I had a few ideas on how a selfreplicating scara robot could be done. The first issue that popped up is rigidy. Normally extruded PLA isn't rigid enough, especially where forces are perpendicular to the extruded strands. But this is only half the issue. The way slicing currently works it doesn't generate the optimal path for internal support structures. Paths are normally just straight lines, fiby ElectricMucus - Developers
VDX Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ... for ionizing air you need much higher energy > densities, than diode-lasers with 'only' some ten > Watts can generate - here you need pulsing lasers > with maybe 30 Watts/500mJ average power or > CW-lasers with some 100 Watts! Well as suggested, it should be combined with a reasonable vacuum. So since the poby ElectricMucus - MetalicaRap
I just thought why not combine the 2: Any laser beam can be used to ionize air. We can form a plasma channel to conduct the current onto the workarea. Possibly this will not suffice to do it in full atmospheric pressure (or it can, that depends how good the beam can be focused). But we could at least come up with enough laser energy to have usable results with a lower quality vacuum.by ElectricMucus - MetalicaRap
They are in plain natural abs, here is a photo, sorry for the flash.by ElectricMucus - General
Dave Durant Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ElectricMucus Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > There was a direct comparison of the UP printer > > and an Ultimaker of the same tornado model. > > Link please? > > See also: > for > somebody pushing high-quality on an Ultimaker. this was it,by ElectricMucus - General
Why is the print quality of the UP printers overall better than any reprap or derivate? At first they seem to have the automatic same-material support all figured out. People using it can use it reliably in contrast to skeinforge. The other thing is the lack of "bumps" along the outside of the print and most surprisingly there are no visible reversal marks. Their surface quality seems to be eveby ElectricMucus - General
VDX Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ... a scara design is better only then, when the > arms are made of a really rigid/stiff material. Well, there is much we can do about rigidity, at first there is the geometry and the infill orientation which could be tweaked to make it rigid along the axis of rotation (We wouldn't need it anywhere else so that gives usby ElectricMucus - General
After letting those ideas sit for a while I now think most of those ideas I had are pretty worthless... in terms of efficiency. While electromagnetic energy might be ideal in theory there are no practical sources which are efficient enough, basically everything is under 50% efficiency. Also the costs wouldn't make it viable, expensive materials, lasers and so on aren't really something I am lookby ElectricMucus - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Nice, did you notice they went for a SCARA type design? I've always wondered why nobody went after the advantages it brings yet. Most importantly it could increase the replication factor substantially, the arms could be fully printable as opposed to threaded rods in the reprap.by ElectricMucus - General
Awesome, I can't wait to see picturesby ElectricMucus - General
Well, yes exactly. Aren't layer-masks rather the only variant? My point is while of course the initial costs would be higher (probably not if you consider the prices of commercial UV-lightning apparatuses) but the costs for the developing would be free. Also making double layer pcbs is a hassle doing it manually and the process could be automated easier. I'm not saying this would be the oh-soby ElectricMucus - Controllers
I just had an interesting idea: Producing PCBs still is a process where "rapid prototyping" uses the same techniques as mass production does. Layer masks are still made and the whole process is inherently better suited to produce several copies instead of one. Furthermore the need of physical layermasks increase the cost of small production values tremendously. Recent TFT diplays offer very hiby ElectricMucus - Controllers
I'm glad you finally got around writing shorter topics. Nice work! The reason why people are either looking for a way to print circuits or metal parts is that in order to do both the process would have to encompass multiple materials at the same time. That is easier said than done so most just stick with one. I like the ultasonic consolidation idea... I just had an inspiration that we could useby ElectricMucus - General
I doubt this will work, sound interesting though.by ElectricMucus - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Traumflug Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Ah, they put solder on bare plastics. Doesn't that > look like manufacturing PCB-less electronics? If it were ... Could be glass though. I like the idea, too bad I didn't come up with it. I have a high power ultasonic mister here, nothing that could be placed on a extruder, its a 6 head 200W version but certaiby ElectricMucus - Plastic Extruder Working Group
