Cast acrylic is pretty brittle when cut. Dibond can't be cut with a C02 laser as the wavelength isn't correct though can be milled or routed (or you could use a saw or even waterjet) Any plastic that gives off a chloride gas(like PVC) isn't likely to be allowed in a makerspace. Processing polycarbonates like Lexan and Makrolon the fumes cause irritation and some symptoms from mild to acute, heby vegasloki - Prusa i3 and variants
Quotereifsnyderb Hello, Thanks for all the support! Patents have a big problem, in my opinion. The issue is that unless you have a dedicated lawyer, who is paid to pursue any patent or copyright infringements, it is a losing battle for the "little guy". Personally, I think of patents as being a tool for big corporations and not much more. When it comes to J-Head hot-ends, I have resisted rby vegasloki - General
QuoteRobert_Paulson I don't know. The controller market seems a little bloated to me. The dot matrix analogy is really apples and oranges. A pixel is a pixel. A micron is a micron. Let me say this... There is no reason a fully functional 3d printer controller board, with steper drivers, can't be sold for 15-20 dollars. With free shipping. If I had the money and electrical engineering capacity toby vegasloki - General
QuoteTraumflug QuoteOpusOnly downside is the shipping time. Oh, I know another downside. The major reason why these vendors can offer something that cheap is, they can copy the entire Arduino infrastructure for free. The more popular these cheapo offerings get, the more useless it becomes to develop something open source. Accordingly, buying cheap votes for technological standstill. Copying isby vegasloki - General
The melamine frame files for a Rework are at . The frame support wing slots are larger than on an sgraber frame but more importantly because the Y Corners use all M10 rods the centerline of the frame rods is different. If you cut or file away the material from a regular sgraber you can use fender washers for the attachment points as M10 washers may not be large enough depending on where and hoby vegasloki - General Mendel Topics
The Makerfarm kits are good. The reason he has instructions is because that printer is unique and not made too much outside of the packages he sells. His support is very good as are his designs. If one were building a Prusa style or derivative there are also plenty of instructions and videos. They are quite common and what many kit distributors do, myself included is provide links to the infoby vegasloki - General Mendel Topics
The manual support feature is unique and worth it if it's important to you. The slicing engine is pretty good though has a difficult time with thin wall objects. The most recent version of both Slic3r and Kissslicer are as good in most of the parts I print aa is Cura. I don't like the way it does skirts and brims and that's more important to me than supports. There is some functionality missiby vegasloki - General
They aren't diodes guys, they are thermistors. Big difference between the two components. For docs, this is good for basics... I see the issue in this case not so much as the docs that come with the machine rather not being familiar with general concepts of DIY printers. There is a ton of information in the Wiki that is applicable to all Repraps and not only any specific kit.by vegasloki - General Mendel Topics
Maxtemp can be triggered by a thermistor shorting out. This can happen on either the heater block or if the leads touch. Make sure that you are using PTFE tubing or heat shirk on the leads of the thermistor. Insure that at the head of the thermistor the leads aren't touching. As an aid to troubleshooting remove the thermistor from the heater block. Leave it attached to the RAMPS and make sureby vegasloki - General
Quotecdru This is why it's not recommended to use standard threaded rod for your high speed axis that are making rapid changes. It's not as much of a problem for a Z-axis on a typical cartesian printer. It might make things slower at the begining or end of the print when the bed or extruder carriage is moving up or down, but after that the only movement is typically a fraction of a mm and onlyby vegasloki - General
QuoteLoboCNC So you've had better luck with harder steel rod (so much for my theory about softer materials producing a more accurate thread). Is this because they are straighter, smoother, more accurate, or all of the above? I've found it less susceptible to bending or warping. The low strength mild steel while it works and is a good value, it flexes when held up in the middle in a full stickby vegasloki - General
One thing I do on all the thread rod used for Z drive is chase the part with a die. There is always some grit and grime. The best threaded for drive I've used is 10.9 hardened steel rod. McMaster doesn't have it in M5. I get it from my fastener distributor but it's about six times the cost of the McMaster rod.by vegasloki - General
Full blocks on an LCD like that can mean the display isn't configured in the firmware or the wrong display is selected. If the configuration is correct the display should show the default screen. If Marlin was installed without editing the display config this is the most probable reason. If the proper configuration is loaded and there are still issues the cabling to the display may be in the wby vegasloki - General
It doesn't matter for hardware as those are copyright licenses and not patents. Hardware made for those drawings is legally not restricted in terms of manufacture or distribution. The copyright license pertain t the distribution of the files or software only, not the physical hardware. That said, once something is released as a GPL it retains that license in perpetuity. If that same person theby vegasloki - General
Check out the RAMPS docs at and specifically this drawing for the wiring diagram. The motors connect to the appropriate pins on the RAMPS board. They do not connect directly to the driver board. The driver boards are connected to the RAMPS only, matching up the pin designations between the driver board and the RAMPS. There are 8 pins on the driver board and 8 sockets that correspond to thoseby vegasloki - General Mendel Topics
