You can buy proper metal chucks for less than £10 which would be a lot cheaper than metal printing. Worth investigating if you need a lathe rather than a pure repeat project. I thInk some take an M14 thread whIch could easIly be Implemented wIth a blot and prInted pulley Peteby pete-theobald - General
nophead Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 8 bit PICs run four times slower for a given clock > speed. I.e. they need four clocks for each > instruction. And the instructions are a lot more > primitive than AVR so C runs considerably slower > on a PIC18. Yep, PICs run one instruction per 4 cycles so 20MHz is only 5MIPs. I think they're also a risc proby pete-theobald - Controllers
sam0737 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 1Mbps on UART is hard, I expect noise, clock > glitches may ruins the packets. > I'm a bit worried about that but most firmwares are running rs232 at 250Mbaud (except its a short hop from the ft232 to the avr, but I only need 500kbaud max and probably less most of the time >...but does that mean now I > haveby pete-theobald - Controllers
I've never managed to get mplabx to connect to anything, though it recognises pickit2 and pickit3 are attached. i just use the specific programmes for each. I've never used the olimex programmer though, its easier to just add ICSP headers. The wiring s really easy, connect to power supply, MCLR (with pullup) and the icsp clk and data pins. Most devices don't need the pgm pin connected. If you'reby pete-theobald - Controllers
DeuxVis Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > USB communication doesn't seem fast enough for a > lot of little moves following each other - like in > a tiny circles drawn using way too small lines. > > People had noticeable improvement in print quality > using Sd card on the controller, instead of USB > communication from the host - removes the shby pete-theobald - Controllers
sam0737 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > pete-theobald I think you have raised two > questions- > 1. Serial link between is too slow to transfer > tons of GCode, especially during arc > 2. Arduino CPU is not fast enough to compute the > steps. > I think we should move to a higher speed > interface, be it normal USB (12Mbps instead of > seby pete-theobald - Controllers
Annirak Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > With two spare GPIO, you can have enable-in and > enable-out, which allows you to set up each device > without jumpers, based on its position in the > chain. I moved a few pins around and freed up 8 pins (coupled with ICSP). You should be able to see the circuit diagram here and the pcb here . The boards 50x50by pete-theobald - Controllers
Its probably cheaper to get a pic with a higher pin count if i'm going to use dip switches but the board area goes up and I'm sure the switches cost £1 each as well. Soldered jumpers could be quite nice as its just as easy to read the value and its not as if they will be changed regularly.. I choose one based on cost to start with. The alternatives are to hard code the number into the firmware anby pete-theobald - Controllers
Annirak Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If you can keep the PCB size to 50mmx50mm or > smaller, iteadstudio will manufacture 10 of them > for $9.90. Funny that you say that, I just managed to get the bulk of the components to fit onto 50x50. I've put it here (eagle pcb). There are loads of components missing (mainly capacitors) and I haven't quite figuby pete-theobald - Controllers
Annirak Wrote: > > How do you plan on synchronizing the axis to > each > > other so they step at the same time? > > Amazingly, this is the easy part. The L6470 > supports daisy-chaining on SPI. Which means that > all L6470's in a chain share a single SSEL pin, so > all commands on all L6470's take effect > simultaneously. They also support daisy-chaining >by pete-theobald - Controllers
Thanks nophead, thats a much better idea and sounds just like a pretty easy matrix transform. Are the pololus difficult to find though? I saw the chips are getting hard to find and the heatsink issue is a bit concerning, but they are relatively cheap. I was just going to make my own board and I could easily make the stepper drivers as daughter boards. pby pete-theobald - Controllers
Hi Annirak, SPI would seem practical but I'm not sure the data rate would be up to it. If we assume we have 5 motors, and we want a max speed of 160mm/s. With a 16 tooth t2.5 pulley we'd have 40mm/rev, 200 steps on the motor x16 say, so 1600 steps per second. If we need to send a 16 bit integer to each driver at the exact right time, we'd have a data rate of 256kHz. That's only per motor. I don'by pete-theobald - Controllers
Thanks Nophead, What have you used to interpret the gcode? I need to convert the gcode into a series of points and maximum velocities before I start building the driver waveform. Do you only handle a small number of gcodes? I can't see anything obvious other than G1 so it should be pretty easy (G1 X90.6 Y13.8 E22.4). Also, what do you use for a driver? Pololus or just chips? I'm thinking of putby pete-theobald - Controllers
Hi Everyone, I had a look at electronics yesterday, thinking about what I would need to build a new reprap (possibly a mendel 90 or similar). I noticed that almost all are based on the arduino, they usually convert gcode into movement using the 16/20MHz arduino and are also limited on pins. I had an idea for a different approach which would be lower cost and higher performance. As far as I seeby pete-theobald - Controllers
Your right, I didn't watch it, hopefully tonight! From other sources, I've seen that the erosion is due to a number of potential factors. There would be Localised resistive heating on either side of the spark which would be proportional to the resistance of the material. High conductivity in the electrode would counter this.Heat erosion due to the plasma created by the spark. High melting pointby pete-theobald - Plastic Extruder Working Group
