwaud - Mechanics
After an interesting weekend (lets just say it involved being stuck on some cliffs until 3am and a helicopter rescue!), Ive made a lot of progress with CopperRap 2 Ive ditched the idea of using screwed rods for the X+Y axis, and Im going to use a toothed belt. The belts arent easy to get hold of and are quite expensive so Ive been looking for alternatives. I have managed to get some plastic coaby philwaud - Mechanics
I wonder what the repeat accuracy is though, would you need to add vision software etc? If you search on Youtube for delta robots, there are some amazing creations, including one done in lego NXT! It looks very accurate and fast - really amazing! Philby philwaud - Delta Machines
Wow! http://hackaday.com/2009/08/14/home-built-delta-robot/ Wish I could build one of these with an extruder!by philwaud - Delta Machines
That is sweet! I think I had already ruled out using the bearing as a horizonal slide bearing, especially on a screwed rod. I have some 15mm chromed copper pipe and Im going to use that as the "rail". I did think about using a pipe olive as the slider, surprisingly they are quite a loose fit - too loose in fact, the play is 1mm or so. My next idea was to use the 608 bearings as a wheel, similarby philwaud - Mechanics
I like the milk bottle top idea, the ridges on the side have a 2mm pitch and it looks perfect for what we need. The balled chain is great because the method of connecting the ends together will not stick or jam. I suppose thats true of any chain. For the time being, Ive gone with two large washers with a rubber tap washer sandwiched in between. Im going to see how much grip a wire has on this "by philwaud - Mechanics
The thread is about alternatives to the toothed belt, as it is quite an expensive item, not easy to get hold etc. We ARE looking at spinning a threaded rod with a cable! Philby philwaud - Mechanics
Ive just bought two sets of skate bearings (16 in total) for 12 quid, so I dont think the cost is an issue! Im thinking of using the 608 bearings as a slider on some 8mm threaded rod - am I asking for trouble or do you think it would work?by philwaud - Mechanics
Thanks for that link Viktor, its odd to think that I was building almost exactly that for my A-level design project in 1980! I built a mock up with a very similar principle but in the end switched to screwed rods for the final plotter. Sid, we would need to join the end if we used the cable to spin the threaded rod. Philby philwaud - Mechanics
That looks amazing quality there Viktor, very impressive! What does 16 resp. mean? I can see from your earlier message that you used the cable to move the moving head directly - in our application we turn a threaded rod so the issue of how we join the ends becomes important. I suppose we could spline the two ends of the cable together, but I simply havent got the skill to do that! I like the iby philwaud - Mechanics
I used to have a routing machine called a Woodrat. It used a steel "bowden cable" to move the workpiece past a woodworking router. The cable was wrapped half a dozen times around a plain steel shaft, about 6mm in diameter and could move a heavy piece of wood (I think the heaviest I ever worked would have been 30kg) against the router with absolutely no slippage. The steel cable was very similarby philwaud - Mechanics
Ive had a frustrating couple of weeks with my RepStrap, CopperRap! After getting the two stepper boards (v1.2), I thought the battle was won and I would be soon looking at some form of extruder, how wrong I was! Despite many attempts, I couldnt get the reprap host software to behave. I wanted to be able to use a pencil to draw some graphics on a sheet of paper by making some files, converting tby philwaud - Reprappers
Hi folks Im a little frustrated with the host software, Ive got a working cartesian bot and am using a sanguino to control things. I can successfully move the three axis and all is sweet. When I try and load an .stl file to test it out, I hit problems! Ive created an .stl file so that I can draw a simple shape. Ive chosen a circle with one quadrant removed, 5mm diameter and .2mm thick. It wasby philwaud - RepRap Host
I get the same error - ive attached a screen shot.by philwaud - General
Hi folks Im trying to test my RepStrap (CopperRap) by replacing the extruder with a pen and getting it to draw some pretty pictures. Ive attached two files, a sketchup file of a circle with one quadrant removed. Its 5mm in diameter and 0.2mm in thickness. It "sits" on the xy plane, ie z=0 Ive used the Ruby script to export an .stl file, which I have also attached. If I reimport the "pacman" fby philwaud - RepRap Host
Have you wired the enable pin up? Probably obvious I know, but without it it wont work! Philby philwaud - Controllers
Thanks for the hint re pressing the reset button. I also get this error, but if you hold down the reset button whilst you click upload and then keep it held down until the arduino development says "xxxxx of xxxxx" then let go of the reset button, then it works fine EVERY time. Philby philwaud - RepRap Host
Hi Guys, My wife was away last night so I had a marathon session on the reprap! Im in the process of building a resstrap and have got as far as just about finishing the cartesian bot. I have three Stepper 1.2 boards and a Sanguino with breakout shield. The Sanguino was really bugging me, every time I tried to upload any sketches it would just lock and sometimes throw an avrdude error. Searchingby philwaud - RepRap Host
Wow, I wish I had known that before I bought a USB to serial cable :-( Im guessing the same trick will work with a Sanguino? Philby philwaud - Controllers
From reading about this on the Sanguino site, I thought this was an "expensive SMC component" which would be difficult for people to make? Ive just bought an Sanguino, breakout shield and cable and I wish it had been possible to make one without buying a cable!by philwaud - Controllers
Thanks, this is really useful advice (from everyone, as always!) Ill have a play with some remotes etc tonight. Philby philwaud - Controllers
I have been very careful not to do this, I went through a phase of popping quite a few LEDs and it started to get costly so Im more cautious now. I have twelve sensors of five different types so its unlikely I have blown them all.by philwaud - Controllers
Thanks for the reply nophead. Im not having much luck with this! Ive also have an opto switch which has OMRON 1230 p8 1 0725H on the side. This doesnt have any resitors but the circuit is similar. One connection goes to both ends, the centre goes to just one and the other goes to the other end. I wasnt getting anywhere with this one, resitors added in just about every conbination but no joy. Iby philwaud - Controllers