Whistles for Josef A RepRap Action.

Repost of the Blog by Rick Pollack


"Josef Prusa - the Prusa in the Prusa Mendel - is giving a presentation at the TedX event in Prague on November 20th. He is printing 300 whistles to hand out to the attendees but he is up against the clock.

If you have the technology to print some whistles and you can have them in Prague by the 20th...let me know and I'll get you the shipping address..."

Update: Link to more info: How to send a whistle

3D Printed Cars & MDAR bots for Area 51

Couple of news stories that might be of interest ….
3D Printed Cars May Be the Way of the Future and MDAR the new bots for Area 51 etc.


"Urbee, a two passenger car, is being designed by Kor Ecologic Inc., using Stratasys 3D printers. Kor Ecologic probably chose Stratasys because their printers are considered cheap and reliable; I know that they're reliable because I have seen them myself and I know what they can make. But cheap? If you consider a $14,900 cheap for a small printer, then sure, why not, but I can't imagine how much a large 3D printer capable of printing car parts could cost!"



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Robots Invade Nevada National Security Site

"And it's in this spirit of optimism -- some might say naivete -- that technical whizbangs working for the Nevada National Security Site, formerly known as the Nevada Test Site, have unveiled the MDARS, short for Mobile Detection Assessment Response System. Call them what you want, they're robots. And they are now on the job patrolling sensitive parts of the sprawling desert facility.

"It thinks on its own, and in that regard it doesn't require the constant plume of intervention," said NNSA senior engineer Steve Scott."

First Impressions Gen6 Electronics

This morning I was handed a set of the new Gen6 Electronics manufactured in the Netherlands by Mendel parts.com

I haven’t written much lately, and frankly this new “gift” to the RepRap community forced me to make the time available.

Most of the time I don’t like to buy electronic items on the first run. I like to buy when items come down in price, and have any bugs taken care of. When I reviewed the hype (in hindsight), of Generation 3 electronics I thought that I was buying a mature, bug free design. I’m going to be kind to MBI here and just say “not as advertised”.

At first look, Gen6 electronics truly can be advertised as “plug and play”. I will know much better when I hook everything up and start running.

Pics from the web site just don’t do this set justice. We are talking a quality board here. Just new I had to take some quick pics, and show the community what they haven’t seen yet.

I love when a product has some thought given to it. Truly, the optics are a Gem! Who ever thought of the endstop optics design, needs to be given real thumbs up! No fiddling around with solder, just plug and play, the real thing.


From these pics you can see its very comfortable size compared to a standard Gen3 extruder board..

Front and Back sides.



To sum up my first impressions; Gen6 is everything Gen3 should have been!

A wake up call !

I was shocked this morning when I opened my email.
Let me digress for a moment to tell the story.

I’ve been on my quest to get a decent RepRap going. Seems each time I turn around Its another patch up job or a visit to the local hardware store (they know me now). With no Reprap parts available you have to “innovate” and make your own hacked up fixes.

Sometimes you get to the point of no return. You must ask for others for help as only a new printed RP part will do the job> Only way to make all the other hacks work. This was my case; I had a hacked up revised extruder that worked. Only problem, the Darwin x carriage would not do the job. It only had a very small dc motor on it, just couldn't handle the small weight. You see the part was an early Cast Reprap made out of Polyurethane. I’ve learned so much since I bought it.





Anyhow, I tried Emailing for some help to print out some parts. The end result would bring some much need strength into the project. Some people said they would help and never would reply to again to the emails. Some offered to build for a cost, no problem if it wasn’t an arm and a leg, I would have gone for it. In the end nothing came of it. With all the users in the community out there my only hope turned to posting in the forums. http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?95,51778 Posted on 7/15/2010,
Up until the time of this blog posting, not one email, or contact has come from that post. That was until today’s surprise email.


