RepRap: Blog

Rhys is progressing on both the conducting paste and the deposited low-temperature alloy route to getting RepRap to print circuitry.

So I have been working on a set of Mendel electronics that ought to be simple enough for the machine to reprap when we get the capability.

My prototype is shown above (between the Arduino and the stepper motor). It is so simple that, in fact, it's quite easy to put it together using just two pieces of stripboard, which may well be useful in itself. It is driven by an Arduino Mega (not the Diecimila that you can see I was using for testing in the picture), and has all the drivers needed for a complete Mendel with one extruder.

Note that I have tested it on the bench, but not yet in an actual Mendel.

Here are the draft PCBs (not yet finalized):




As you can see, they are single sided, and have no thin tracks. This means that it should be possible to create the equivalent by comparatively crude methods. They should certainly be cuttable by a Dremel head mounted in a RepRap, for example.

If you want more details, check here:

http://objects.reprap.org/wiki/Pololu_Electronics

Labels: arduino mega, electronics, pololu

I have been asked to blog pictures of my stripboard version of Zach's Sanguino. Here goes:


The cable top-right is the USB <-> TTL serial lead. The double-row 6-way connector top left is the ICSP connector, which you'll need to put the bootloader into the machine before you use the USB connection.

If you flip the board around a left-right axis in the middle of the above picture it looks like this:


If someone has time (unlike me... sorry) to do a proper set of stripboard connection diagrams that'd be really helpful.

Labels: arduino, electronics, Sanguino, stripboard

We've updated the design on the Power and Communications board. The parts are all the same, but now its a one sided board, and much easier to fabricate. All the files have been added to subversion, and the wiki entry will be updated with new pictures later this week once I actually make one.

In the meantime, here is a shot of the schematic from Kicad:

Changes

• single sided. makes it much easier to fabricate, and cheaper too. (no more alignment issues)
• fatter tracks on power circuits
• component silkscreen included for easier reference.

Labels: electronics, pcb, powercomms