martinprice2004 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If we could use the processing power of the PC the > goal of the reprap actually printing its own > electronics would be much more easy to achieve. I > cannot see the reprap printing its own > microcontroller in the near future... If the RepRap can create PCBs for the stepper and temp drivers, then iby BeagleFury - General
SebastienBailard Wrote: > Let me put it this way: you're the philosopher > king in charge of 'BeagleFuria'. Should a .stl of > a reprappable handgun be protected speech? Do you > want your (hypothetical) three teenage kids making > them? I'd move it to a forum with appropriate disclaimers and warnings, and hopefully technology to allow parents to have the false sense of security tby BeagleFury - Administration, Announcements, Policy
plasmator Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > This is a really neat idea. It would probably be > pretty straightforward to build a film exposure > device that could expose a Grey code onto the film > for use as optical encoder (as others have > suggested). Note: Greycode is nice, but using 3 encoder tracks gives ability to track absolute motion in addby BeagleFury - Reprappers
Relating to locking the "can I build a weapon with a RepRap", I'm not sure that locking a thread to prevent discussion is necessarily the best action. Although philisophical arguments can be made that RepRaps should only be used for happy good things, historically, I believe much good has come from military and 'dangerous use' research. Of course, since your the driver, you can make a right turby BeagleFury - Administration, Announcements, Policy
JohnnyCooper Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I'm skeptical. There are more suitable guns to > build a plastic receiver for. > > s1/index.asp > > Good luck printing a barrel without laser > sintering. The question was, "Is it concievable..." I believe I remain firm as "Yes" to this question. I share your skepticism about questions impliedby BeagleFury - Administration, Announcements, Policy
> Would it be conceivable for one of these relatively affordable home 3d printers to work with high performance plastics and make an AK-47 for example? Yes. It probably would be more efficient though, to take an existing weapon, and convert it to fully automatic, than to create it from scratch.by BeagleFury - Administration, Announcements, Policy
Sebastian, Given the enthusiasm of this thread, you may want to consider creating a new forum under the "Machine Variations", for adapting or hacking existing commercial machines into a RepRap or RepStrap. This thread isn't entirely about RepRap, but it does seem it may generate useful information for people who may have more RepRap specific questions or ideas, relating to hacking a Cricut to cby BeagleFury - RepLab Working Group
If you think it can be done, only one way to find out... go do it. I agree with you that it probably can be done, it's all an amount of effort and/or installing the correct modules or operating systems onto the PC. I recall reading a few posts that discussed trying to do parallel port bit-banging, and that should have similar results with a USB style parallel style port. You might want to searby BeagleFury - General
martinprice2004 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > With reference to C# Garbage collection. I think > we really need to get a sense of scale here. > Unless you are clearing huge swages of memory the > delays will be very small and won't be noticed by > a stepper motor program. Garbage collection also > occurs in Visual C# when processor usage is lesby BeagleFury - General
jgilmore Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Standard gravity is taken as ~9.8 N/kg, so 2kg > would be ~19 Newtons. or .02 kN? Hmm. I was just > sure that was where the error was. > > There is an error somewhere - gravity is the least > of the forces the frame is subject to. The stepper > motors slamming the head from one side to the > other iby BeagleFury - General
martinprice2004 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I have had the same thoughts also. Why use a > microcontroller when its sitting next to a > computer that is miles better. Mostly, because modern operating systems cannot guarantee realtime response. They are much faster, but they might be running something else when the signal comes in indicating immediatby BeagleFury - General
At least one full loop is require for mendel design. As you indicate, this is the Z axis. A loop makes it easy on the other axes (using the ingenious clothespin spring gimmick), but as full cyclic motion is not required, can be accomplished with linear belt segments and other tension strategies.by BeagleFury - Mechanics
10,000 lumen projector? Seems to me it might be worth investigating how to get something like a solar death ray or Solar Light Sharpener to focus at the .1mm or lower .. Then again, maybe not... the tolerances may be beyond what could be done with something at this scale..by BeagleFury - General
jbayless Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I'd love to have double thermoplastic extruders so > that one could be super-fine, for printing precise > boundaries, and the other could be super-wide, for > doing fast infill. > There may be other solutions to printing in bulkier larger filament while still getting print detail beyond the current capabiliby BeagleFury - Mechanics
Nice Image. I was hoping it would be a little smaller, but we have to start somewhere, and the research area great, IMHO. > But to print any useful electromechanical device, we're missing one other ingredient - an iron core to conduct flux. Indeed. Air core is fine for RF frequencies, but would not induce much constant magnetic force for something electromechanical applications. Lots of iby BeagleFury - Wire and Thread Embedded Extrusion
