Lots of New Parts This Weekend
This weekend I was able to make the majority of the frame components for the RepRap. As you can see in the pictures I am still waiting for most of the nuts, bolts and washers to arrive. (On a side note if you are buying more than 8 screws or bolts you might as well buy 100 offline because you can get a hundred for the same price as about 12 at the hardware store. Especially if you are buying metric – Home Depot wanted $.90 for four (4!) m4 16mm socket head cap screws, conversely mcmaster carr wanted like $2.80 for 100. Kind of insane really.)
Things are going well, as usual I have a test this week that is going to require a prodigious amount of studying but hopefully by next week I will have all of the components machined. Since I have a tested working set of electronics it should run once I get everything built. This will be VERY interesting.
What still needs done:
- Extruder Carriage/Extruder
- Z Axis Components (2 plates/timing pulleys)
- Y Axis bearings
- Printing Surface
Judging from the time it took to complete what I have so far it really is conceivable that I could have it all together sometime next week!
(keep in mind that the assembly you see is a test fit of all the components so nothing is properly aligned or bolted tightly, so if something looks crooked, it probably is – but it is not an indicator of the build quality)
Hi,
I just started looking into this stuff. I am planning to build one but it will probably take a while because I am not so mechanically inclined. I can probably enlist the help of someone with some decent machines and more expertise at building stuff than myself. I think I’m better at the computer part of this thing.
Your frame looks pretty professional, nice work. I assume you’re gonna build the full machine, right?
Do you have a good drawing of Mendel? I found some pdf’s but not one overall view of the machine, just individual parts.
Keep up the good work!
Hello,
I’ve built the full machine – though I haven’t had time to really make it fully functional. The (basically) complete mendel can be seen somewhere around the first page of the blog.
What do you mean by a good drawing of the Mendel? Do you mean a drawing of the full assembly? I don’t have one, but I could make one with the major dimensions on it (mainly the distances between components). You probably wouldn’t need that until you had all of the pieces machined though.
I hope that my drawings/information is helpful! The Mendel has been sitting in the middle of my desk waiting to be fine tuned and written up since December – I have been designing and building a robot for a class that unfortunately is taking all my time.
I’m considering building the metal mendel. Your system looks very good! Have downloaded the drawings and feel I have a good grasp on every thing except the Y axis platform and bearings. Is there an assembly drawing or picture available?
I can give you an assembly of the y axis, and some pictures this evening. I have to warn you though, the y axis design was rushed (e.g I designed the morning that I machined it in the car on the way to school in about an hour) and could use some improvement. I plan on redesigning it this summer when I have time. It does work though, Ive been using my reprap as a foam cnc machine recently and it has performed much better than I anticipated.
I’ll wait to see your new design for the y axis. Am not going to be able to start the project until mid summer. Please E-mail me the info when ready. Thanks very much! Jerry Pontius
Dang! I’m so sorry for not posting that information. I try to write a deadline so that I make sure I do it (e.g. I will do it tonight) but that backfired becuase I got completely sidetracked and forgot until now. I WILL have them by tonight.
@Jerry Pontius
Here are some pictures of the bearing setup. I don’t have my windows machine running inventor to generate drawings right now. Let me know if you need more. Sorry again for the delay
http://mechanicallyinclined.net/bearing1.jpg
http://mechanicallyinclined.net/images/bearing2.jpg
http://mechanicallyinclined.net/images/bearing3.jpg
http://mechanicallyinclined.net/images/bearing4.jpg