In theory you can archive some color printing ability, meaning you print different areas in one color and be done with it. Dithering on the other hand cannot be archived, so this solution will not be "true color" Anoth solution would be if you adapt a inkjet printhead to fit on the printer. This way the top of the outline can be colored each layer. This won't be true color still because the maxby ElectricMucus - General
The thing is: Once you have the means for automated production you do not benefit from a gift. Or how to you suppose that reprap fits into this concept? Independently, yes I think highly of gift culture but what I know of this mainly is about used things, things you no longer need and most importantly things someone payed for initially. What could work is a gift community around parts which cby ElectricMucus - General
The bad thing about those projects (Z******t) is that they most likely have a specific agenda, advocating a certain "solution", or lifestyle. Before I abolish all ownership, live in a centralized, automated city and sacrifice the few conveniences I have for the "greater good" I'd hit the streets and burn stuff... >< As it is with these "lets change the world" topics, better use something tby ElectricMucus - General
Well, the whole reprap community is about "a comprehensive search for a good printer", more or less. One should appreciate your effort but that isn't the case. You mix up several topics at once even when the synergies between then is minimal. Besides tl;dr it gives the impression that you are doing a high-school essay instead of contributing to the project.by ElectricMucus - General
The process you are talking about, fully automated, one piece is not practical. You are however able to print *several* books complete and at once. Some parts of the process take long (printing the pages, drying the glue) other are fast (cutting the sheets, folding the covers) some medium (aligning the pages) If you sacrifice efficiency it would be possible to automate the process even for a siby ElectricMucus - General
!by ElectricMucus - General
One of the cheapest, most complete options for a touchscreen is a stm32 primer (I, I & III) They include a arm processor a few outport pins, a small joystick, touchscreen, and so on.. I have one here, although I never used it. (It only supports SWT which doesn't work with openocd)by ElectricMucus - Firmware - experimental, borrowed, and future
Practical is what is doable with current engineering principles. You can think about it this way: Lets see what would be "ideal" and whats the next best thing until we approach something which can be built. - Santa Clause Machine - Startrek Replicatorâ„¢ - Molecular Machinery (Would need support material for some objects, free software already exists: , implementation is far away) - Controlledby ElectricMucus - General
If it were about just having enough parts like this and cheap, you might want to take a look on rotomolding since it is hollow. This is a fairly uncommonly known technique but has been replicated very successfully at home by quite a few people.by ElectricMucus - General
Njones Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Having one set of mechanics and a filament > selector device is never going to work in the long > term. The simple fact is that 3D printing is SLOW. > Having multiple extruder's working simultaneously, > perhaps using different colour PLA or different > nozzle sizes is a simple way to speed up the whole >by ElectricMucus - General
taraba Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > obligatory: > The Case Against XML > > > wow. That document added nothing I didn't already > know about XML and then rambled on about Word > douments being saved in HTML. I don't think it is supposed to accomplish anything more. > I agree that there's no reason a binary format > isn't useby ElectricMucus - General
Well, compression only helps with the excessive storage requirement for xml documents. In our case (and most cases if you believe the most popular critics) the major issue is the processing time required to parse it. Doing that on a AVR is out of the question and even with something like ARM, PIC32 or Propeller we would sacrifice a major junk of performance. Also if you want to store vertices yby ElectricMucus - General
Andrew Diehl Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You only need one motor, and some form of filament > select. Look at the dimension printers. One motor, > two filaments... I like this idea. Imagine a gearbox driven by a servo. Since the extruder is driven by a nowadays shifting could be done by detecting a stall of the servo, moving it back a little, turninby ElectricMucus - General
This was supposed to happen sooner or later... Quote... is an XML-based format designed to ... obligatory: The Case Against XML It would really have been nice if someone would have invested the effort to develop a decent binary file format instead.by ElectricMucus - General