RepRap: Blog

I got here with a PIKA. More or less. Two of the axes were smashed in transit. I brought one spare. Damn. So I made this repair to five flexures with gaffer tape and superglue:

It looks (and is) extremely janky, but it moves and will do until a friendly local prints another axis.

Thanks to the Hotel Momentus for the use of the room's tea tray for transportation... 

# posted by vik-olliver @ 8:31 AM 0 comments

I feel extremely honoured to have been invited to Sci Foo in Singapore next weekend, coutesy of O'Reilly Media and Google. So I'm going to be kinda busy until then. Antony says "Hello."

# posted by vik-olliver @ 9:34 AM 0 comments

Added a new video showing how to assemble the RepRapMicron PIKA V0.03 Axis Driver - the one with easier to install/replace anti-backlash bands. I get to set something on fire in this one too.

# posted by vik-olliver @ 7:18 AM 0 comments

Just saw an interesting post which uses wax as a force mechanism for milli/micro-scale actuation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF2R5GGfRHM

I have vague notions of doing something like this one day with the wax from an automatic greenhouse vent. Turns out, if you read the comments on the video and on Hackaday there are lots of reasonably common things that use wax as an actuation mechanism.

https://hackaday.com/2026/11/04/making-a-wax-motor-for-micrometer-level-control/ 

Here's a relevant quote.... 

"a gap of less than 5 µm was maintained over twelve hours, showing how precise this device can be if you can control the temperature that the wax is kept at. "

It is quite slow though - but food for thought.

# posted by OfItselfSo @ 8:54 AM 0 comments

Another YouTube video, on making and installing Drive Nuts and making Drive Screws if you don't happen to have M3 x 50mm plain steel or zinc plate cap screws hanging around. This one also shows the differences between the PIKA V0.02 and V0.03 frame.

https://youtu.be/CjuYhQDyJkw

# posted by vik-olliver @ 2:54 AM 0 comments

RepRapMicron PIKA has now left the current documented version behind and moved on to V0.03 - so if you want to get the files for building V0.02 you'll have to get them from before the V0.03 tag.

This happened because the PIKA Axis Driver is now sufficiently different to the MAUS Axis Driver that they no longer fit. The good news is that the PIKA driver is a lot cleaner, has fewer confusing holes, has easily replaced/installed tension bands, a simpler system for attaching Z flexures, and gives you a way to access all the stepper motor screws.

Changes a dropping piecemeal at present, but I've made a temporary downloadable of Printables https://www.printables.com/model/1894754-pika-v002a-sideband-axis-driver. Latest files look like this:

Thanks for debugging, Jon!
 

# posted by vik-olliver @ 9:28 AM 0 comments

I've dropped another video. This one describing how the screw-driven Axis Driver does its thing: https://youtu.be/LRabtyVBjJM

# posted by vik-olliver @ 3:33 AM 2 comments