It's available on ABC's iView (which I think is Australia only). Only available on there for 9 more days. It's just under 53 minutes long. I'm going to watch it online shortly, so I'll see if I can post any more details about the doco so that people can find it in their areas. Update: Directed by Ian Connacher, Produced by Cryptic Moth productions.by Cefiar - General
Depends on the FET, and the output voltage you're switching. The input should be enough to trigger the FETs gate (some only need 5V, some need more). In some FETs this value is some proportion of the output voltage, rather than a fixed amount. You'll also need to 'invert' the output from the FET somehow. If you do this in electronics, an easy solution would be to use a cheap FET or Bipolar Tranby Cefiar - Reprappers
Why replace the grips? Why not simply make an extruder head that the grips can pick up? This gives you another option: Make more extruder heads, and a place to store them next to the work area. Each can be preloaded with multiple types or colours of plastics. You can also heat each one up only when needed (ie: just before they are required). You will have to work out a way to not get the plastby Cefiar - General
The PTC fuse on the RAMPS board has about a 5-6A rating from memory. If you're intending to draw lots of current, you either need to: 1. Connect a relay to D8 and use the relay to drive the heated bed. I would NOT recommend using PWM with a relay. 2. Connect an external FET circuit to the D8 output and use that to drive the heated bed. This should work with PWN. I'm considering doing this myseby Cefiar - Reprappers
Ahh fair enough. Keep forgetting Techbots are in the UK. Anyway, 100uF electros across the motor side of each board seems to be be pretty standard, and a 100nF cap across any supply input seem quite common. Just make sure to use components rated a bit higher voltage than your supply. That way, if something goes wrong, hopefully you can recover some bits, and also not end up with exploded caps eby Cefiar - Controllers
Best thing would be to look at the Pololu electronics page, as it shows the various implementations and so on. BTW: Pololu are having their Black Friday sale during the next week, so you can pick up a single Pololu for $7.75, which is probably even cheaper than you thought. Check the thread in this section of the forum for details.by Cefiar - Controllers
The issue is that the PTFE expands faster than the brass. If you're going to stick with that design and not use one of the newer designs that Adrian uses on his geared extruder, then you should consider using a larger diameter piece of brass with deeper thread. If you want to use the design that Adrian came up with on a Wades, you need an adapter bracket to attach it to. Adrians design: 1. Puby Cefiar - General
Welcome! Due to email from the sneaky and diabolical SebastienBailard, I knew you were coming, and I know you've been told to look at the Wiki page. BTW: Many of us regularly catch up at the CCHS meetings, plus we're planning a BBQ for sometime in January so some of the further afield people can catch up as well. PS: Added you to the wiki page already.by Cefiar - Australia, Melbourne RUG
Most shredders will happily go through CD's as the material shatters when put under enough force. PET and HDPE will simply bend and elongate under those sorts of forces, rather than shatter. I would consider running vertical blades, possibly counter-rotating, with a horizontal blade (like a blender blade) underneath. The horizontal blade is there to kick up plastic that gets through back into thby Cefiar - General
Ok, the Theme stuff has been done (they're all the same theme now) except the front page. This means that if they now add the ignore theme module, they only have to modify the one theme. I'm hoping this will actually happen.by Cefiar - Administration, Announcements, Policy
FWIW: I've mentioned the 4 forums that still use the old white template to SebastienB, so hopefully they'll get fixed in due course.by Cefiar - Administration, Announcements, Policy
TIP 120's (and even TIP 122's) drop a fair chunk of voltage across them when driving current. MOSFETS (such as the STP55NF06L used in RAMPs and many Arduino shield designs) drop a lot less voltage. In FETs, this is due to their low RDS(on) value, which is the resistance across the device (source to drain) when in the "on" state. As such, they don't get anywhere near as hot driving high currentby Cefiar - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
There is a way to ignore forums, but it requires the Phorum Ignore Forum module to be installed, which we've asked for in the past but hasn't yet appeared. Or: the module has been installed, but the CSS/Templates haven't been edited as suggested in the module install guide, to enable the option. Without the template editing, the module isn't accessible. On another point: We have two templates,by Cefiar - Administration, Announcements, Policy
That was sort of the point, and by the end of it I was in a hurry and needed to get on with other (non reprap) stuff. I put it out for comment specifically cos I wanted other opinions. I also thought the order was a bit wrong (was mainly a braindump), but wasn't quite sure what would work at the time. I see someone (guessing Sebastien) rearranged everything, which is definitely better. I personaby Cefiar - Administration, Announcements, Policy