For a first build I would stick with something that is documented and others have built. The learning curve is pretty steep even for those that are mechanically inclined. If you are on an uncharted build you may not know what is an issue for the design or if you just haven't learned that part of the process yet. What do you plan to print that you want a large build area as a first build? Forby vegasloki - General Mendel Topics
Quotejamesdanielv I'm unfamiliar with curaengine in detail. have you thought of using cura on its own? The engine is the core of the Cura program. It can be accessed from the shell to be used independently of the full program. For example using it on a Pi or BBB. The parameters are taken from an .ini file the same as in the full Cura version.by vegasloki - General
A 6 mm piece would be considered plate. We cut about a half ton of steel and 10 or so sheets of .250 AL a month for use in Repraps. The primary methods used are cold saw, dry saw, both similar to a wood miter saw but lower RPM and specialized blade and shear for the steel and waterjet and bandsaw for the AL. Prior to building printer kits we did fabrication for hobby race cars. If you want rby vegasloki - General
Try Hydroslice or Pegasus down in Kent. It will likely be over US$100 for a one off, perhaps closer to $200 depending on minimums and set up. If it's under $100 it's a good deal for a one off. I use either a Flow Mach 2 or Mach 3 depending on which Techshop I'm in at the time. On .250 6061-T6 it takes about 23 mins to cut a frame and bed with the bed nested inside the frame. Most of the tby vegasloki - General
Hardware hacker Bunnie Huang answers questions at Slashdot. I found it an interesting read particularly with respect to his comments when asked about the possibility of a complete open source tool chain and software chain from silicon to finished product. Says Bunnie in part when telling about how he looked at making an open source IC to replace an Atmel AVR... QuoteSo at the end of the day,by vegasloki - General
Both the frame and the rods will need to be extended. I've got a 300 x 300 x 300 build envelope i3 Rework prototyped. It looks that building an extrusion based machine will be about the same cost and far more rigid. A better choice for a larger format machine. Basically add 100 mm to every axis and determine the new frame mount points to the Y rods. I haven't done one out of melamine yet aby vegasloki - General Mendel Topics
Is the endstop connected to the MAX endstop connection on the RAMPS board? If you don't move it from the MIN connection it won't work.by vegasloki - General Mendel Topics
Your PSU might not be big enough or your electronics might not have a large enough MOSFET or the right MOSFET or a polyfuse issue. Heating up and dying is a symptom of those failures. Some ATX supplies want you to have a load on one of the 5 volt rails for reliable operation though I've never had one that needed that. If you got an inexpensive controller board the components might not be to sby vegasloki - General Mendel Topics
QuoteLittleMike I think it's just the way it looks in the image. They're gripping, but on some, the teeth are "smoother" if that makes sense, so they slip. That slipping is common in lower cost tie wraps even when installed in the proper end as well as stripping the teeth when they are tightened. Choosing a better quality part will solve the issue. If you don't have a good local hardware anby vegasloki - Prusa i3 and variants
Nice proof of concept. A Raspi B+ won't be able to do it but a BBB PRU just might. Neither the Rasp Pi or the BBB have been quite up to the task of being a dedicated slicer/controller in that they work but aren't near as quick as a standalone host. Where they work well is as a controller only using OctoPrint. As we see the embedded space mature boards like this will get more and more powerfulby vegasloki - Developers
QuoteBackEMF Am I missing some info here? Because if this all is the case then i'm actually happy that copycats exist. The clones are for me at this point in my research THE ONLY THING that ACTUALLY gave the communities SOMETHING back by being just plain cheap. What you are missing is that there is nothing you can do short of a patent that will protect any of your hardware IP. Period. End ofby vegasloki - General
You guys missed the point Limor was making with respect to Firefox and Linux. The point is that if it's open with no restrictions, there will be more that will contribute. That has proven itself since the dawn of open/free/GNU, etc. The more open the project, the more will potentially be willing to contribute. The fact it's hardware or software is not relevant, it's about being open and incluby vegasloki - General
QuoteBackEMF Stuff like: What if one uses an NC license and then someone does commercial sales, then what happens? Who will stop this? On the other hand. How do you make stuff available yourself id it is under a NC license? Can I produce a design under NC licence? How does that work? And can I still make stuff available trough other outlets. Still allowing others to freely use the designs forby vegasloki - General
Yep, polyimide tape will work. Some of the offshore houses provide 11 x 11 heat sinks which makes it easy to short them to the pins on the board. A heat sink that is 8.8 or smaller seems to do the trick. On the bigger sinks you can wrap the tape around the sides of the sink while making sure you clear the pins on the board. If you have a set of nippers you may be able to cut the profile of thby vegasloki - General Mendel Topics
If you don't know the nozzle size how are you configuring your slicing settings? A real JHead from RPW will have a number stamped on the nozzle block to indicate the size. It's on the same face as the thermistor hole. You may have an issue with the PTFE liner in the hotend that is causing the material to jam or bind. RPW (hotends.com) sells replacement pieces though it's available at McMasterby vegasloki - General Mendel Topics