Thursday, March 25, 2010

Random progress pics






















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Sunday, March 14, 2010

Decision



















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Thermistor thoughts

One
No pic - wrap wire


Two


Three


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Saturday, March 13, 2010










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Power and USB connector

For tonok



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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Getting there...




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Electronics are in!




































































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Friday, March 5, 2010

Splitting the belt

The belt splitter jig is brilliant


Gloves are a good idea if you don't have a vice.




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Molded Parts

Before I *lucked* into some Mendel printed parts, I was trying to think outside the box and decided to play with mold/casting some. There are 6 Frame Vertex parts that take about 2 hours each to print. I happened to have one as a sample that johnnyr gave me.

I was actually surprised with the results. I'd never tried this before and definitely learned a few things. I plugged 2 of the holes with clay before making the mold so that I could remove the part from the mold after the silicone rubber set. I pushed the clay in far enough so that it would make an impression (which would help with the drilling after the cast was finished). One of these has been drilled out - the other hasn't yet.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

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...