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Re: RepRapper Titles? - 16 years ago

Number of posts moves you up the rankings I think

by Ian Adkins - Reprappers

Re: Where are people? - 16 years ago

Bristol so yes i can make Sheffield

by Ian Adkins - United Kingdom RepRap User Group

Re: Where are people? - 16 years ago

I'm down south but if a meet was happening and it could be the South end of the North (if that makes sense) I would travel up (good excuse to get the bike out )

by Ian Adkins - United Kingdom RepRap User Group

Re: Support material candidates - 16 years ago

Yes it is Friendly plastic which goes soft enough for moulding by hand at about 60

by Ian Adkins - Plastic Extruder Working Group

Re: RepRap Went to RobotFest! - 16 years ago

Hi Jay eD & I did some work on the Z axis eD wrote it up here our final solution was to design a belt tensioner so the Z axis could be fully aligned without worrying about belt tension then when all was running sweet to tension the belt. I believe Zach did this with a skate bearing and a zip tie.

by Ian Adkins - Reprappers

Re: Confusion on Construction - 16 years ago

Thanks your indignance is appreciated

by Ian Adkins - Reprappers

Re: Confusion on Construction - 16 years ago

Buy Arduino PCB from Zach and all the components from one of the suppliers in the parts lister and buy a mechanical kit from Bits from Bytes (but i would say that ><)

by Ian Adkins - Reprappers

Re: Everyones status - 16 years ago

Nophead That's using a SLA7062M unipolar stepper driver chip the motor does need ramping to get there I drove the driver with a function generator. You could ditch the belt but i have to say opposite to my expectations the belt works very well when the tension is correct. Threaded rod would probably be cheaper and probably a lot more noise!

by Ian Adkins - United Kingdom RepRap User Group

Re: Support material candidates - 16 years ago

Will the Polymer stick to it when extruding as this is a requirement, otherwise the filament will just drag over the surface. Commercial FDM machines put down a layer of support material to make a raft then build the model on top of this. If we try the same approach this would prove the viability of the material even if we don't finally use the raft method. Regarding bacteria growth can we not s

by Ian Adkins - Plastic Extruder Working Group

Re: Everyones status - 16 years ago

Hi Joe Extruder drive is definitely mild steel I don't have any aluminum and yes the Z pulleys are easier to set up if bigger so we now do 40 tooth up from the 20 tooth version you have we have also added a belt tension to break the link between the studding ties and the belt tension this works very well eD & I ran the Z axis up to 30mm/s with no missed steps and at slow speed get a resolut

by Ian Adkins - United Kingdom RepRap User Group

Re: Confusion on Construction - 16 years ago

As Jay says first what are you trying to build? Second what is in short supply money or time? or both We supply a full kit of mechanical parts for Darwin it is very convenient as you get everything and it all fits together, but you can often source parts cheaper by going the surplus route and the RP parts can all be home made from wood but i believe this is quite a major undertaking. Depending

by Ian Adkins - Reprappers

Re: World-wide reprap printing webstore - 16 years ago

I would certainly be interested in helping with this but think it may be a little premature as the current RepRap is taking many hours to replicate Vik would give a better idea but i expect it is in the region of 300 - 400 hours (a corner block takes 10 hours) I don't think anybody leaves their RepRap unattended during build so these parts require a non-working day / very late night to produce.

by Ian Adkins - General

Re: Extruder Heat Control - 16 years ago

I modified the Arduino G code to give bang bang control of the heater and like nophead's it gave +- 1

by Ian Adkins - RepRap Host

Re: The extruder motor and changes needed in extruder robustness - 16 years ago

Commercial plastic recycling does not grind but chops the plastic into granules size chucks using a fast spinning blade like a hand held liquidizer blade, must try ours when the wifes out

by Ian Adkins - Mechanics

Re: steel/copper etc printing with arc welding method - 16 years ago

The metal won't drip welds only do that if you don't know what you are doing but they do form interesting shapes that would take some calculating and you would get massive thermal stresses, if you take a thick piece of steel and weld one side it will bend and this might make it impossible for all but the crudest items

by Ian Adkins - Plastic Extruder Working Group

Re: steel/copper etc printing with arc welding method - 16 years ago

I have dicussed this at length with a welder friend of mine and the general consensus we reached was that it would be possible MIG would be the most likely best option. Warping would be a major issue (as in day to day welding) getting a good resolution might also pose a problem. The mechanics of moving the weld head is very well understood just look at almost any production factory the welding r

