Introducing The Maus Prototype

I'd like to introduce you to the Micron Accurate Universal System, or "Maus" Prototype. Rather than a monolithic enclosed print, this is a collection of drivers, flexures, and mounting brackets that can be reconfigured. This allows different parts to be easily swapped out, modified, individually tested, or completely rearranged. The use of Metriccano assists the rapid development of parts.

Banana for scale.

For reference, here's the original Meccano RepRap prototype from early this century. We come full circle:

Control is from the same RAMPS/GRBL board as the previous μRepRap prototypes. I haven't fitted endstops because (a) I haven't got a good design yet, and (b) it is relatively easy to determine and manually set the zero point on the drives. The stage is currently set up to hold a calibration slide, but I'll be adapting the previous small slide holder with Z probe ground to fit.

The Z probe holder itself is going to be redesigned and made flatter, which will allow the USB microscope to get closer to the stage and increase the effective magnification. Learned that problem and increased the clearances.

Importantly, the whole design is now GPL'd, so I can share it on file sites and let everyone join in without worrying too much about licencing. This does mean I'll have to significantly update the Wiki page, create a Github project, and tidy the OpenSCAD code so it doesn't look like it was written by a hyperactive squirrel that has OD'd on coffee ice cream. That said, hit me up if you want a current tarball.