Hi Zach, ... when homing, then you drive your actual position down to 0 and then even lower (until the end-switch is activated), so the actual position went negative, as your home-position is defined as "drive into the switch, then drive some steps out and this is your actual 0". Maybe you have an overflow because of to high possible position-steps, which went even bigger, when counted negativeby VDX - RepRap Host
... we had some discussions about extruding conducting paste as vias and/or conducting trays and embedding components in single- or multilayer-compounds. I'm playing around with my CNC-system to get a combination between PCB-milling and -drilling and extruding glues, globetops and conducting trays ... When inserting IC's and passive and active components in freshly extruded and/or drilled sheetby VDX - General
... maybe it's a good idea to salvage the diodelasers from PS3-Bluray-HD-drives? They seem to be in the interesting range between blue and near-UV ... Viktorby VDX - Polymer Working Group
Hi greenarrow, ... my stepper-motors with 5 pins are all unipolar types, where pin 2 and 5 (in your sketch) are shorted internally - pin 1 and 4 shorted is very uncommon for me. When you can open your motor without damage, then look into - sometimes the combined wires are on top of the windings and it would be a try to separate them and solder short wires to go out ... Viktorby VDX - Controllers
Hi Andy, ... the plastic body of the syringe shouldn't be a problem, i used them with aggressive acids and highly corrosive paste-materials. For moving the material i used the standard plastic piston-heads too. It's the needle, what sometimes made problems - some of my ingredients battled with the steel, others even with titanium-needles, so i use standard-plastic-tips when i dispense highly cby VDX - Polymer Working Group
Hi Assargadon, ... you need the proper firmware in the Aruino-boards, and you must have a similar pin-layout, so look which setup and which board-type you really need. Or simply mail Zach, as he's the one programming the Arduino-boards to communicate with the PC and stay compatible with the host-software ... Viktorby VDX - General
Hi Sean, some years ago i tried with painting the copper-sheet with black paint and burn the trays with a 3W-CO2-Laser, what went fine ... Actually you can salvage 220mW-Diodelasers from fast DVD-RW-drives or even higher powers from DPSS-laserpointers. At home i have a pigtailed 1W-diodelaser and will try with burning trays when my CNC is working again. Copper is a very good mirror for laser-by VDX - Mechanics
Hi nophead, ... yes, the thermal conductivity is higher than with PTFE, because it's much denser. Prior my selection of soapstone i found some CNC-macineable ceramics with tifferent composition, strength and thermal properties - I ordered some samples of DOTHERM-700 for milling-experiments and got some samples of other types too ... Some of the materials are softer or with lower thermal condby VDX - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Hi nophead, ... i ordered my parts here: It seems to be a very dense/heavy/hard-grade-soapstone from Brasilia or India. It looks like normal dark-grey stone and has polished a touch/finish like granite, but i can carve it with a knife ... Viktorby VDX - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Hi Zach, ... i didn't have a lathe and my greatest mill is 3mm in diameter and 10 mm cutting length, as most of my machined parts are very, very small But maybe i can do the trick with the mill-lathe, as in this video: This week my millhead for the home-CNC should arrive, so i can 'play' with some sideway-technologies ... Viktorby VDX - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Hi all, ... here i have a sample of milled soapstone: It's very dense quality, usable for kitchen-tables and stairs. I milled it with a 3mm hardalloy-mill without any coolant at 24000 U/min - the (old) mill didn't seems to wear out. Next i have to mill a bigger plate with over 40 inserts for firing parts in an oven - then i'll use a new mill and can test, how long it lives ... So i can makeby VDX - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Hi khiraly, i made doublesided etched and milled PCB's at home too. For aligning the two sides i inserted 4 extra pins in the outer edges, printd/processed one side and drilled only this 4 holes with good accuracy. Then i drilled this holes in the film of the backside too, turned the PCB and fixed the film with 4 short pins of the same diameter, so it was exactly aligned. Then i processed theby VDX - General
Hi jonnyz, ... lubricating is counteracting. With the tubes i used i have a very good grip - when lubricating, the tube is easier to apply, but can slip down easy too ... The pneumatic tube is so strong, that i could bend it many times, until it went warm, then it go better over the thread. When cooled down again, the grip is so strong, that i can't remove it. But when the motor-axis went veby VDX - Mechanics
Hi Zach, ... you have PTFE-blocks, so they are stiff enough - but if you use PTFE-coatet sheets or glass-fabric, then you have to glue or combine with a changeable support. I can use both, as i have bulk PTFE and different PTFE-sheets in stock, but when thinking of 'using what you have', then sometimes the 'more complicated' ways are easier to go Vktorby VDX - Plastic Extruder Working Group
... when you have a CNC-mill or a real rigid repstrap, then you can pass by without a lathe - look on this video: It's a perfect way to 'automatize' batch-fabbing of some parts for the reprap too ... Viktorby VDX - Let's design something! (I've got an idea ...)
