RepRap: Blog

I made some Metriccano tabs joined by 50mm flexures and couple of spacer plates that allow me to connect the X & Y drivers to the XY table. Over the range of motion, these will need to drift a bit, but calculations show this is less than 0.2mm and should be within the flexibility of the table to contain. The assembly looked like this:

I then took the functional prototype, made a few minor changes, and recreated a model in OpenSCAD using the Metriccano library parts. This was condensed to eliminate most of the fastenings and tunnelled to allow flexures to pass through beams etc. Here is the after and before:

 

The part then drops right into the original assembly like so, still with Metriccano grid holes in it so that I can make modifications during further prototyping. Though I can of course set the hole diameter to zero and leave all beams solid if I wish.

I had an idea for later. This is lending to a flat-pack construction and the use of fasteners is gradually being eliminated. This will make it easier for a RepRapMicron to produce a small model of itself, theoretically with greater resolution. All the parts for a plane of the smaller printer can be printed in a frame, which the RepRapMicron probe can then swivel into position like a combination of an  IKEA set and origami. By dyeing parts of the print during manufacture to absorb light, the idea is that a laser or similar will be able to simultaneously but selectively blast away (thin, dark strands) or weld (chunkier contacting dark blocks) the components in the frame, which can then be dragged away leaving the free standing miniature printer.