See a new firm with the UP Printer http://www.pp3dp.com/ just released a new 3DPriter to the Reprap community. They had an offer that I thought might be great to try.

http://pp3dp.com/index.phpoption=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=42&Itemid=56

Step 3. If you kindly provide your input to all the questions in the survey, we are willing to mail your 3D model to you only for the cost of mailing for our appreciation of your feedback.

So I looked up the old STL, done in AOI I believe, and sent off an email to them This was in late afternoon for me. Like many of the firms now days, I expected some game, or to be ignored as in my past experiences. To my shock in this mornings email
I received these beautiful jpegs. This UP printer firm means business, and is building good will!


Side note: I may have gotten lucky. Reviewing the jpeg’s shows that the reinforcements in the UP software have made one of the best,if not the Best Darwin x-carriages ever repraped.

New field of research

Today I started a new field of research dealing with the “cooling zone” inside the insulator and below.

What I made up was a heat shield. My theory is that we have been concerned with the heat within metals; I wanted to deal with the unseen radiant energy.

My first tests tell me I’m on to something. I seem to have blocked some of the heat from the insulator and created a new mess of Radio interference.

The once working temp system failed in reading and providing power for heat, frankly it went nutz. So its time to do a complete rethink of the shielding of the wires and retest.

Poor man’s enclosure

aka heated chamber, heated room

http://hydraraptor.blogspot.com/2010/06/wooden-overcoat.html

Another problem with ABS is the fumes. My Mendel extruder seems to give off more fumes than HydraRaptor's does, perhaps because the melt zone is much bigger, and the white ABS seems to smell more acrid than natural ABS. I did a build with a window open to get rid of the fumes but most of the parts then warped, presumably because there was no longer a buffer of warm air around them, but a cool breeze.

In an attempt to tackle both of these problems I built an MDF box around my Mendel.

In my case everything I’m working on is “experimental” and in the process of rebuilding. What was needed was a method to grow with my projects. The answer was simple. Build an enclosure out of clear plastic aka "Visqueen" film. Thick enough to do the job and hold up to use.

Lightweight, flexible polyethylene construction film offers economical all-weather protection indoors or out. Known as "Visqueen" film - a brand name, although this is a commodity plastic product.

Some quick thoughts/ideas:
1) Make a front folding flap and install a couple of magnets to lock the cover when U need it closed.
2) Your stepper motors produce heat, cool them and reuse the heat. Install a fan blade on the unused shaft side,FREE cooling/reuse heat. Many sub-ideas can come off this simple idea.
A) Like the back and forth of the stepper could be used to make a one way fan.
B) The free air movement can be used to vent out the fumes.

Give me some links with your projects off these ideas. Would enjoy seeing them!

Toothed, Bead ,Chain Belting …oh MY !

Since our quest is to lower the cost and improve operation of our RepRaps I felt the need for an alternative belt to what’s currently being used.

Long ago on one of my parts quests I picked up some “Diamond Braided Rope” as a possible drive belt or maybe used in an emergency to fix a RepRap. My belief now is that it’s a very good replacement candidate. The numbers speak for them self. I recently ordered Tooth Belting @ $1.81 a foot, plus shipping, taxes etc. The Braided Rope I purchased cost only $1.00 for 10 feet of the stuff.

Further, this might be a superior product for RepRap as seen in the general specs.
¼” x 10'feet
Braided for Strength
100% polyester strands
Resists rot, mildew, oil, and gas
300lbs working capacity

On the minus side that Red & White is ugly and changes to a V type pulley system would need to be made. It’s made in China, so maybe a pure color is sold someplace.

One feature I really like is that the material is very RepRap like. Looking at the pic you can see that the manufacturer hot slices the material for packaging. This is very advantageous for us. Using a hot means we can melt the polyester to any part we might wish. If we wish a continuous belt I would just butt the two ends together and melt them. If looks or an added protection is needed, then put the seal inside some shrink tube and presto you have a dirt cheap continuous belt.


Another feature: This is round material and therefore makes it superior in looping compared to toothed belts.

Where to buy? I purchased these at Harbor Freight Tools Item number 96186. Also sure these are available at other locations.