I personally only use lead free solder, and find it pretty straight forwards to use. I use a 150-420 degree C soldering station (generic non-branded, about £40) and flux cored solder, and haven't encountered any problems yet. While you could probably get away without a temperature controlled iron with leaded solder, I find the temperature control very useful. It enables you to solder to large cabby james glanville - Controllers
Had another go just now: # This was using a 20V power pack connected in parallel with a 2200uf cap (I suspect the psu has some more inside.) To make the tracks I grounded the sheet of copper, and used an old nail to draw the tracks. It was a bit like arc welding, if the nail was too close or quick it stuck and had to be tugged off. As I see it: Advantages: Cheap, easy to make toolhead, uses comby james glanville - Plastic Extruder Working Group
I think it would make more sense to selectively remove copper traces, because I can't see an easy way to add copper to a non-conductive surface. I found that by connecting one terminal of a hefty capacitor to the copper of a copper plated board, I could make ~1mm holes by tapping the other terminal against it. I think a toolhead consisting of a sharp electrode and a capacitor charger would work.by james glanville - Plastic Extruder Working Group
The trouble with this idea is that less and less computers have legacy ports (lpt, rs232) Also, with a microcontroller, if more pins are needed the chip can be swapped for a bigger one, whereas you face a hard limit for lpt. These may not be a problem for you, but I expect you'd have to write all the host software yourself. The cost is not much more for a microcontroller, a sanguino is $25, and tby james glanville - Controllers
I've been wondering about occasions like this that appear to need support material, could the reprap software be told that two pieces of thin wood will be placed on the work area, with a gap for the handle? This would work for all simple single-layered overhangs. You could also turn the cutter "complex side down", then print a handle on its back. Not sure if the software will print "floating" objby james glanville - Let's design something! (I've got an idea ...)
If you have access to some taps (the kind for cutting threads), I found it was easier to make a new bolt from 8mm steel rod (I had some spare from the cartesian bot) Cheap tap sets especially leave a really sharp edge, which here is actually much better.by james glanville - Reprappers
Hi, I successfully tried bikechain: # I used jockey wheels, they're the smallest sprocket I could find, and with the chain the total cost for all axes was ~£20. I get sub-mm precision, not limited by the chain at all. If you want more info, just ask, I can dig up a link to some really nice cheap shimano sprockets if you want.by james glanville - Reprappers
Not to be negative, but the risk of delamination is probably quite high, since the key is probably only a line of plastic or two thick. Although as soon as my reprap's accuracy is okay I want to make a large plastic lock and key for showing how lockpicking works.by james glanville - Let's design something! (I've got an idea ...)
Personally I think its important to keep to open source software. Even if someone is generous enough to donate to buy software, it makes the project dependent on them. I think it is more important to shift a lot of posts to a wiki system. This also has the advantage of not needing major upheaval, as the move can be done gradually.by james glanville - Administration, Announcements, Policy
Kartturi: I would recommend the sanguino to be a bit more future-proof, since the arduino only just has enough space for the firmware. The cable contains a usb-serial convertor, which is probably not worth making, since the parts aren't much cheaper, and its well made, so you can plug it straight in without smd soldering and extra boards. I have found the sanguino excellent on a breadboard, becauby james glanville - Finnish RepRap User Group
Jenn, i don't know enough about the kits to know if you need to cut the motor shaft, but if you do, this is how i did it: short all leads together brake the motor clamp the motor in a vice or to a table use some locking pliers or clamp to stall the motor shaft on the opposite end you want to cut use a hacksaw to cut it, possibly adding water or oil to cool it if it gets too hot (not sure how hotby james glanville - Reprappers
Python runs everywhere, and imho it is simpler to install than java. Standalone executables are easy to create if installing programs is undesirable, and the advantages of no dependencies must outweigh the costs of generating 3 different executables.by james glanville - RepRap Host
I've been considering porting the host software to pyqt4 because i dislike java immensely (i find java to be a pain to install with all its libs, and i have never been able to use it comfortably.) As pyqt4 is effectively as portable (py2exe can build a windows version in seconds with no user input or dependencies), and arguably freer, would there be any interest from the community? I'm not in anyby james glanville - RepRap Host
Since a lot of bottles and pots are made of thermoplastics, could you use a shredder to make extrudable strips? My ancient shredder just about managed to turn a white plastic milk bottle into lots of 5mmx1mm (approx) strips, with the only work necessary cutting off the curved top and bottom, then making a slit lengthways across the tube of the bottle. If some way of joining the strips to make a lby james glanville - Plastic Extruder Working Group
