>>I may be biased, but IMO it's a waste of time trying to get good results from a SCARA printer with 8-bit controller electronics and firmware. I've been thinking about this and I have to disagree. As i see it, the problem with scara printers is that they are not designed to be easy to program. I'll try to describe an ideal printer to program. An ideal printer would be of the parallel typby gipetto - Polar Machines, SCARA, Robot Arms
Thanks for the input. I know that an experimental setup wouldn't be expected to have great accuracy compared to an off the shelf product. I like to discuss these ideas even though they will likely lead nowhere as it helps me to avoid making bad decisions.by gipetto - Mechanics
I bet you could do without a z axis motor on a common cartesian printer by sacrificing some bed space. suppose you had a wheel with 3-4 spokes overlapping the bed and crashed the head into a spoke each time to turn it a fraction. you could have a slip clutch on the spokes to provide some pressure against unintentional movement.by gipetto - Polar Machines, SCARA, Robot Arms
I was looking at this video of an experimental polar 3d printer and was struck by how similar the parts were to a flywheel from any internal combustion engine. I had an idea to mount a flywheel on a tapered bearing, then mount the starter cog on a stepper to rotate the flywheel. it might even be possible to use a second flywheel as in the video with another starter cog poking up through the centeby gipetto - Mechanics