FutureToolIdeas

The advantage of a polymer granule extruder is, of course, that all thermoplastic polymers are available in bulk at very low cost in granules - it's the standard form. Getting 3mm filament (which is what RepRap currently uses) is not difficult - many companies will do it - but it does add slightly to material costs.

More information on the Granule Extruder

Support Filler Extruder

The support filler extruder allows parts to be printed with overhangs that would otherwise not be possible to print with just a plastic extruder. Pump a syringe full of putty, then you can make even more intricate objects. It adds another layer of design challenge however. But thats a software issue ;)

More information on the Support Filler Extruder

Drawing / Plotting Head

This head is actually quite simple. It consists of a pen or marker as a drawing tip and a mount to hold it, It can be used to draw stuff in 2 dimensions. the third dimension becomes more of an "on the paper / off the paper" movement, and there is even no control board required for the head itself! One very useful aspect of this is that certain common art pens are etch resistant and this head can be used to make PCB masks directly on the copper board.

More information on the Drawing / Plotting Head

Milling / Drilling Head

A milling drilling head would bridge the gap between additive manufacturing and subtractive manufacturing. on early and basic versions, it would only really need to support lightweight materials such as wood (MDF) and copper clad boards (PCB milling). These two materials would allow the machine to have the best of both worlds and also the potential to vastly simplify the circuit board creation process.

More information on the Milling / Drilling Head

Laser Etch Tool

Consisting of a later and a system of mirrors to redirect the beam, a laser etch tool could be used for a variety of purposes. With a low powered laser, the tool could simply be used to mark designs on a printed object or with a higher powered laser it could even used to do laser sintering to make objects from a high strength metal.

More information on the Laser Etch Tool

Solder Paste Syringe

A solder place syringe would be a very useful addition to the Fields Metal syringe and the PCB Mill head. It would allow the machine to put solder down in places ahead of time to ease soldering of components after the fact. It would even make it much easier to use surface mount parts on RepRapped board.

More information on the Solder Paste Syringe

Fields Metal Syringe

Similar to the extruder, a fields metal syringe would be a syringe with a heating element that would be able to melt and extrude Fields Metal, a special metal with a low melting point. This material has a wide variety of uses in making fabricated circuits.

More information on the Fields Metal Syringe

Fab@Home Print Head

The Fab@Home project has created a very nice syringe based print head that can extrude a variety of materials. It would theoretically be very simple to mount it on the RepRap robot frame and then have at it. Currently both projects are blissfully working away in their own separate worlds, but due to the open nature of both projects, collaboration has a very bright future.

More information on the Fab@Home Print Head

Pick and Place Tool

More of a pipe dream than a solid idea, but a pick and place head would make RepRap one step closer to hands free circuit board production. Consisting of a simple grabber that would grab and place components in place on the circuit board, the print head could dramatically reduce time and effort required to build a RepRap.

More information on the Pick and Place Tool

Soldering Tool

Also more of a dream than a solid idea, it would be used in conjunction with the solder paste syringe and the pick and place tool, a soldering tool would be able to make the physical solder joint to join the component to the board. It would probably take the form of a heated tip of some sort.

More information on the Soldering Tool

Hot Wax Syringe

Nearly identical to the fields metal syringe, a hot wax syringe would be used to produce objects with wax. These objects could then further be used in a process called lost wax casing to produce parts out of metal such as aluminum. This would allow the RepRap project to produce its own custom metal parts.

More information on the Hot Wax Syringe

Ceramic Print Head

A ceramics extruder would be extremely useful. It could produce a variety of objects that could then be fired. These objects would have interesting and desirable properties such as hardness, insulation, non-conductivity, etc. For example the extruder barrel could be insulated with a ceramic part printed by a RepRap.

More information on the Ceramic Print Head

-- Main.ZachSmith - 11 Feb 2007

Electrochemical Milling / Drilling Head

An electrochemical milling drilling head would mill away any conductive material. The tool head is the cathode, and the workpiece is the anode. There is very little tool wear and the objects milled in this way are not distorted. This would allow the RepRap project to produce its own custom metal parts.

More information on the Electrochemical Milling / Drilling Head

-- Main.EnriquePerez - 13 Aug 2008

Electrochemical Printed Circuit Board Head

An electrochemical PCB head would be designed to mill away copper from copper clad boards. The tool head is the cathode, and the board is the anode. This would be another way for the RepRap project to produce its own circuit boards.

More information on the Electrochemical Printed Circuit Board Head

-- Main.EnriquePerez - 04 Dec 2008

FutureToolIdeas

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