ShowCase
Contents
Show Case
This page summarises the progress of the RepRap team so far. It is a very general summary of the blog and should save you time in finding out where we are with the project. However, if you're after the very latest information and news then the blog is where it's at.
[Rappers - lets keep this as brief, history is irrelevant, and untechnical as poss]
The three major areas we're working on are:
- Hardware
- Electronics
- Software
And when they're all brought together we'll have a replicating rapid-protyper.
Hardware
What's the machine going to look like? Well, we're working on three different concepts at the same time. When they're all done we can take the best bits from each concept and come out with an all-singing, all-dancing hybrid architecture.
Vik's: Da Witch
Forrest's: Godzilla
Y-axis cabling
X, Y and Z positioning stages are powered up. Work is currently underway to develop control boards that incorporate PWM speed control of the brushed DC motors that drive the positioning stages with shaft encoders to precisely determine the speed and position of each stage. PWM speed control of the smaller G4 motor has been demonstrated. Extension of the software to the larger, much faster positioning motors awaits the arrival of L298N h-bridge chips. Presently, control board work is caught in the learning curve of getting pulse inputs from the shaft encoder to work in an interrupt mode.
Ed's: A.R.N.I.E.
A concept inspired by traditional 2D printing technology. The injection head will be mounted on the top of the frame to be moved in the x and y planes to print each layer of the part. The first layer will be printed directly onto the z-bed which will then be incremented downwards in the z direction for each subsequent layer.
Progress: The z-bed transmission is complete (see below) and now work has started on the x and y to install the injection head.
Brett's: King Ghidorah
Electronics
Software
-- Main.EdSells - 03 Jul 2006
