Nope, no reason. Just sat down and pushed out the code in a weekend, so not much planning went into it. I imagine if I add functionality to it, libwdb will be on the list of things to do.by james - RepRap Host
Yep, Python syntax is what you get. Defining objects as objects and all that. i never liked TCL. And I never found it lispy. Scheme, now that's lispy.by james - RepRap Host
I considered lisp for all of this. Python had a few advantages: (1) it's easy to learn (2) most people are afraid of lisp or don't know it (3) writing Python classes is very fast I agree that lisp is theoretically preferable but in actual wide application, Python it is for now. Of course, if there are a bunch of lispers hiding in the fab world, that would be different... Lisp has the advanby james - RepRap Host
brl-cad is a full-featured cad package. All the power is there that you could need. It's almost 20 years old and has had extensive use by American military folks developing entire mechanical systems. It's also still under active development under a free license. They're working on the interface, I'm told, but it's usable right now. If you don't like their interface, you can describe your objby james - RepRap Host
I used brl-cad once upon a time. I highly recommend it, especially now that I note it can output stl files. And I agree that reprap will need a CAD package that is friendly to engineers.by james - RepRap Host
RepRap doesn't need to pick the one true CAD platform. The ideal solution is for RepRap to support multiple tool paths. Anything that makes .stl files or .pov files or gcode files should be usable. I personally detest stl. It's the lowest common denominator of ignorance. Terrible to manipulate but easy to parse. Those of you that like generating stl files in AoI should keep at it. But thosby james - RepRap Host
I've placed some python code in svn at trunk/users/vasile/stl2gcode. It takes an stl file, converts it into povray format, slices it into png-formatted layers and then outputs gcode for each layer. You'll need stl2pov to make it work. I built a .deb file if anybody needs it. I haven't tested it on a physical object because I haven't finished my reprap yet. But, I'm fairly sure it's deficientby james - RepRap Host
Just in case anybody else ends up using the same motors, here's the motor info and wiring configuration: Step-Syn Stepping Motor Type 103-714-1241 DC 3.27 V 2.85 A 1.8 Deg/Step Sanyo Denko Co. Ltd. 6 wires. If you're holding the board so you can read the copyright notice, the motor connector is on your right, at the edge of the board. The pins, from top to bottom should connect to the wires coby james - Controllers
Ah, I hadn't fit the connector yet because I hadn't decided which wire went to which pin. Thanks, Zach!by james - Controllers
I'm currently puzzling out the X,Y, and I'm fixing the steppers to a cross-slide vice. For $40, I get 6 inches of screw-driven X and Y travel, all made of steel. And it has a vice, which means I can fix parts down in repeatable fashion. Also, if you want to lessen the footprint of moving the table, you can make the table a turntable. That tool head (extruder or the like) can move in the z axiby james - Mechanics
I've connected my motor to the driver board and it's smoothly twisting while running the test script that accompanies the instructions. The direction pin starts out high in the script, and that corresponds to either clockwise or counterclockwise, depending on how I wire the motor to the board. If I were using the recommended motors wired in the standard way, which direction should the motor turby james - Controllers
The instructions for making v1.1 of the stepper driver board contain what I believe is a minor error. The instructions are at I attempted to edit the page, but I was asked me for a password and I don't believe I have a wiki password. The error is in the instruction to place C7, the 3.3nF cap: "Solder it into place next to the trimpot." The cap next to the trimpot is actually C6 (100nF). Thiby james - Controllers
Ah, good idea. I happen to have the parts in my box o' junk, so I didn't peep the kit. Thanks.by james - General
Legal advice might be useful. There are non-profit legal organizations that might be able to help (I happen to work for one of them: the Software Freedom Law Center). My impression from talking to Zach is that he isn't interested in spending a lot of time on legal issues. Like most RepRappers, he's rightly focused on engineering. It might be the case that legal overhead goes unaddressed untilby james - General
I was going to order the Arduino shield PCB, but they are our of stock. I suppose I can do without it, but I have to say it looked like a nice and easy prototyping solution. Zach or anybody else know when they'll be back in stock? Thanks.by james - General
Last night, I attended Zach's address at Google. He broke down the RepRap madness for around 50 people, and he did an impressive job. He started from scratch and made this entire enterprise easy to follow. He handled the difficult questions with honest assessments of the challenges, and he disarmed the hostile questions with simple grace. He inspired a bunch of people to think about replicatiby james - General
No worries, Ed. I am, like everybody else, rabidly impatient, but there's no reason I can't wait.by james - General
Last I checked, Zach's plan is to mount his single-shaft Z motor shaft-side-up with extra long bolts. In other words, you're not the only one contemplating this.by james - Mechanics
The object release 1.1.1 is dated May, so it appears it hasn't been updated. There are a few parts tagged rp in the BOM that are not in the object file. There are also a few stl files that don't appear on the BOM. I went through the BOM and the 1.1.1 object file. Here are the mismatches I found: In BOM, but not in object file 1.1.1: Fan base Fan leg Hex drive X-PCB Bracket In object file, bby james - General
"if i had to do it all over again, i'd throw down $3-400 for an off the shelf 3d cartesian machine" I wasn't aware off-the-shelf cartesian machines existed. Have any links?by james - Reprappers
Thanks much for the reply. I'm overly habituated to looking for things in repositories (my office uses svn as its document management system). I'll grab that zip from sourceforge. Thanks! Then we get to find out if my friend balks at the number of files to create. I think when he agreed to do this he probably thought it was only a few parts!by james - Reprappers
It took me a few weeks but I finally found somebody willing to make me the plastic parts. I found the stl files for the extruder in mechanics/polymer-extruder/STLs, but when I looked in /mechanics/cartesian-robot/STLs, it was empty, as was /mechanics/cartesian-robot/AoIs. I also did 'find reprap -name "*.stl"' and didn't come up with anything except the extruder. Am I looking in the wrong placby james - Reprappers
Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but McMaster has 1 meter lengths of M8 stainless unthreaded rod: 1272T17. It is, however "Not rated for straightness, diameter, or length tolerances." Also, that parse.php script in web/james-bom will build your db for you from the google pages. Download the whole directory, edit db_auth.php and run the script. It has a bunch of suppliers hard-codeby james - Reprappers
Broadcom is notorious for not providing any information about their chipsets. Because Broadcom refuses to cooperate, some of their chips are unsupported on Linux. If you're running Ubuntu, stay away from Broadcom wireless NICs.by james - RepRap Host
FWIW, this box is Ubuntu Dapper. Script failed with: Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: home (Unsupported major.minor version 49.0) at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass0(Native Method) at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:539) at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:123) at java.net.URby james - RepRap Host