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Robots, children's blocks, wooden clocks, its all good! Here's my idea and here's the [[page]] on RepRap's wiki where we can log in and click "edit".
Re: VENT YOUR PRINTER! DO IT NOW! - 1 year ago
rq3, that sounds and looks truly unpleasant. I hope that you will overcome the allergy and be able to get back to 3D printing. From a personal point of view, the testing of your TAP-XXX Nozzle Contact Sensors which was delayed by my own infirmities, and is now being further delayed by the weather will be less useful if you have been forced to leave the field. On another point, I find it alarmingby leadinglights - General
New year's resolutions - 1 year ago
What are people hoping to make in the coming year? Be warned though, any good ideas I see may be copied, modified, and shown off to friends and relatives as if my own. For myself, 2021 has been marked not only by the ongoing encroachment of Covid-19 into our lives but a full year of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. This has left me with a huge backlog of projects to catch up with anby leadinglights - General
Re: RepRap used for farming - 1 year ago
QuoteMechaBits av u got a problem with moles Mike When I say daft, I mean plants have been doing there thing for ages with just a little sun & water, but now we have to have robots to help them do it better, faster, cheaper?...and wipe out the income stream for a group of humans. ........................................ Moles I like, badgers not. Below is the sort of damage they cause. Iby leadinglights - Developers
Re: RepRap used for farming - 1 year ago
I think a high powered IR laser for killing mosquitos could also tackle catapillars on the crops,egg laying moths, slugs, snails and even bloody badgers* Mike * O.K., I know that this is politically incorrect as badgers are supposed to be nice but if you saw the damage they have done to my lawns you would agree that zapping is too good for them.by leadinglights - Developers
Re: RepRap used for farming - 1 year ago
The Farmbot that boylucky has pointed to is mostly for use at home and serves more to give fresh vegetables than any economic need. My interest is more in the allotments popular in the U.K. where I have some 18 vegetable beds of 2400mm X 1200mm as well as a bunch of fruit trees, grapevines etc. - about 1/4 acre or 0.1 Hectare in total. Something like the Farmbot would be useful here where it couby leadinglights - Developers
Re: RepRap used for farming - 1 year ago
Some quick thoughts having looked at some FarmBot info including and a YouTube page at , and also because I spend a fair bit of time at our allotment* First thoughts are that the FarmBot looks structurally flimsy, that it requires a firm base to be mounted on, that the use of extruded section is an unjustifiable expense when the required tolerances are somewhere between ±25mm and "dammit that iby leadinglights - Developers
Re: RTD Amplifier - 1 year ago
Quoterq3 Mike, your response prompts me to try a firmware other than Marlin. I've only used Marln since it became 32 bit capable, but I'm open to suggestions. Development is done on a delta printer with Chitu 32 bit STM32F103ZETA board. Keep in mind I am NOT a programmer. Analog and mechanical design, no problem. I went for Repetier long ago and would not change horses in midstream - but equallyby leadinglights - Tech-Talk
Re: RTD Amplifier - 1 year ago
I had a similar problem with thermocouples as the bias and gain support was not evident in Repetier firmware configuration. I did however get a quick response from Repetier ( ) and it is now working well. Mikeby leadinglights - Tech-Talk
Re: RTD Amplifier - 1 year ago
Is it possible to see a PDF of the schematic as I don't know what EDA program you are using? At the moment I use type K thermocouples with Adafruit pre-amps. So far very good but PT1000 may be better. Mikeby leadinglights - Tech-Talk
Re: 32-bit linux printer host software - 1 year ago
Quotethe_digital_dentist As my rustic grandmother in Tennessee used to say, "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear". Another saying from even further back in time Mayhap not, but with a bodkin and some thread you can make a sows ear into a purse that is more sturdy than a silk purse while more resistant to the knife of a cutpurse and less flaunting of your wealth. Mikeby leadinglights - General
Re: TAP-XXX Nozzle Contact Sensor - 1 year ago
I had been intending to do a bit more research with the TAP sensors that rq3 sent me, but life got in the way and I have been delayed in this project – and a few other projects as well. While I haven’t got any rigorous results yet, I thought that I would note down the results that I got more than a month ago. I built a dummy bed (shown below) to mount above the existing bed and allow space foby leadinglights - Tech-Talk
Re: Looking for small bore flexible air hose for print cooling - 1 year ago
The pipework from the compressor to the orifice will be something like 800mm of 6mm o.d. copper pipe and 400mm of the flexible tube while the high-pressure flow will be quite small. My guess is that almost all of the temperature rise from compression will have been lost through the plumbing: If this confidence is misplaced then some form of heat exchanger could be added. At the moment I have litby leadinglights - Tech-Talk
Re: Looking for small bore flexible air hose for print cooling - 1 year ago
Thank you Andrew_F. PTFE has been explored but it is not as flexible as needed for this application although very thin-walled PTFE has been looked at. The end of the tube is not open but is restricted by a very small orifice so that the expansion of the air from high pressure, say 10 bar, to low will result in cooling of the air. To get this pressure a positive pressure pump such as a piston pumpby leadinglights - Tech-Talk
Re: What's the difference? - 1 year ago
Field Effect Transistors is jut a catch-all title for transistors which use a particulat way of controlling current and is used like other catch-all titles such as "Diesel Road Vehicle" except the range of sizes foe FETs is larger, from less than a microamp for FETs used in sensitive instruments to tens of thousands of amps for Silicon Carbide FETs used for steering magnets in supercoliders. Iby leadinglights - General
Re: how to draw a wiring diagram like this - 1 year ago
