RepRap: Blog

I spent the weekend hacking on openSCAD, and I thought people might be interested in the results. The most visible one is syntax highlighting, but I've also done a few language extensions:

• Dot/Cross Product (* and %)
• length function for lengths of vectors and strings
• accessing characters in a string via []

I've got a more detailed post on my blog (including some future ideas) or you can just grab the code from github. Note that my work is not yet merged into mainstream openSCAD.

Labels: OpenSCAD

I am working on an improved Huxley design.  This is slower than I'd like, owing to lack of time, but it's coming together.

A few key points:

1. It's all being done in OpenSCAD - the files are in the RepRap svn repository under huxley.
2. It uses printed sliding bearings that are screw adjustable, so they always fit exactly.  Further, you can compensate for wear.
3. Other adjustments are done with shims.  Or small rectangles of paper...
4. Rhys has found a very high torque NEMA 11 motor which I hope to use for my microextruder for it.
5. I'm trying to design it for ease of assembly.  In particular, I'm trying to get it so that you can put things together in just about any order, and so that you don't have to take four things off to extract and replace a fifth.

The first version will have a moving Y platform, like Mendel.  But MakerBot have taken Ed Sells' idea of building on a conveyor belt and made it work, so I think replacing the Y motion with a belt will follow soon after.

Labels: Huxley, OpenSCAD, slide bearings