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Discuss any sort of mechanical stuff here: positioning systems, gears, extruding methods, etc.
Re: Request for changes in the "Machines Variations" section - 9 years ago
@Matt Thanks, that is perfectly fine, and I also support dc42's suggestions above, i.e. renaming "Delta Robots and Stewart Platforms" to "Delta Machines" and "CoreXY Systems" to "CoreXY Machines". BTW I noticed in another thread that you and other sysadmins are short on time for this sort of administrative tasks, and I am perfectly fine with donating some of my time if you need some help. In myby AndrewBCN - Administration, Announcements, Policy
How to modify a standard RAMPS 1.4 to work with Arduino Due?
- 9 years ago
Hi everybody, I am trying to figure out a way to do some low-cost development of 3D printer controller firmware for 32-bit ARM, and one possible solution would be to modify a standard RAMPS 1.4 clone (these can costs as little as $7) to use with an Arduino Due (again, a Chinese Due clone is only around $16). So my question is: how do I modify/hack a RAMPS 1.4 so that I can plug it on an Arduinoby AndrewBCN - RAMPS Electronics
Re: Request for changes in the "Machines Variations" section - 9 years ago
Hi Matt, That is certainly an improvement relatively speaking, compared to the present situation, but it doesn't cater to my main request in my original post above: I really wanted a separate folder or subforum named "Prusa i3 and variants". I am quite certain we will observe within a matter of days that it is the forum in the "Machines Variations" section that will receive the highest number ofby AndrewBCN - Administration, Announcements, Policy
Re: Request for changes in the "Machines Variations" section - 9 years ago
Quotedc42 ...and this will increase the load on the server, which is already vert slow at times... I am not an admin for the reprap.org server or servers and so I don't have access to load figures, but in my "real life" I am a Linux sysadmin and I have worked in the past on server systems with up to 1 million hits per day. Personally I don't see how the folder structure of the forums can have anby AndrewBCN - Administration, Announcements, Policy
Re: What's the difference between the wades extruders? - 9 years ago
Page created, now I just need to fill it in! ;-)by AndrewBCN - General
Re: Mounting and attaching a heated bed - 9 years ago
I use a thin (1.5mm) sheet of cork glued with normal white (wood) glue to the underside of the PCB heatbed, as suggested in the wiki: and it works just fine.by AndrewBCN - General
Re: What's the difference between the wades extruders? - 9 years ago
Hi Greg, Really nice to see you jumping in this thread! I am going to try to trace the genealogy of your extruder designs back from 2011 till now and I'll create a page in the wiki detailing what I have found (BTW I already have a page similar to that, but about the history of some Prusa i3 printed part designs for the X-axis motor end). One thing is quite certain, Wade's original design and yby AndrewBCN - General
Re: What's the difference between the wades extruders? - 9 years ago
Greg's Wade's Geared Extruder is a variant of the original Wade's Geared Extruder, which was originally documented in the reprap.org wiki something like 5 years ago. Unfortunately, Greg's Wade's Geared Extruder is not directly documented in the wiki. I have been trying to determine the history/genealogy of this extruder but it takes a lot of time to put all the information together. In any caseby AndrewBCN - General
Re: Request for changes in the "Machines Variations" section - 9 years ago
QuoteMattMoses .... 3. Rename "Mendel and Prusa Mendel" to "Prusa i3, Prusa Mendel, and Sells Mendel". ... Hi Matt, everybody, I think there is some consensus by now about a couple of things in the "Machine Variations" forum reorganization. 1. We do not want to increase the number of subforums. 2. We accept that some newer designs are in widespread use, development and most importantly, beiby AndrewBCN - Administration, Announcements, Policy
The Delta Steel, a slightly modified Delta-Pi - 9 years ago
Hi, I am working on assembling the Delta Steel prototype, essentially a Delta-Pi with a mini Kossel effector and Traxxas 5347 ball joints. Mike Pauwee has done an awesome job designing the Delta-Pi and I really liked his mechanical design for the columns/carriages. At the same time, I think the mini Kossel effector is also quite neat, so I remixed Mike's carriage design to accommodate the mini Koby AndrewBCN - Delta Machines