In the past, I used to use a program called Altium Designer to produce interconnection wiring diagrams - harness, looms and cabling, as well as schematic capture and CAD/CAM for PCBs. Although Altium Designer is very expensive, you can use a very nearly complete copy called Circuitmaker for free as long as your designs are publically available (i.e., non-commercial use). Circuitmaker can be downlby leadinglights - General
Re: TAP-XXX Nozzle Contact Sensor - 1 year ago
I have just received the sensors and hope to work on them early next week. The plan is to set up some dummy beds - 220 mm square in 2mm and 4mm aluminium on my Cartesian Printer. I will initially try them in the manner that you designed them for and then look for areas where the signal might be compromised. To do this I will take the signal straight from the piezo to one of my own conditioners sby leadinglights - Tech-Talk
Re: Vacuum hold-down for 3D build surface. - 1 year ago
The bed is heated and in regular use at 60ºC and works well at 110ºC but as this temperature is used for ABS and ABS has too much edge curl for a vacuum hold down there has been no need for the higher temperature. The bottom of the bed with milled grooves for the heater wire can be seen on (right-hand picture) and the assembled heater can be seen on . Sealing works well with just a very thin smby leadinglights - General
Re: Kapton tape heated bed - 1 year ago
QuoteOldBikerPete...................You shouldn't have a problem with the different expansion of your steel bed and aluminium plate as your magnetic fixing method will allow the two to slide against each other.......... True as long as the bed is fairly rigid and the friction between magnets and steel plate is not too high. Thin beds and differential expansion is a recipe for stick-slip behaviorby leadinglights - Mechanics
Re: Kapton tape heated bed - 1 year ago
To get to higher powers a solid-state relay would be used for DC and either a solid-state relay or an SCR with a zero-crossing driver for an AC circuit. I can't recommend any particular one but I am sure I have seen such recommendations on this forum in the past. Mikeby leadinglights - Mechanics
Re: Kapton tape heated bed - 1 year ago
As VDX says, even 300mm cube is a stretch. The reason that the RepRap movement took off was that at 200mm cube, or even better, at 150mm cube, simple construction and materials like float glass, could give astonishing accuracy and speed. this was sort of a magic size for the DIY world. One way a DIY maker could make a large 3D printer is to allow very undemanding tolerances which can be used toby leadinglights - Mechanics
Re: A new, smaller sand table mechanism: Arrakis - 1 year ago
Video please. Mikeby leadinglights - CoreXY Machines
Re: Making larger parts suitable for higher RPM's - 1 year ago
I am a little confused here (it may be because of the 1960s) but can you clarify whether you want to make a fan for a scale model motor, a pattern for a fan for a scale model or full-size motor, or a 3d printed fan? I am assuming that it is a pattern to sand cast a full-size fan that you want. Although I can't speak for all cases, from the designs I have created, I think that simply setting theby leadinglights - Let's design something! (I've got an idea ...)
Re: Kapton tape heated bed - 1 year ago
I won't say don't use a base as thin as 3mm as it may work satisfactorily for whatever your tolerances but generally 5mm thickness is a consensus minimum for a 300mm square bed. 6mm is better and cast aluminium tooling plate as recommended by DD is good. For smaller beds the options are much more open - even using 3mm float glass directly on a heater has worked. There is a potential pitfall whenby leadinglights - Mechanics
Re: Kapton tape heated bed - 1 year ago
The power consumed by a resistor is equal to the voltage squared divided by its resistance. The resistance is dependant on the material (copper) and is proportional to the length of the conductor (wire or foil) and also to 1 divided by the cross sectional area. For the 1mil (0.025mm) by 6mm wide this is 0.15 square mm and the resistance will be about 1.11 ohms so power will be 514W. If the copperby leadinglights - Mechanics
Re: Kapton tape heated bed - 1 year ago
There are too many variables to give an accurate answer but approximately 1.12 Ohms at 24V and will need about about 520 Watts - slightly less when hot. This is based on 1mil (0.025mm) thick rolled copper. My guess is that you are using copper foil of the type made for stained glass. Note that tape is not specified for esistance and comes in 1.25mil and 1.5mil. Mikeby leadinglights - Mechanics
Re: 
Get a PhD for doing RepRap Research - 1 year ago
Why didn't you offer these PhDs 55 years ago? O.K., I guess there were no 3D printers, no internet and I guess you probably weren't even born. Mikeby leadinglights - General
Re: Looking for small bore flexible air hose for print cooling - 1 year ago
Quotethe_digital_dentist You can't use teflon tubing of the type used for bowden tubes for extruders? Standard Bowden tube is the fallback position but it would be nice to get as much flexibility in the various wires, conduits, and pipes going to the effector/carriage as possible. In the case of the proposed cooling tube at 10 bar pressure, there will be an additional force straightening the tubeby leadinglights - Tech-Talk
Re: Looking for small bore flexible air hose for print cooling - 1 year ago
Thank you for the pointer to the McMaster-Carr website, like the Misumi and Accu websites it has many things for the mad scientist but often available if you are a registered business. As you point out though, if something can be found on their catalogues it can often be found elsewhere (eBay) at an inflated price. I will probably use a polyurethane tube as suggested by VDX although it is more rby leadinglights - Tech-Talk
Re: TAP-XXX Nozzle Contact Sensor - 1 year ago
I have ordered an AXE027 cable and will download the software and drivers. I will run some tests and report back with results. Mikeby leadinglights - Tech-Talk
Looking for small bore flexible air hose for print cooling - 1 year ago
I am hoping to pick the minds of somebody on this forum who may know where to get small diameter reinforced flexible tubing. What I need is something with a bore of about 2mm which is able to deliver air at a pressure of about 10 bar (1.0MPa, 145psi) while being both flexible and lightweight. The need for this is to deliver air for "near field" part cooling immediately after the nozzle on a 3D pby leadinglights - Tech-Talk