RepRap demo at the high school tomorrow
Oct. 7th, 2011 09:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnridleyI am doing a 3D printing demo for the high school Robotics club tomorrow morning (Tom is on the team). The shop manager that mentors the group has a DIY 3 axis CNC router so he's pretty familiar with the concept and the tool chain, and he teaches 3D CAD at the school.
I got the full toolchain installed on the new laptop and just picked everything up from the basement and put it on the kitchen counter and did a test print, so I think I'm ready to go. The printer is looking a little ratty right now but I think that's a good thing; it shows that this is definitely a DIY thing and I'll emphasize that the reason it's all ratty looking is that I keep taking bits of it apart and making changes and doing experiments.
I'll also bring along my in-progress printer and if any of them want to talk more I can show the different stuff I'm changing, and point out that I haven't even finished it yet and I'm already thinking about changes to make after I get it done, and I'm kind of thinking about a 3rd printer (but only after I sell the first one) - I want a bigger form factor, not so much for wider/deeper things but taller. I'd like to be able to go a full 200mm high, and that just needs more threaded rod, modified vertexes and some longer drill rod and a firmware tweak.
The school actually has a couple of 3 axis mill/router things but they're industrial bots and without the industrial software to match them they're just sitting there. I spent an hour last Saturday talking with him and poking at the bots and we started thinking that we could rip the existing electronics off of them and hook up RepRap electronics, or some other applicable drivers. They're just standard bipolar steppers on all three axes.
I got the full toolchain installed on the new laptop and just picked everything up from the basement and put it on the kitchen counter and did a test print, so I think I'm ready to go. The printer is looking a little ratty right now but I think that's a good thing; it shows that this is definitely a DIY thing and I'll emphasize that the reason it's all ratty looking is that I keep taking bits of it apart and making changes and doing experiments.
I'll also bring along my in-progress printer and if any of them want to talk more I can show the different stuff I'm changing, and point out that I haven't even finished it yet and I'm already thinking about changes to make after I get it done, and I'm kind of thinking about a 3rd printer (but only after I sell the first one) - I want a bigger form factor, not so much for wider/deeper things but taller. I'd like to be able to go a full 200mm high, and that just needs more threaded rod, modified vertexes and some longer drill rod and a firmware tweak.
The school actually has a couple of 3 axis mill/router things but they're industrial bots and without the industrial software to match them they're just sitting there. I spent an hour last Saturday talking with him and poking at the bots and we started thinking that we could rip the existing electronics off of them and hook up RepRap electronics, or some other applicable drivers. They're just standard bipolar steppers on all three axes.
