Friday, April 18, 2008
Shaving The Yak
Lots of things got in the way of other things this week. I broke a couple of corner brackets and my PC now runs out of memory before it can print a new one. I've dragged a beefy laptop into the workshop to try over the weekend.
As part of this, due to an amazing piece of Yak Shaving, I have now committed the plywood RepRap files in SVG format to Sourceforge. They're not complete, and there is no changelog. So obviously, that needs to be fixed for a start!
The original 4mm ply design is there, my 4.4mm attempts so far are there, and an MDF-based design that's not very Darwin-compatible is in the development stages. I haven't tried printing that last one out on Ponoko yet, and it's only half complete.
But I'd really like to get the parts I've made on the real RepRap together into a working machine, so for the moment I've released these files in their incomplete state for the enthusiastic among you to tinker with. Enjoy.
Vik :v)
PS The brass cup for the metal extruder looks like it might be easily made by tapping into the end of a 3/4" or 1" brass piping endcap and bolting the barrel on.
As part of this, due to an amazing piece of Yak Shaving, I have now committed the plywood RepRap files in SVG format to Sourceforge. They're not complete, and there is no changelog. So obviously, that needs to be fixed for a start!
The original 4mm ply design is there, my 4.4mm attempts so far are there, and an MDF-based design that's not very Darwin-compatible is in the development stages. I haven't tried printing that last one out on Ponoko yet, and it's only half complete.
But I'd really like to get the parts I've made on the real RepRap together into a working machine, so for the moment I've released these files in their incomplete state for the enthusiastic among you to tinker with. Enjoy.
Vik :v)
PS The brass cup for the metal extruder looks like it might be easily made by tapping into the end of a 3/4" or 1" brass piping endcap and bolting the barrel on.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Ponoko's Lasercut RepRap
I have something to do while my RepRap is out of action. Toby Borland has done a wonderful design of the RepRap which is meant to be cut on 4mm plywood. He has kindly released the source, and I've converted an early version of it to the EPS format used by Ponoko on their laser cutting and vending service. We're putting the files up there for free use; we're not taking a cut. Ahah.
I've put up the plywood parts separately to the thick acrylic bed; I'll experiment with a 9mm MDF base but it might be too thin. Toby has since sent me some fixes for the plywood parts - already in EPS format - which I'll work in and scale according to how well the first batch of Ponoko parts fit. The files need optimising to reduce the cutting cost (mostly removing double-cut lines) too. Until that's done, the design should be regarded as pre-alpha and non-functional. As it stands, the ply seems to be slightly thicker than 4mm, so a lot of parts don't fit together properly. Oh yeah, I did muck up the scaling in a few places too - mostly ones that matter!
Prepare for strike two, and props to Ponoko for their support.
Vik :v)
Labels: laser, plywood, ponoko, reprap