Another point to consider when trying to increase precision and accuracy -- you have to consider first and foremost how much you must have -- more is not always better... "good enough" is the engineer's "perfect", and anything more than that is just wasting time and money. So, part of the discussion would be: Why? How much is "good enough"? I suspect that the .1mm is probably "good enough" givby BeagleFury - General
jbayless Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The alpha version of the SpoolHead is being > released! Cool. I watched a few of your videos and looked at some images, but couldn't get a feel for the scale at which you are printing. Would you mind posting an image with your 'spiral' device next to a fixed measure - a ruler or hold it in a hand or something? Hoby BeagleFury - Wire and Thread Embedded Extrusion
mhensen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > What makes the precision of the reprap... If by precision, you mean how accurately can the positioning system can select target points in the model space (I.E is the point at 1.003 selectable separately from the point at 1.002? If so, you have precision to at least 0.001), then only a one factor contributes for stepper bby BeagleFury - General
polikimre Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > One question: I watched a few makerbot videos > where they explain that reprap moves the extruder > in XY and the build table in Z, while makerbot > does the opposite. Any comment on the impact of > this difference on, e.g., precision? Darwin - Extruder in XY, and table Z. Mendal - Extruder in XZ, and tableby BeagleFury - General
Glad to hear your still around and about. I've been working in depth on the math for motion profiles myself -- still haven't gotten to the point of producing anything useful yet.by BeagleFury - Polar Machines, SCARA, Robot Arms
Tiberius Wrote: ---- > I don't really see the need for two identical > extruder heads. I'm an IT tech. We think doing the > same thing twice is boring. Thats what scripts are > for Unless you're talking about printing in different plastics or colors, the extruders may very well be very different from each other. Some may not use a stepper or heater at all -- they might use an air cby BeagleFury - Mechanics
Postponed, rather than abandoned. Other improvements made on Mendel probably pushed an earlier, simpler release (Smaller size, fewer vitamin parts, higher stability, etc.) I believe there is still the idea of adding dockable heads or other multi-head printing to the mendel frame. Several designs and branches also have thoughts or stated goals for multi-head printing; for example Hydra MMM; orby BeagleFury - Mechanics
Originally, Mendel included using docking heads as a desired goal. See , for example, with a video demonstrating a proposed docking mechanism.by BeagleFury - Mechanics
For makerbot electronics, you have to get the timing right. I ran into the same problem you see above. Step 1. Press the reset button on the makerbot motherboard. Step 2. Click the button to upload the firmware. You must perform step 2 within a few seconds of step 1 (1-3 seconds, if I recall) I did not have this problem with a Arduino Mega -- I suspect that one of the serial pins, in combinaby BeagleFury - Reprappers
>> here the forces are miniscule, only needing to overcome the inertia of a platform floating in water. If you want any kind of reasonable print speed, you're going to need much greater force than you imply here. One does not require much force if you simply want to move a thin wire (a needle, a 1/4 gram or so), a few millimeters, over a few minutes. It requires several orders of magniby BeagleFury - Mechanics
Some additional ideas to try and experiment with, if you're willing to improve community knowledge in this area: 1. Can one embed copper wire to improve heat flow where needed (within hot end to help distribute heat -- within cold end to aid in removing heat)? 2. Experiment with embedded fibers (they too should burn out during firing) to create voids and improve insulating properties at the traby BeagleFury - Plastic Extruder Working Group
xoid Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Nylon is lawn trimmer's treads made of. Others have investigated using lawn trimmer, and nylon in general. If I recall, the results were not promising, for a few reasons, two of which include: - nylon is not a single type of plastic, but rather, has qualities and purity that differ depending on exactly the process and souby BeagleFury - General
Lawrence Kincheloe Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Fire the barrel at low > temperatures either by running a low voltage/ low > current through the coil or by firing it in a > kiln. running it thru a few cycles in a normal oven (or mini-oven) at ~400F should also help. The point of the initial temp gradient is to slowly boil off any and all moistureby BeagleFury - Plastic Extruder Working Group
RBisping Wrote: > of course the next question on this would be is > there a forth interpreter that could be installed > on a mega board as is or would it have to be > started from scratch?by BeagleFury - Firmware - experimental, borrowed, and future
I've made a little bit of progress adding limits to acceleration, and also somewhat to jerk, by simply brute forcing and iterating thru the steps, and warping time iteratively by adjusting delays at every step that exceeds at least one limit. The algorithm is slow, and I don't think it generates optimal paths, but it is getting a lot closer to the goals I have. Here is a 30 iteration process toby BeagleFury - Polar Machines, SCARA, Robot Arms