The USB is desirable because it plugs into about everything where most PC's no longer come with serial ports. It also has the side benifit of being able to power the main processor chip on a arduino or sanguino board, so that the process can then control the larger power supply. Early firmware had pauses as it did not overlap receiving the next command; while executing the previous, that has gby freds - Controllers
You can actually use the serial cable as a boot loader, without buy a seperate piece of hardware.by freds - Reprappers
But it has you DNA input all over it: 1. Thermal mass for easy temp control 2. Short transition zone for the filament feed/melt zone 3. Stainless steel to steepen the zone, minimal heat transfer away from the zone. 4. Resistor heaters for easy assembly 5. Emphasis on reliability 6. Soon to be stepper driven Thank you for your contribution and systematic experimentation.by freds - General
Ahh probally would not want to extrude at 0.5mm!by freds - General
MakerBot just came out with a totally new design which they claim can print for days or weeks without problems.by freds - General
You also get this error if the USB RTS line doesn't reset the extruder controller to get the boot strap loader online. So your potential problems are: 1. Wrong serial port in use for USB connection. 2. Not resetting board from USB cable (lots of people have this, they learn when to manually push the reset button). 3. IDE enviorment not setup for USB serial connection (sounds wierd if you used sby freds - Controllers
It might work but it really depends on the radio frequency enviorment being not in use or noise free; otherwise the delays involved (latency) will mess up your prints. Typical example it could be printing fine until you nuke a cup of tea in the microwave or start wirelessly surfing the web with a laptop or notebook. Given that not something to propose as a universal solution.by freds - General
In case you haven't seen the link before I blogged on using the usb->ttl cable in the past and a number of people have sucessfully used it.by freds - Controllers
Another I think is that when people are buying very short ethernet cables is they have a tendency to purchase swap over patch cables which are not a one to one connection. Using a swap over cable has been reported to kill the opto endstops.by freds - Controllers
How about non-plastic materials or metal as a working medium? Or pedal to the metal?by freds - General
Looks like a good starting point to build one out of plywood.by freds - General
It looks like you have a great mechanical setup, how ever in the words of nophead the heat zone has to be small. My guess is under 15mm where it looks like your heat zone is spread across a good 30+.by freds - Plastic Extruder Working Group
You are getting the standard error that it is not talking to the boot loader. I haven't personally played with the extruder board yet. But if it's the Sanguino when you push the reset switch you get a few rapid blinks a pause and then another blink as a signature that the boot strap loader is working. The Sanguino has a jumper that allows one of the signal lines from the ttl-usb to reset theby freds - Reprappers
Not an expert here, but have been popping in and out looking at the variations in different Arduino supported processors (in my humble opinion). It looks like the differences are handled in the libraries for each board type. The biggest item is having a boot loader that matches the Arduino development environment. A significant factor in that is what the processor speed is and that is mainly conby freds - Sanguino(lolu)
Ah rather then cover 300+ mm while doing circuit boards, how about some form of restricted work area? Maybe a temporary brace while doing the milling of circuit boards or heck gearing to increase the acuracy over a smaller area?by freds - General
I think Zach blogged somewhere about a new sensor that used a simple strip magnet for position sensing, maybe a combination of the two would be a good approach.by freds - Mechanics
There's another variation on the mask, where you use a print head to spray water or a cooling mix then bring a heater over the bed to fuse other areas.by freds - General
There's supposed to be a switch that selects how the cpu is powered, from the usb cable or powersupply.by freds - Reprappers
I gave it shot and it made a hard shell inside of the extruder barrel that had to be drilled out!by freds - General
Yeah it can be fussy on the timing, what is wierd is that I have access to three Sanguino's. The orginal and two of the expanded versions with breakout conectors. The orginal works great no timing dance with the reset button and the other two you have to do the dance. Supposed to the same ciruit, parts, etc.by freds - Sanguino(lolu)
Yes it sounds like the boot loader is successfully loaded. Depending on your enviroment the Aurdino IDE is supposed to reset the target board and put into bootloader mode. When in bootloader mode it listens to the serial port for a new program, if no program is sensed it executes the previous program. Try clicking on the upload button (which triggers a recompile of the sketch) and then pressby freds - Sanguino(lolu)
If its a steady blink then you probally do not have the bootloader firmware for the arudino IDE env installed. The LED should blink rapidly after you press the reset button. About five blinks, a slight pause and then another blink. If it does not have the bootloader then you have to use a ISP programmer to upload it. There is bunch of different options to do this. I have a blog on how to makby freds - Sanguino(lolu)
They just released a new series of chips in the xmega line, production capacity might have gone to the new chips.by freds - General
Here's a web page post by the guy who designed the board: He mentions a adjustment pot, did you turn up the current?by freds - Controllers
Oh I agree with the beauty contest comment. I guess was what I was more trying to advoke was new processor for a lower chip count that did direct USB communication (screw ethernet) where the communication is bursty (dump to memory card and walk away). Another thought that came to mind is that you could directly clone from one board to another. I.E. DNA transfer (grin). Also given hubs and USby freds - Controllers
A interesting spin on this is a blog entry that I stumbled across "Why I hate Arduino" who articulates more why Arduino is a good home for reprap with his reasoning why it is popular. How ever given all this discussion I think it is time for a new base design. Given that chips come and go from production. The new XMega chips have a larger series of chips that can do intrinsic USB. So letsby freds - Controllers
Your welcome! Best to start with a simple sketch, blink is a good example, though on the Sanguino the LED pin is pin 0. I have both the orginal breadboard pinout Sanguino and the subsequent design that was onboard of a breakout board. The orginal works perfically for the auto reset logic and the other board I have to reset manually, do not know why. For that board I click the upload button andby freds - Reprappers
Hi Pete Glad to see that you found my post usefull.by freds - General
Hi Bob Those directions are for Arduino enviorment prior to release 17. The Ardunio group has revised the directory structure to support different processor boards. Now you simply copy the Sanguino folder out of the extracted zip file from Zach's site above into the Ardunio hardware directory. There is a readme file "Sanguino-0018r1_1_4.txt" just below the Sanguino directory in the zip fileby freds - Reprappers