QuoteA2 Were you thinking of this website IdeaFons.com, they tried but failed on Kickstarter. No... It might have been (Just clicking around on Research Disclosure, it looks like they're well established. But they charge $120/page for publishing disclosures.)by MattMoses - General
Andres, what you are describing is known as a "pick and place" machine. Many people have built their own. There's even a reprap subforum for it: Pick-and-Place Electronic Assembly Typically they use a small hollow needle combined with a vacuum pump to grasp components. Here are some examples: DIY Pick and Place Builds Boards, Is Awesome Semi-automatic Pick and Place Goes Fully Automaticby MattMoses - General
QuoteA2 I believe there is a need for an online tool that guide's someone through the process of describing their open source invention. There is at least one already: A long time ago someone posted a link here to a site that was expressly for archiving public ideas with the intention of preventing them from being patented. I think it was a different site than defensivepublications.org (linkedby MattMoses - General
Hi Andres, welcome. You say that "ultimately this post will be forgotten" but that's not exactly true. Most of the people here today might forget it (although some of us have longer memories than others) but the internet won't forget it. And in fact the internet has not forgotten the other posts about this topic in years past. Try typing some of these terms into a search engine, and you can staby MattMoses - General
QuoteSethEden And to the person/people giving the funding, it's their money so they should reserve the right to open-source or close-source as far as I'm concerned. This is perfectly reasonable. chris33, SethEden probably has some kind of non-disclosure agreement with his potential funders. So they probably know more about it than we do. SethEden's original question was "Can I re-use the Mendeby MattMoses - Developers
QuoteSethEden If you don't like my ideas or designs... How can we possibly decide if we like them or not when you won't tell us what they are?by MattMoses - Developers
Quotenobler need something post processor, similar to sheetcam that can out-put h-bot non cartisian co-ordinates, or need a sheetcam for mach3 patch that alters the co-ordinates. Just to be clear, you don't need a post-processor. The g-code is independent of the robot geometry. That is, the same g-code will work whether you have a Cartesian, Delta, Polar, H-bot or whatever. For example, you mightby MattMoses - General
Quotenobler is this how the laser rep-rappers do it? I'm not sure. It seems like a number of people use cad.py. There are more options (including cad.py) described on this page: Plotting. If you have sheetcam, can't you just use that to export the g-code? The reprap firmware isn't too picky about the origin of the g-code, so you should be able to use pronterface to send g-code created by sheetcaby MattMoses - General
This is a bit of a workaround, but you can import the 2D dxf into a program like OpenSCAD and extrude it into a 3D stl. There are several tutorials under "How do I convert a 2D image to a 3D file I can print?" in this thread. Then open the stl in a slicer, and set the infill to 0, the perimeter to 1, top and bottom solid layers to 0, disable skirt and brim. These are settings for slic3r. Then exby MattMoses - General
Just saw this via hackaday: additive wire laying. Similar but different from the Spool Head. Lots of interesting possibilities... (As I was about to post this, on a whim I checked the Wire embedding forum and saw that Bas already posted a link to his work there. I think it's so cool I'm going to go ahead and post it here in General. )by MattMoses - General
Quotecat.farmer You need to find older scanners and printers.. mid 80's. I assume you say this because most of the newer printers don't have stepper motors. There is a guy making great progress on a low-cost solution that uses DC motors + encoders scavenged from newer model inkjet printers: Further progress on framing my repscrap. No steppers needed.by MattMoses - General
QuoteMrDoctorDIV Carboard and duct tape. It's been done.by MattMoses - General
Why don't you ask Michael Weinberg. He understands 3D printing and IP law. He has written articles about open source, IP law, and low-cost 3D printers. From his bio: Quote Michael Weinberg is Acting Co-President at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit advocacy group that represents consumers on technology issues in Washington, DC. He is also also the author of a number of whitepapers including It Willby MattMoses - General
See the quote below by Ohmarinus from this thread: QuoteOhmarinus To be honest, I find this a bit of an impossible question as it comes down to personal preference instead of factual information. Don't you agree? There are so many factors that make one option more popular than another. For me, the most elegant machine is the Berrybot, the most viable one, the MendelMax and derivatives/evolutionby MattMoses - General
This guy is making great progress building a RepStrap with DC motors and encoders. He is using a dedicated arduino pro-mini to read step/dir signals from RAMPS, read the encoder signals, and perform closed loop motor control. One arduino for all the motors. (A separate arduino for the RAMPS controller is also necessary.)by MattMoses - Let's design something! (I've got an idea ...)