I'm in Hertford, Hertfordshire, my reprap is finished apart from the extruder playing up. d4m13nb3rry, my msn is james.n.glanville@gmail.com if you ever need help on making a reprap.by james glanville - United Kingdom RepRap User Group
If you try and drive them backwards, do they turn forwards? If so, a dodgy connection between the dir pin of the stepper motor driver board and the arduino is almost certainly the problem. Jamesby james glanville - RepRap Host
Hi, much to my dismay I cannot get the bitsfrom bytes extruder to work well, and in trying I have damaged it. I was getting relatively good performance for a while, but then the ptfe deformed, splurging hot hdpe on to the top of the large washer. I also had problems with the hdpe filament not being gripped by the thread. I have since cut a new short length of threaded rod with a die which works bby james glanville - Mechanics
Hi, just wondering if anyone has thought of using something like an xbee module to print wirelessly. Where my reprap is it is inconvenient even to place my laptop nearby. My thoughts were an xbee module, or possibly even using my ipod touch as a remote rs232 link. I probably won't get a chance to try either for a week or so, just wondering if anyone had ideas/comments?by james glanville - Controllers
Much as the idea is a good one, I don't think cheap calipers would be very good. All of mine drift slowly, by about 0.01mm every few changes in direction. Since the average build contains hundreads of such changes, the drift might reach into the mms, which would really defeat the point. Some form of quadrature encoder on a motor shaft might work better, but is there much need? My steppers don't dby james glanville - Mechanics
John, That picture was a fortnight ago, so some things have changed, I'm now using a normal arduino, one rrrf stepper driver, one breadboarded driver, and one I soldered on to stripboard. I went with the standard opto-endstops because the rrrf kit was about 10p more per endstop than I could find the ir bit itself. The rrrf stepper driver and the arduino instead of the sanguino is because I had aby james glanville - Mechanics
If using the bitsfrombytes extruder, could you rough up the bearing which pushes the filament against the thread with sandpaper, then measure rotation of the bearing? Seems to me this would give a much better indication of flow rate than measuring motor rotation speed. I'm finding extrusion speed fairly constant at the moment, but this would be my first solution if it becomes a problem.by james glanville - Reprappers
I don't know why no-ones suggested wood, I built my reprap out of bits of wood I had lying around, and managed to follow the darwin design almost completely. I also managed to make it without any advanced tools, pretty much just a saw, a pillar drill and a sanding belt. (The extruder I bought from bitsfrombytes only because I verestimated how difficult it would have been to make. Here are some phby james glanville - Mechanics
Since I fried my second and last arduino and cannot get another one for a while I've been considering using an atmega8 instead, which would provide a native usb solution. While I know there are enough varients of the reprap firmware/hardware/software, I have been considering writing a firmware which acts as a HID device, which would make interfacing with it much easier. I hope to eventually writeby james glanville - RepRap Host
Is there anything I can do? If I can't get reliable communications going then I am not sure how I can start printing. Do you think trying a different laptop with a very stripped-down version of gentoo would reduce latency? Its pretty much the only thing I can think of.by james glanville - RepRap Host
The extruder motor is not connected, the errors occur even when the sanguino is not connected to anything.by james glanville - RepRap Host
Hi, I'm almost finished building my reprap, but have been plagued by repeated comms errors. Whether I'm using the stepper exerciser or trying a "dry build" (Not extruding yet), suddenly the reprap becomes non-responsive, and a whole load of resend count exceeded warnings flood the console. If I press the reset button on my sanguino, it works for another minute or so. I think there must be some soby james glanville - RepRap Host
I've had the same problems, I thought the sanguino was meant to auto-reset itself? From the little I know of how the auto-reset process is meant to work, one of the rs232 lines is toggled, which resets the chip. I may be entirely wrong, but could the arduino software be doing this either too early, too late, or not at all? Franklin, the green led also glows weakly on mine, not sure why.by james glanville - Controllers
I'm not sure it would work brilliantly, because the temperature of the nichrome wires is higher than the maximum temperature of PTFE. PTFE is fine for the barrel/filament guide because it is less warm, but it would quickly decompose if it touched the heater wire. I found that instead of painstakingly winding the nichrome wire around layers of fire cement it was easier to apply a huge blob of cemeby james glanville - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Hi, I'm waiting for the electronics to arrive so I can start printing, but I've mostly finished the cartesian bot: As you can see, I used bike chain instead of toothed belt. I did this because it was cheaper (chain + sprockets <by james glanville - Mechanics
I managed to flash the 1.3 version of the reprap firmware using a 32-bit ubuntu pc. The default ubuntu toolchain must optimise for size more efficiently or something. Thanks for everyone's help anyways.by james glanville - RepRap Host