A RepWhat????

It's been an interesting week, to say the least. I haven't shaven, hardly seen the wife and kids, barely slept...was I camping? trapped in a blizzard? no.... I was locked up in my workshop building RepRap Mendel. I've made significant progress, but that's just the beginning. I currently have 90% of the thing physically built - waiting on electronics to arrive, then I can try to calibrate and let the real frustration (trying to print) begin....

I've taken a lot of pictures along the way and plan to publish them in order so that others can learn from my errors. Here's where it currently stands:

Some close ups of the pulleys I bought from McMaster-Carr. I already had the motors - 5mm shaft w/ a single flat side. Bought 3/16" pulleys (they didn't have metric) thinking that it was close enough...had to "bore the bore" some more and shave/grind the flanges on them to get them to fit:

To bore them, I cut a hole in a scrap and held with pliers to keep from spinning. Had to buy a 13/64" bit, but it cut nicely. Then put on the drill and shaved the plastic flanges with a chisel. One of the pulleys is steel - used a grinder on that one.




more to come...