Dear Markus, First: Thank you for your support and effort. Our appreciation for it cannot be stressed enough. Others have already pointed out the motivation for the post which seems to have sparked this: The main purchasing page is meant to be general, but what was desired (in the mind of the student) was a page which had just the relevant (and updated) information for purchasing which stuby EtherDais - General
Hi Emmanuel, I just wanted to point out that the Open Hybrid Mendel should probably be located on the branch of the Mixtape and Malthus as opposed to floating out in free space, as it is a mashup of designs which drawn from the sells and prusa mendel, which seems to be what that branch indicates. Family tree is looking great, btw.by EtherDais - General
Bump on this. Perhaps there should be a support group for anyone who gets handed any of their kits/boards. Anyone have any news about the TechZone folks?by EtherDais - General
If you're still looking for testers, please do get in touch with me. We've got people who are interested in both testing and publishing the results.by EtherDais - General
Is your thermistor place anywhere near where the thermcouple was, or is it further from the heat source? Tacking on afterthought thermowidgets generally means you're reading something lower (possibly much lower) than you're really heating it to.by EtherDais - Firmware - mainstream and related support
Pretty similar. In our experience, Repsnapper has some issues communicating with the printer, leading to small blobs and pauses. Pronterface seems to be much cleaner with regard to this.by EtherDais - Developers
I suppose the short answer is 'hard enough that it isn't well known or documented, as opposed to being so easy that it's commonplace'. I think the trick is that a proper auger is not easily salvaged or adapted from something else to drive the pellets into the hot zone. Everyone gets stuck when it looks like you need to go and machine something specifically to do all of this. I'm sure thereby EtherDais - Developers
Hi Emmanuel, Not to nitpick, but the Open Hybrid Mendel should probably be somewhere closer to the location of the 'mixtape mendel', as it is a fusion of both standard Sells and Prusa Mendels, amongst other designs. As it is listed it masks the relation to the Prusa. Thanks, and great work with this!by EtherDais - General
Devos, I wish there was a subforum to direct you to for techzone help, but that seems to be this thread. =/ You may want to start off with a description of what they sent you, then we can work toward solving the problems.by EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
electrodruid - We've been having HUGE issues with missing parts on our orders lately. Techzone is, thankfully, generally willing to correct their mistakes when informed kindly. I believe you have an extra 3 pin connector that should be a 2 pin connector. This is not a big deal. Just use it for that and make sure you know what wire is going into what hole. 3 3 pin cables are used for the optby EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
raldrich Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- >I won't kid you though - you're not going to be satisfied with the extruder's performance - the software hack that is used to run >a stepper motor from the Gen 3 extruder board makes the extruder noisy, and with lower torque than you would get with real >stepper hardware. If you don't want to go for all new electby EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
This is something that might need to be addressed on the Wiki regarding the Techzone LC Mendel: It keeps evolving as they often incorporate newer redesigns into their process. I've noticed several examples of this, but haven't had a chance to really fix up any documentation. -There are still images of their wooden wade's extruder floating around, which they abandoned sometime before Octoberby EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
I'm sure when you dissect your failed oak tips, you will find that there has been some crack or leak which originates from the porous bands which permeate their blocks. This is after something like ~5 of my own tips, and ~5 tips we've gone through in the course of last semester's class. We believe that even using an Oak branch, with the 'center bore' drilled through the center of the branchby EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
These aren't the droids you're looking for.by EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
The oak tips from techzone have a few typical routes toward failure, though they usually hold up for a period of time, and would probably be better with a different choice of wood. I suspect they went with Oak due to the low thermal conductivity, but Oak maintains this property through a network of rather large pores, which tend to fill with polymer over time. With experience of some ~10 woodenby EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
Hi Morrist. The axis scaling problem is related to firmware or motors: if you're only having one axis operate strangely, you may very well have a motor with a different stepping than the rest (Techzone firmware is usually set for 1.8 degree stepper motors, but Techzone sometimes supplies 0.8 degree steppers as well). My axis motors were 0.8 degree and reqired firmware edits to compensate for.by EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
