RUG/California/Bay Area
Contents
Main discussion area
The discussions have migrated from the RepRap forums to the following Google Group:
http://groups.google.com/group/bay-area-reprap
New users won't be added until their first post has been screened to be relevant/legitimate. So just post a "hello, world" message so that it can be moderated and they will be added. Be patient :)
Meeting times and location
As of September 2015, meetings are Wednesdays from 7pm to 11pm, either at the San Jose Tech Shop or B2 Coffee (2nd Wednesday of the month).
Refer to the Calendar and Google Group for the schedule.
Local Related Communities and Resources
Places
- https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Noisebridge
- http://thecrucible.org/
- http://www.buildcoolstuff.com/
- http://hackerdojo.pbworks.com/
- http://www.betalab01.org/
Nearby Robot Hobby Clubs
- Home Brew Robotics Club
- San Francisco Robotics Society of America
- http://www.robogames.net/
- http://www.meetup.com/makesf/
- http://www.betalab01.org/
Model Engineering
Model Making
- http://www.ipmsmtdiablo.org/home.htm
- http://www.ipmssantarosa.org/
- http://www.ipmssantarosa.org/links.htm
Community Machine/Fabrication Shops
- TechShop San Francisco
- TechShop San Jose and TechShop Menlo Park
- http://www.sawdustshop.com/location.asp
Hobby Shops
Official RepRap Suppliers
Local Suppliers
Local Shops may be better or worse than buying from online retailers. This depends on your local shops and what you're getting. Stepper motors you'll want to get online, steel rod - perhaps not. Fasteners, it depends. You may want to check your yellow pages to look these up, as opposed to online. If you find any place good, tack it up here.
Hardware
- Mr. Metric - Mr. Metric does online and phone orders but also has a physical location in San Jose to pick up in person. They don't stock rod, but they have reasonable prices on various metric fasteners.
- Olander - Another source for metric fasteners, in Sunnyvale.
- Orchard Supply Hardware - They have fairly expensive small packs of metric hardware. One can also get print bed sized pieces of glass cut extremely cheaply. A 8" by 8" sheet costs around $1.
Electronics
- Halted - Halted has a location in Santa Clara with an enormous selection of connectors, resistors, capacitors, wire, and so on for much cheaper than can be found online. They also have used computer components and random finds like 1.5mm aluminum sheets roughly the right size to use as a print bed.