Take a look at 25 Button Serial Keypad for Headless Printing.by MattMoses - General
For a delta configuration, it is necessary to have two arms per axis. If you have three individual arms, what you will have is a Gough/Stewart platform with only three arms. This will have three unconstrained degrees of freedom (in other words, with all motors locked you will still be able to move the platform around). Here's an example of a Gough/Stewart platform used for 3D printing.by MattMoses - General
Thanks Traumflug! As far as I can tell, everything is working OK.by MattMoses - Administration, Announcements, Policy
I like it! I especially like the mechanism for aligning the frame. I hope you can make a page on the RepRap wiki for your machine, or a github repo, or a Thingiverse page, hackaday page, whatever. If you're trying to raise funds to make a kit, you might consider using Bounties. Not many people have used them for open source hardware yet, but I think there is potential...by MattMoses - Developers
There is a nice demo in this blog article that shows how to use an Arduino for interrupt-driven closed-loop motor control using the linear encoder and DC motor carriage from an old inkjet printer.by MattMoses - Developers
So how did things go? Was there a reboot?by MattMoses - Administration, Announcements, Policy
Also, the stencil idea sounds great. It is so simple to try with materials that are easy to obtain. I like it.by MattMoses - General
This is a cool idea. You can check out OpenSLS for some ideas on handling the sawdust. A simple spray nozzle or off-the-shelf painting system could be used to apply the binder. You could definitely do this. There is also Pwdr. This probably isn't quite what you had in mind, but you might get some ideas from the Stone Spray Project.by MattMoses - General
Quoteiquizzle in the ideal world, the site would be licensed by a foundation People tried this in the real world. Here, hop into the internet wayback machine and see what it was like back then! (from 2007) QuoteRepRap Research Foundation The RepRap Research Foundation has a single purpose: To promote research in self-replicating manufacturing systems and to distribute the results of that resby MattMoses - General
Here is another recent discussion on open source licenses, patents, etc.by MattMoses - General
Quotegmh39 From my understanding, they hold no legal value. The GPL very much holds legal value for source code. It is less clear how well it applies to hardware designs. There are pages and pages and pages of debate on this forum regarding GPL and open source. I encourage anyone interested to read the existing material before we get a new thread started on this topic. Here is a good one to startby MattMoses - General
jinx, that is a perfectly reasonable question. The answer depends on what one means by "RepRap". The RepRap project, or RepRap "movement" doesn't really belong to anyone... It is a collection of ideas and projects and people that are somewhat loosely (and chaotically) united by common interest (which happens to be changing over time). It doesn't really belong to anyone because it is not the sortby MattMoses - General
ohioplastics / techshop / etc: These are your opinions and you are entitled to them. But you do not have a right to post them here. I think it is great you are a true believer in universal access to 3d printers. I am a true believer in that, and so are many other people here. But that belief does not give you (or me, or anyone else) a right to post here any more than (to use the same analogy aby MattMoses - General
Quotetechshop/ohioplastics but I make reprap components and this is the reprap forum. So I choose to post here and I am endowed with inalienable rights to do so. You are not endowed with inalienable rights to come onto this forum and post whatever offensive nonsense it is that you think is funny. And besides, saying you have a right to post here because you make RepRap parts is like saying youby MattMoses - General
Dear ohioplastics (also known as techshop and many other aliases): You were banned from the reprap forum for repeatedly posting irrelevant and offensive messages that detracted from the civil discourse taking place between other users of the forum.Prior to your ban you received many warnings that you would be banned if your misbehavior continued. You ignored all of them.Your ban is unanimous amonby MattMoses - General