Re: A little tool to help assemble Traxxas 5347 ball joints - 9 years ago
Quoteiira Ah ha! I hadn't checked the OpenSCAD file. I think I'll print one of these tonight, I'm making some new rods soon and haven't assembled the joints. It's also given me a great starting point to make a press for the bearings in V-Wheels I'll report back once I've printed and tested it. Hi, If you don't mind, when/if you modify my OpenSCAD source, please could you keep the original attriby AndrewBCN - Delta Machines
Re: A little tool to help assemble Traxxas 5347 ball joints - 9 years ago
I made a small change in the OpenSCAD source but have not uploaded it yet to Thingiverse, I am attaching the file just in case. This is to prevent the ball from going through the connector altogether when it is pressed in place.by AndrewBCN - Delta Machines
Re: A little tool to help assemble Traxxas 5347 ball joints - 9 years ago
Quoteiira Handy tool I find that if you pop the balls in the freezer and the plastic bits in hot water before assembling they go together much easier than they would otherwise - just like pistons and gudgeon pins! Hi, Thanks! If you check the OpenSCAD source code for the tool you'll find that this hot/cold tip is already in there, along with the tip to add some grease/oil before pressing the bby AndrewBCN - Delta Machines
Re: PC shuts down when I connect 12V - 9 years ago
I would say you probably have a short to ground somewhere in your RAMPS. To check: 1. remove all the connectors and the stepper drivers from the RAMPS board, i.e. just leave the Arduino and the RAMPS. 2. Connect only your power supply to the RAMPS and turn it on. 3. If you still have a short, your PC will turn off. Change the RAMPS. 4. If you do not have a short now, re install the drivers and cby AndrewBCN - RAMPS Electronics
Request for changes in the "Machines Variations" section - 9 years ago
Hi, This is a request to the forum admins. Please, could we make a few changes/adjustments to the "Machines Variations" section? 1. Archive or merge into an "Older designs" subforum, both the Darwin and Prism subforums. They both saw their last posts in June 2014. 2. Merge the "Mendel 90" and "Mendel and Prusa Mendel" subforums. How about rename this new forum to "Mendel and variants" ? 3. Mosby AndrewBCN - Administration, Announcements, Policy
Re: First Build Problems - 9 years ago
Take out all the stepper drivers carrier boards and check the electronics with your power supply again. Also post a few pictures of your setup and what happens when you turn on/off the power supply, it's hard to imagine what can be wrong without taking a look at your setup.by AndrewBCN - General Mendel Topics
Re: what type of extruder for Prusa i3 ??? - 9 years ago
Quotetolisn I have a gregs wade v5 extruder and I am thinking of installing a E3D V6 all metal hotend. Is this a good combination? Definitely yes, it's a good combination and quite popular too... and it's practically the same combination I have on my first P3Steel! Make sure you install a proper cooling system for the E3D hotend and also a layer fan if printing PLA. For the layer fan, take a lookby AndrewBCN - General Mendel Topics
A little tool to help assemble Traxxas 5347 ball joints - 9 years ago
Hi, I am posting this here in case somebody is assembling a Delta 3D printer that uses Traxxas 5347 ball joints and needs a simple way to put them together. I designed this little tool that makes inserting the steel ball in the connector literally a snap: More info on Thingiverse Comments and constructive criticism welcome. Cheers, Andrewby AndrewBCN - Delta Machines
Re: what type of extruder for Prusa i3 ??? - 9 years ago
Hi, You are asking for a lot but it's definitely not too much! OK, extruders for the Prusa i3: complicated subject. The "classic" choice is a Greg's Wade extruder, this is a relatively old and very much debugged design that will almost always give good results. You can find plenty of STLs to print on Thingiverse. Requires a hobbed bolt, three 608ZZ bearings, and a JHead or E3D hotend or Budascby AndrewBCN - General Mendel Topics
Re: Yes, 3D printers can go on fire. - 9 years ago
Hi, I find this fire very strange. The thing that makes me say that is that there are various fuses and current limiting devices that don't seem to have kicked in for some reason: 1) Pololu drivers are themselves current limited. Taking a close look at the picture of the RAMPS board, one can see that the extruder Pololu driver burned down, the other Pololus didn't. 2) The RAMPS board includes tby AndrewBCN - Safety & Best Practices