Never disconnect or reconnect stepper wires (or any inductive load like a heater coil) while your power is on. You can fry electronics. Hopefully that isn't the case here.by Cefiar - Reprappers
We now have a Trobleshooting page on the wiki. It's in need of a lot of love and work. If you've got time, it'd be great to look it over If you're a supplier, check the info on there is correct and/or update it. If you've designed something, consider adding a troubleshooting page or section for your design and linking to it in the Specific Troubleshooting section. I also updated the Mendel Troby Cefiar - Administration, Announcements, Policy
From a physical point of view, there are a number of ways to reduce noise on the endstops: * Make sure current is always flowing - Basically pull-up and pull-down resistors, so that no matter what the state of the opto, current flows. This means you need to choose the values carefully to keep a residual current but allow switching levels to be clean. You also have to avoid burning out the opto trby Cefiar - Firmware - experimental, borrowed, and future
It's been suggested that we have a group catch-up. I'm happy to organise this, and considering I'm fairly central (Caulfield) I'll even host it if people want. Can do a BBQ or something. Date suggested so far is "Sometime in January". Better suggestions on a date/time welcome. Note: We actually now have a member in Adelaide, plus one in Ballarat! More members are of course welcome. Join by addby Cefiar - Australia, Melbourne RUG
There are still a few forums that display the old white theme. I'm happy to track them down and report them if someone will actually go to the effort of correcting them. Note: Could we change the main forum list as well while we're at it?by Cefiar - Administration, Announcements, Policy
Looks like you've stuck to 2.54mm and 5.08mm pitch connectors/screw terminals, which gives people choice. If you'd gone and used those stupid 4mm pitch connectors, then things would be annoying. Note: You can get nice plug/socket pin connectors that are 5.08mm pitch, and standard SIL headers are 2.54mm pitch if you don't want to use those locking style polarised connectors.by Cefiar - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
I'd be looking at a 12V PSU with at least 15 Amps (more is fine). That's 10 Amps for the heated bed and 5 Amps for the rest of the electronics. Of note: The RAMPS board has a PTC fuse on it that runs to about 5 Amps. This means you will not be able to drive 15 Amps out of that board with that fuse in place, and I do not know if simply replacing the fuse would be good enough (eg: burning out tracby Cefiar - General
Auzze: A number of places give discounts on quantities, and I know that smallparts.com.au do 50+ bulk packs, so buying 45 would probably cost the same as buying 50.by Cefiar - Huxley
The big problem with water is impurities. Distilled pure water is no where near as conductive as standard tap water. The other thing is if it gets into the PCB material, it takes a while to dry out. You want to do this at a slightly elevated temp (40-50 Deg C), so the water evaporates before it reacts with anything and oxidises it. Not too hot though, as you don't want to damage anything. I'veby Cefiar - Controllers
Other stepper motors (such as NEMA23 or non NEMA motors) will work if you're using them for a repstrap rather than a reprap. Getting gears/belts/etc is either something you'll need to scavenge from the printer itself, or buy/manufacture to suit. Big thing to keep in mind is the numbers of wires on them. If it has an odd number of wires, it'll most likely have one that is common to all the coilsby Cefiar - General
Another suggestion is that if you're worried about bridging when soldering, buy some kapton tape. Put the kapton down either side of the pin you're working on. This will reduce the heat to those pins, allowing you to concentrate on the pin you're working on. Then just up and move to the next pin. Since you're working over 300 Deg C, you will find the kapton does deteriorate. You may want to trimby Cefiar - Controllers
That depends on what Operating System you're installing it under. For Ubuntu, I used the ppa run by Johnathan Marsden. Seems to work fine so far. So, What OS are you running? Linux (which one?), Windows (which one?) or Mac?by Cefiar - Reprappers
Have a look at the following link: Zinc plating vs Zinc galvanising In essence: Zinc galvanising will be slightly rougher, but will last a LOT longer than Zinc plating. As this is for the smooth rods, you may well want to be careful about the roughness. Note: Post-processing the rods yourself (eg: fine sanding) will damage this layer of zinc, which will reduce the life of the rods.by Cefiar - General
You'd need to redo the actual shield, since the RAMPS shield is built for a mega. Looking at it, it seems like you may just have enough pins to drive all the circuitry required.by Cefiar - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
One of the reasons for warping is because the plastic cools too fast. Aluminium is a great conductor of heat, and so (IMHO) cold aluminium is sucking all the heat out of the plastic, making it cool faster. Conversely, if you heat the Aluminium up (which is relatively easy), the heat doesn't flow out of the plastic as fast/much, so it cools slower. While other substances will heat up to the righby Cefiar - General