by Ian Adkins - Plastic Extruder Working Group

Re: The Epic Has Begun!!! - 16 years ago

Hi Jay Basically the same as you have done except instead of adding washer I moved the threaded rod up into the top block (the MK2 has a hole) you would need to drill this hole, even this is not 100%. I have a design that I'm going to try tomorrow to add bearings to the Z axis it is a very easy flat cut addition that can be fitted without taking the Darwin apart, if it works I'll post the resul

by Ian Adkins - Reprappers

Re: pcb-home etching // home printing? - 16 years ago

Less than 0.1mm for 1oz i think as that is the plunge depth i use to route a PCB which i think would be the easiest way to have RepRap make a PCB using this method you can do 0.65mm pitch SM chips no problem, you do of course need a cutting head "Dremel" etc

by Ian Adkins - General

Re: Stratasys and Dimension machines - 16 years ago

You are limited to ABS and they "chip" there spools so would be very difficult to try another material. I'm not 100% sure but think you can't change any parameters you give it an STL it gives you a part

by Ian Adkins - General

Re: Gifts extrusion of PVC and head for this - 16 years ago

Be very careful I'm sure PVC is toxic when hot check all the health stuff first I'm sure you can't laser cut it for this reason.

by Ian Adkins - Mechanics

Re: Hires-microstepping drivers - 16 years ago

I thought steppers only achieved +-5% of step angle accuracy and any additional steps were for smooth operation as such 1/10 microatepping is as good as it gets for position?

by Ian Adkins - General

Re: The extruder motor and changes needed in extruder robustness - 16 years ago

My concern is not the motors as you state they will breeze it, it's the frame rigidity especially with a slowly change mass will this lead to a gradual change in Z? OK quick test done with a 1.5kg bag of flour (which weighs more 1 tonnes of feather or 1 tonne of steel? ) maybe a defection of 0.1mm but probably less that was the maximum error over five readings and there will be measurement erro

by Ian Adkins - Mechanics

Re: The extruder motor and changes needed in extruder robustness - 16 years ago

I'll try with a bag of sugar on the head and see what effect it has I think the Darwin frame will take that level of load but experimentation will be the proof.

by Ian Adkins - Mechanics

Re: Extruded angle bar & flat bar Cartesian - instead of - round bar design - 16 years ago

Re-design the clips to suit the existing frame and be RP-able so the basic Darwin can make the parts to allow the enclosure to be added therefore keeping the entry costs to RepRapping low. Steel is about as cheap as you get verse strength and is universally available Aluminum extrusions are much more expensive and not so universally obtainable.

by Ian Adkins - Mechanics

Re: Adopting PLA as the core RepRap polymer - 16 years ago

If all the parts weigh 1kg then that makes it about $40.00 of CAPA OK no so chaep as HDPE but still not a bad price for all the Darwin RP parts just a little more than 1 motor! The biggest problem with PCL is the cost of doing a second run due to minimum quantities. If the demand was there then the price would fall at least by 50% but you would need to be talking tonnes not kg, usual commerci

by Ian Adkins - Plastic Extruder Working Group

Re: The Epic Has Begun!!! - 16 years ago

Also Jay i see on the Y idle rod you have the Blazing Saddles brackets these are for the X carriage to give the bearings some help see Viks blog called Blazing Saddles (not everyone uses them)

by Ian Adkins - Reprappers

Re: The Epic Has Begun!!! - 16 years ago

Jay has Mk1 parts the Mk2 stuff now has all the same corner blocks with separate motor mounts, more like Darwin (evolution!) Regarding the Z axis i have the same problems i could not get the Z's to align well (maybe lack of effort!) so i moved the whole rod up such that it doesn't come through the lower block but does go up into the top block (Mk2 corner blocks more holes) This give the same re

by Ian Adkins - Reprappers

Re: Adopting PLA as the core RepRap polymer - 16 years ago

Much higher melting temperature i believe

by Ian Adkins - Plastic Extruder Working Group

Re: Adopting PLA as the core RepRap polymer - 16 years ago

It sounds like PCL and PLA give better results than HDPE

by Ian Adkins - Plastic Extruder Working Group

Re: Having an intermediate file between slicing and building - 16 years ago

Definitely gets my vote

by Ian Adkins - RepRap Host