This has completely digressed from drilling a small smooth hole in a nozzle so probably in the wrong forum, but it could be good for milling pcbs as it would only remove the copper. If its predictable, what factors would affect it? The ideal case for me would be low erosion of a stainless steel electrode against a copper substrate as we could use a blunt syringe needle as an electrode. If we clamby pete-theobald - Plastic Extruder Working Group
I was only thinking about nozzle design but I could see it working for general hole drilling. The main problem I've read about is electrode erosion as the spark erodes on both sides. Blind holes would be difficult unless you can find a good way to measure depth and replacing electrodes would be frustrating. Circuits I've seen are based on ramp generators but they need some form of detection circuby pete-theobald - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Hi Everyone, I had a problem yesterday printing a really tiny part and I figured out the problem was the nozzle diameter. I have some 0.3mm drills but i'm sure theres a limit to how small you can realistically go with a twist drill. I was wondering what would happen using something like eletrostatic discharge machining. According to wikipedia it can leave a very smooth side. My idea was to use aby pete-theobald - Plastic Extruder Working Group
You don't need to integrate slic3r with pronterface. You can run it directly and it has a nice gui. It saves gcode to the same directory as the stl file and you can open that file directly in pronterface. Pronterface has a program called plater.py that you can use to put multiple stl files onto a plate, then export them as a single file (make sure you snap all files to z=0 and add .stl to the endby pete-theobald - General
I haven't added acme leadscrews but I have upgraded to t2.5 with aluminium pulleys and had a look at what I would need to use acme leadscrews. For the t2.5 belts I put 16 tooth pulleys on all motors and 40 tooth on the ends of the leadscrews. To fix them in place I tapped the pulleys to m8 and they are very well aligned to the centre of the shafts. I decided to tap the pulleys as an m8 thread isby pete-theobald - General
Thanks Droftarts, I'm already extruding at 240 degrees but insulating the brass block really helped and i've managed to get some full prints out at last! I wrapped a few layers of wide kapton tape around and made sure it didnt lay too flat so theres plenty of air trapped in the layers. Its pretty good now and i'll try reducing the temperature once i've got a few things I need printed out. Next prby pete-theobald - General
He hasnt finished the 0.3 manual yet. When i spoke to him (about 2am after trying all weekend i think) he said the missing stuff was on the 0.2 drawings. I guessed most of it anyway. He hasnt finished anything, is too busy to do anything right and hes proven himself unreliable and not to be trusted, no matter how well meaning he is. Buy from somewhere else Peteby pete-theobald - General
I added that part on at the weekend but I still had problems. It stopped the filament looping out but it didn't stop the drive gear from eating into the side. I also added a box over the fan with a hole to direct the airflow directly onto the drive gear (not a very good design, its just a box with a hole) as I thought the stepper might have been heating up and then softening the pla. That didn'tby pete-theobald - General
I spent most of last night watching a new x carriage print out with the occasional desparate rush to push the filament back in when the drive gear started slipping. Its the most success i've had so far and I have a new x carriage with only a few missing layers. I was printing a linear bearing carriage at 50mm/s and every so often it looked like the chamber was cooling down too much as it would piby pete-theobald - General
The effective diameter is on the makerbot site . I was about to buy one to upgrade my gen9 extruder but the shipping estimate is $40 from makerbot. Is there anywhere to buy them in the UK or europe? If a few people were interested in the uk i'd be willing to split the postage. Peteby pete-theobald - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Hi Everyone, I've just managed to get my mendel parts gen9 extruder printing properly after a few months of mainly mangled prints. I thought i'd share what I did in case it helps someone else. Its a bit drastic though! The gen9 hotend is basically a couple of brass tubes with a peek block in the middle. Theres nothing complex about it and it fixs into an aluminium carriage with a single bolt. Tby pete-theobald - General
I'm surprised people are trying to apologise for him this time. I ordered an orca0.3 from him and though its a good machine, it took a very long time to turn up and he only finished off shipping orders when he finished designing the orca0.4. I don't think there are delays in actually shipping orders, hes just too busy designing the next thing whilst sitting on peoples cash. I saw this thread befoby pete-theobald - General
Im using the mendel parts version of the firmware and the heated bed works. I wired up the bed correctly with the heater and thermistor and i can now control it with pronterface. The thermistor is fixed to the bed with wide kapton tape with a blob of thermal paste underneath and its pretty stable now. I compiled the firmware with arduino0023 and it works fine. I think Removing brltty helped withby pete-theobald - Firmware - mainstream and related support
I managed to get ubuntu to connect at 250000. I uninstalled brltty which appears to do something with the serial port. I'm not sure if that was the thing that fixed it though so it would be good to hear someone elses experiences. pby pete-theobald - Firmware - mainstream and related support
Heres a bit more info for anyone else trying to get gen6 deluxe working on orca 3. You need to change some values in the marlin firmware. Heres the diff but the comments in Configuration.h tell you what you need. It has to be compiled with arduino 0023 though. arduino1.0 throws errors Quote 31c31 < #define MOTHERBOARD 5 --- > #define MOTHERBOARD 51 147,149c147,149 < #define X_MAX_LENGTHby pete-theobald - Firmware - mainstream and related support