We have built a repstrap based on the McWire, and I've had great luck milling wood (both hardwoods and mdf) with a Dremel tool. Including milling a very nice pinchwheel driveblock (in two pieces) for plastic extrusion. It does NOT work well on aluminum, even with carbide bits though. When I get around to it, I'll post some pictures, but it has spent about 30 hours total doing milling (bookmarkby quadshop - General
There are a set of scripts available for Eagle that will output gcode for a board you've designed and routed. It is how I plan to use my repstrap (with the 5D firmware) to mill circuit boards. This link describes the things you have to add to eagle to get it to spit out gcode: As stated earlier in the thread, fablabs use both vinyl cutter machines and a small CNC mill called the Modela to maby quadshop - General
It is out and available. Go to the home page, and click on the "build your own reprap" link on the left. It takes you to everything you need.by quadshop - General
Based on your link, it should be exactly 400 steps/revolution. Have you actually tried measuring the exact number of steps for one rotation? Maybe that would give you some insight. For instance, if it was 800 steps, or 600 steps (exactly), then you would have something to go on. I seem to remember reading somewhere about if your stepper goes two steps forward and one step back, even through yby quadshop - RepRap Host
Ok, I guess the right question is "what CAM software can produce Gen3 electronics/5D firmware-compatible G-Code for subtractive machining"? I have never actually used any CAM software, so I don't even know where to begin. If the answer is "most can, you just have to configure them", then that's great. I have access to PRO/Engineer here, so if it can do it, I can always just use Linux commandsby quadshop - RepRap Host
As a data point, I looked at the cost of printing a darwin using a rapid prototyper machine at the local university. I used the volume measurements from nophead's blog. It came to about $340 USD. And that is an at-cost estimate for just the materials (no markup for machine time). This was for both a 3D Systems SLA Viper si and an ObJet Eden 350 (they were very close in cost). That's the probby quadshop - Reprappers
There should be 400 steps/rotation, assuming the 2.3 driver and a "standard" 1.8 degree/step motor. You may be skipping steps. One thing I found is that they can only go at a certain speed - if you try to drive them faster, they start skipping. For me (using the NEMA 17 steppers from Makerbot, and the 2.3 stepper drivers) it is about 550 uS/step for 12V, and around 400 uS/step for a 24V supplyby quadshop - RepRap Host
EMC2 is the "gold standard" for open source CAM. I would be interested in hearing if anyone has interfaced it to the Gen3 electronics... because if nobody else has, I'm going to have to do it myself.by quadshop - RepRap Host
The most recent 5D firmware with the gen 3 electronics require seperate stepper control lines for the extruder. They don't control the stepper over RS-485. See the diagram at the top of this page: That is assuming you are using gen 3 motherboard and gen 3 extruder controller, along with a stepper motor driving the extruder. You also have to have the RS-485 connection though, because all oby quadshop - RepRap Host
My understanding is that there are two current "forks" - the stuff from MakerBot (the "3D" firmware, in the sanguino branch), and the stuff from Bath (called the "5D" firmware). Both are under reasonably active development, and both work on the current "gen 3" electronics. I'm not going to go into the differences, because I don't fully understand them myself yet. There was a post about it a whby quadshop - RepRap Host
ABS welding rods is what the extruder uses. That's why we are "limited" to only using materials that are used for plastic welding. E.g., It took me a *long* time to make that connection.by quadshop - General
Take a look at this patent. It talks about a material called poly (2-ethyl-2- oxazoline) ("PEO") that has the properties we would want. "sold under the tradename Aquazol by Polymer Chemistry Innovations Inc., of Tucson, Arizona" Google gave me this: From their web page, "Aquazol possesses excellent thermal-processing capabilities and is one of the few water-soluble polymers that can be extrby quadshop - General
I believe you need .stl files to print with most rapid prototype machines. I'm not sure what .par files are, but they may be SolidWorks files. I believe the RepRap guys use SolidWorks for most of their design work. Unless you have SolidWorks (or a package that imports that format), you won't have much luck with those. In terms of the part's volume, if you mean the amount of material needed, tby quadshop - General
The problem with powder-bed-based systems is that they are totally different mechanically from what we have with a "typical" RepRap system. It isn't just a toolhead you can bolt on, or a new kind of material you can use in an existing head. One issue with any support material is that it will invariably mix with the plastic, at least at some level, so you will get a bit of contamination. Anythiby quadshop - General
Here is a link to nophead's post on the subject:by quadshop - General
An issue with the support material is it needs to not completely liquify and run all over the place when 200 degree C plastic gets put on top of it. I've found some water-soluble thermoplastics with melting points in the 120-130C range. Probably still a bit too low, but who knows. Of course, any kind of plastic would sort of depend on an extruder that can deal with granular plastic :-(by quadshop - General
Well, there are a couple of things with this. First of all, copyright, which the open source licenses deal with, covers the implementation of an idea. Copyright doesn't cover the idea itself. So things like the CAD files, software source, build instructions, etc., can still use those licenses. Patents are a whole different story. They actually cover the ideas themselves. The great thing aboby quadshop - RepRap Host
The idea of the 5D firmware (as I understand it) is to make it possible to implement acceleration and decelleration without it becoming a huge mess. Since each step is relative to all of the other ones, slowing down X or Y will slow down the others, plus the extrusion rate, without a lot of compliated fiddling. My *assumption* is that this is also why they bypass RS485 for the extruder stepperby quadshop - RepRap Host
I don't think you'll have problems with humidity-related expansion in things like the corner connector blocks. You really only have to worry about things where flatness is important, or the dimensions have to stay constant after adjustment. One of the awesome things about mendel is it was specifically engineered to work well with imperfect parts. However, plastic is very dimensionally stable rby quadshop - General Mendel Topics
It looks like you are using "regular" wood, rather than a composite like MDF or even plywood. Have you thought about the effects of humidity changes on the parts? You will get expansion and shrinkage at different rates along different axes, and may even experience warping with some parts. You might think about making anything with important dimensional tolerances, or that need to stay flat, ouby quadshop - General Mendel Topics
I have an Arduino MEGA that I'll be using as a RepRap motherboard. Neither of the current branches of the 3D or 5D firmware have out-of-the-box support for the MEGA. It doesn't look like it'll be too hard to add, but I wanted to see if anyone else had done it first, to maybe save myself a few hours of work. Anyone?by quadshop - RepRap Host
As another data point, I have access to the PRO/Engineer suite of tools as well. I get completely overloaded looking at PRO/E vs. Solidworks vs. Inventor. Again, my target is to use this CAD package for the design of a modified RepRap or a new design for a CNC machine based on the RepRap electronics. I know that these tools would be huge overkill if I used them *just* to design the parts to beby quadshop - 3D Design tools
I'm planning on making a RepRap. I'll probably end up modding it and/or building a derivative, and I'm looking at CAD tools that will help with that. I'm a CAD newbie, and it looks like any CAD program I choose is going to require significant learning curve. If I decide to try something else, there will be switching costs (I have to learn something new). So I'm looking for advice on which pacby quadshop - 3D Design tools
Makerbot had the stepper drivers (assembled) is stock a couple of days ago. AFAIK, you can use an arudino mega instead of the motherboard. You'll have to do some connectors, but it should be a good substitute for everything else.by quadshop - General