... cut a sheet of aluminium in the right size and with two holes, glue the PTFE on the aluminium and fix it with two screws through ... Viktorby VDX - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Hi jonnyz, ... look at the image in this thread: Here i used pneumatic hoses with the right diameter - they are very strong and a bit elastic too. For higher compression on the axes you can crimp a thin tube around the hose too, so it would stick much better, when the motor went hot ... Viktorby VDX - Mechanics
Hi Nighthawk, ... the PDF causes an error "The file is damaged and cannot be repaired" ... Viktorby VDX - 3D Design tools
Hi Sebastien, i have some glue-guns of 'industrial grade' too, which are capable of running all the day long without fuming the glue ... When searching some stuff for encapsulating PCB's i found some bigger guns and industrial tools for filling housings and embedding electronics - this guns run with granules instead of sticks, have a reservoir of some 100 millilitres, can be adjusted to specifiby VDX - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Hi all, today i checked all my scattered gluesticks and found many different materials in colour, (cold) elasticity, melting temperature, extruding-viscosity and adhesiveness: In the image is only a small-sized glue-gun for 7,5mm-sticks, the bigger sticks for the 'normal' glue-guns have 11,5mm diameter. I didn't know, what exactly the specific materials are, but it's a good chance, that theyby VDX - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Hi Ian, ... i remember the same error on my Notebook with XP - 'think i solved it by reinstalling the additional packages a second time and following the hints to copy all the DLL's and files to the actual Java-paths ... Viktorby VDX - RepRap Host
Hi Howie, ... for images with very low distortions you need telecentric cameras, whats pretty expensive, or inverted video-makro-optics, as in a special video-microscope, i developed for microassembly-imaging. Look at the images here (on the right side): - - or here: - The images have nearly no distortion and a very high area of sharpness ... Viktorby VDX - 3D Scanners, Book Scanners, and Optics
Hi Sebastien, ... i'm sintering and melting gold-filled paste on goldpads with a selfmade PWM-driven 4Watt-diodelaser - it's steaming and fuming heavy, when drying and then the gold went fluid and connect to the underlying pad ... It's a neat chemistry for the adhesion-additives for good contact of the dispensed droplet to the pad when heating, as the droplet is nearly 80 microns wide and onlyby VDX - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Hi nophead, ... it's the definition of RepStrap, what changed the things for me ... In the last thirty years i built at home (and sometimens at job too) several cartesian robots for laser-cutting and optimized some low-cost-CNC-mills for higher accuracy too. Every of them was more capable then the actual Darwin/Mendel/Seedling-design in accuracy and speed, but mostly a bit expensiver So it'sby VDX - Administration, Announcements, Policy
... it's a spam-bot, which was already running here some weeks ago until Seabstien deleted the account - now it seem's to run again ... Viktorby VDX - Administration, Announcements, Policy
Hi Felix, ... and it's possible too to output a complete layer of fluid paste out of a wide extruder-slit (maybe even the complete sheet at once), flatten/adjust the heigth with a knife-lid, dry or sinter the paste with an IR-heater and mill the actual sheet - or sintering after milling to the final solid. So you can build extreme rigid or hard bodies from heat-curing pastes, ceramics or even mby VDX - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Hi nophead, ... then back again to soapstone - heatresistant until 1600by VDX - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Hi Howie, ... i use (comercial, ~300Euros) laser-goggles for 'live' test-micro-welding gold-paste with a self-built diode-laser under a microscope - comercial lasers have shutters, so there it's not a point. Some guys use home-brewed diode-laser (from salvaged DVD-RW-drives) cutting systems without any goggles, because of the high costs, so i looked around what's possible with cheaper stuff ...by VDX - Laser Cutter Working Group
... back to cheap selfmade laser-goggles: I tested the cyan-window of the red-cyan-anaglyph-spectacles -- THEY DIDN'T SHIELD THE DIODE_LASER !!! I stacked until 8 of the cyan-windows, so it seems to be same colour and darker then my laser-goggles, but the diode-laser-beam went through - the comercial laser-goggles blocked the beam completelly, so it's not so easy to make a cheap look-through-laby VDX - Laser Cutter Working Group
Hi Demented, ... before selecting soapstone i tried some other ceramic- and fibre-materials designed for CNC-milling too, but soapstone was in the end the best and cheapest for my project Another possibility are elastic pre-ceramic-tapes as used for ceramic 3D-packages - look here: We assemble some LTCC-sensors custom-fabbed by VIA and i have some samples of different pre-ceramic-tapes -- liby VDX - Plastic Extruder Working Group