There are several iterations of techzone firmware floating around as well, should you find that you want to reflash either the motherboard or the extruder controller. Check brnrd's posts for important changes to the code.by EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
Chase82: They don't need to be too springy, but it helps if they have a little bit of give. I think the main point is to have contact at the corners under compression so that you can fine tune the table balance. Waconia Barret, Did the flashing and shutting off only happen when you tried to power up the hot tip? Chances are, the heater wire order was swapped: TechZone was sending out cat5 eby EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
Noonan, We have repaired these sorts of problems on TZ Gen3 Extruder Controllers: Documentation is here: WLS, You do get reasonable Repsnapped models right? We find that's a helpful double-check to make sure things are more or less functional before trying skeinforging it. Here is the current post of the settings we've been toying with: *Edit: Damn BBcode, try this:by EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
Noonan, We've had some similar issues lately with Techzone Cat5 cables being different or wacky in some way and subsequently shorting something in the extruder controller - We're still looking into it, but the current theory is that any initial heating attempt with wacky wiring may be blowing the associated transistor, forcing the heaters to drive all the time after this. We're looking intoby EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
Honestly, I think the zip ties and the harness works well, only suggesting that the opto hole removed. Having nuts on either side of the harness makes it stable, and I haven't noticed any problems due to vertical displacement of the y-belt. To me, the only critical issue is those 330 degree bearings not making proper contact with their bars. I think the issue would be solved for both openx anby EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
What kind of electronics are you building?by EtherDais - Pennsylvania RepRap User Group
More updates: The first OpenY/OpenX system that i referenced is still operating well. Both needed a bit of warping to get those angled bearings to contact as I mentioned. We have another system that is about to start printing - it is a TechZone LC Mendel with another OpenY to replace a mishandled TZ y-stage. God bless the froglessness of your design. Once this is running we may have some moby EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
Professor Richard Devon will be operating a class this Fall 2011, EDSGN 497C, dedicated to the construction and operation of RepRap systems. To any current PSU students who happen to find this post, please consider taking it! To anyone in the State College area, please drop by and visit us! Current Class information will be placed on our Wiki Page:by EtherDais - Penn State RUG
Actually, after watching it print a few more open X carriages and whatnot, I notice that the OpenX bearings have a similar issue making contact, causing a bit of wobble as it is pulled back and forth. I'll probably just warp those into place and they should be fine, but again, maybe 'raising' the hole on the 330 bearings would help.by EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
If you're not feeling ready to learn Skeinforge yet, consider giving repsnapper a try. It doesn't render everything perfectly, but it has a tendency to get the height correct even on STL fils which are floating. You might want to open your STL in replicatorG and see if it's floating there. If so, you can reposition it and re-save it using that.by EtherDais - General
>>Anyone else with Gen 3 electronics from TechZone. What settings are you using for: - Z Home height from top of bed. I started with 2 pieces of paper between the nozzle tip and bed I haven't measured a home height explicitly, but I would guess that it's about .3-.4 mm. I find that it's fairly easy to tweak this by hand if you don't quite have it correct(as the z-axis isn't powered), andby EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
My new Mendel is running OpenY axes and they seem to be working well. I did have to heat/warp the 330 degree bearings so that they would make better contact with their bar. Maybe if you shift their holes up slightly this would be unnecessary? I haven't added more detail about its OpenY yet, but you can see it running here:by EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
While we're talking about strange temperature readings, I thought i'd describe a problem i'm fighting that I haven't found discussed anywhere else. So, i've got a printed mendel, with Gen 3 Techzone electronics, printed using a similar electrical setup (Gen3, etc.) on a TZ Wooden Mendel. The new printed mendel is working great (motors driving, etc), with the exception of misbehavior on the partby EtherDais - General Mendel Topics
WLS: 1. I have never had any luck with the official java software using the WinXP machines available. Repsnapper saved the day for my first build. I use replicatorG sometimes to quickly flip an STL that is misbehaving for some reason, but I still really use repsnapper for driving everything. (Skeinforge for GCode, once you get to it) 3. Settings in repsnapper: I've attached the XML file thaby EtherDais - General Mendel Topics