RepRap: Blog

RepRap Mendel with Pololu Electronics from Adrian Bowyer on Vimeo.

A while ago I designed an alternative set of RepRap electronics with the intention that the PCBs required for it would be particularly simple, and hence potentially reprappable. This is the prototype (which I made on stripboard - also easy) working. It's all described here on the wiki, along with a number of other people's versions.

The steppers are being micro-stepped (1/16). This makes the whole thing virtually silent, and very smooth in its movement. The firmware supports this new configuration.

Labels: pololu, reprappable electronics

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