Re: Low-current stepper drivers - 9 years ago
Hi, If you are going to use a Mega 2560 + RAMPS + Pololu-style drivers for the extruder + Marlin firmware, then the simplest route by far with the least waste of time and money is to follow Viktor's suggestion and just use Pololu drivers for all your steppers, and wire the small steppers as standard bipolar. You can find how to do that in the wiki. As Viktor wrote above, you can adjust the currenby AndrewBCN - Controllers
Re: Low-current stepper drivers - 9 years ago
Hi, Did you check ? All you need is a few transistors, in the example above they are using a ULN2003A chip which is just a few transistors in a DIP package. Pololu-style carrier boards are definitely overkill in your case. Good luck with your project, Andrewby AndrewBCN - Controllers
Re: Low cost 32-bit controller board - 9 years ago
Quotedc42 QuoteAndrewBCN A network bridge or an add-on WiFi daughterboard are both likely to cost almost as much as a full-fledged OctoGoatBox and you still don't have the CPU power, RAM and storage required to drive a full-fledged Web interface such as OctoPrint. That's the kind of half-baked "solution" that I definitely would not recommend. 1. You obviously didn't follow the link to the networby AndrewBCN - Controllers
Re: Low cost 32-bit controller board - 9 years ago
Quoteplankton With RPi most people use a USB Wifi dongle, those are dirt cheap, but not sure how easy it would be to implement support for that (drivers, USB A port)? First you need to write the USB host driver, then the specific Wi-Fi dongle driver, then the Wi-Fi helper user space utilities, then the Wi-Fi protocol support, then the TCP/IP stack. Easy... not! The WiFi daughterboard that dc42by AndrewBCN - Controllers
Re: Low cost 32-bit controller board - 9 years ago
Quotedc42 ... Andrew, you are complaining about the paradigm and not "thinking outside the box", but the only alternative one you have suggested is a Linux box plus an 8-bit microcontroller. I have pointed out that the 8-bit microcontroller you suggested actually costs more than twice the price of the ARM processor I propose to use. Actually you have to take into account the total cost of the boby AndrewBCN - Controllers
Re: Low cost 32-bit controller board - 9 years ago
Quoteplankton I think we can probably all agree that some form of network connectivity is a desirable feature, however if it will add significantly to the projected cost then that will defeat the intended purpose of this board (and Octo-Print is certainly a good solution for anyone that needs a Web interface). @AndrewBCN You make a good point that the software toolchain could be redesigned to reby AndrewBCN - Controllers
Re: Low cost 32-bit controller board - 9 years ago
Quotedc42 Andrew, thanks for your thoughts. QuoteAndrewBCN Just two posts above you argued in favor of including an Ethernet interface and now you are arguing that to save costs this same Ethernet interface should not be included in your new design? Read the whole thread. I have always said that this board will not have Ethernet. But I posed the question, will that limit sales of the board tooby AndrewBCN - Controllers
Re: Low cost 32-bit controller board - 9 years ago
Quotedc42 ... The board I propose will also cost less to manufacture than a Duet, mostly by using a microcontroller with fewer pins and without on-chip Ethernet, leaving off the other Ethernet bits... Just two posts above you argued in favor of including an Ethernet interface and now you are arguing that to save costs this same Ethernet interface should not be included in your new design? Quoteby AndrewBCN - Controllers
Re: Low cost 32-bit controller board - 9 years ago
Quotedc42 Thanks for the additional comments. Regarding Ethernet support and a web interface, the Duet electronics and firmware provides an excellent web interface at the same time as running the printer, all on a 84MHz Cortex M3 processor with 96K RAM. The benefit is huge IMO. Once you have used the web interface, you never want to go back to Pronterface. ... I confess I never actually used Proby AndrewBCN - Controllers
Re: Low cost 32-bit controller board - 9 years ago
Hi, This is a great project for the RepRap community and I hope it reaches the "working" status in 2015 while at the same time achieving all its objectives, in particular the low-cost aspect which I see as the pitfall for many previous projects of this kind. As for the "Ethernet support" option, which would increase the price of the board considerably, I would suggest it is not needed. Personallyby AndrewBCN - Controllers