User:Darque

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Revision as of 05:33, 24 January 2015 by Darque (talk | contribs) (Hello!)
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Hello!

I must confess I'm a newbie addict to the RepRap world having stumbled across this project a few days before New Year 2015!

However, I do have plenty of experience in XYZ and Robotic systems from many years around automation in Western Australia so I don't plan on being a newbie for long.

So far I have been impressed with the work I can see from the Community and applaud the underlying philosophy of open source so I'm looking to add value where I can. Besides technical skills, my strengths lie in leadership, business systems and change management. I have a strong belief in good documentation (not a lot but just enough to ensure quality) and see the Wiki as the greatest tool to achieve that aim... regardless of the many challenges it creates!

My Current Goals

1. Build a RepRap

The hard way of course... as I said good documentation (and rev control of it) is key to engineering quality so I'm here to audit not just build!
Oh dear... we do have some problems don't we :)

Ok... so starting at the top:
I've chosen a Prusa i3 Rework as it seems to be the latest variant of a well tested design. I say seems to be because there are a lot of variations and quite a minefield of Categories to pour through and find the variations.

Update: I have the majority of a BOM ordered from various locations around the world to try and get what looks good value... clearly a glutton for punishment as some of my decisions are already showing cracks... but I expected this but we learn the fastest from our mistakes. If I was planning on stopping at one machine a kit would have been a better deal... but I don't!

2. Build Another!

I'm much more interested in the machine than the printing so I intend to build another unit almost straight away. So I can have a development machine and a production system at all times.

3. Service the WA Community

There does not appear to be a lot of Supplier options in Western Australia so I will work to help out here if I can. I've joined a couple of Maker groups so will try and leverage local community to get better deals for local buyers. Open Source and Maker Groups are built on this after all and I would not be respecting all the hard work you all do if I didn't try to spread the love.

4. Do some serious development!

I've done a fair bit of Instrument R&D and find it enjoyable... frustrating but enjoyable! I'm thinking a good cost effective Breeder would be nice as this would expand our ability to develop volume.

5. Work on the Development Environment

Bringing many people together to share knowledge is the essence of a Wiki


Creating a way to allow information to stream freely is the essence of a Wiki does well and marrying this with clear pathways for people to trace and develop is challenging. We will need good standards that are easy to follow but ensure quality can be maintained else we will end up in a revision control nightmare... If we are not already there! Engineering design with a few Professionals using Document Control is hard enough. Revision control with potentially thousands of inexperienced people... on a Wiki! Oh dear, we have a problem!



Looking forward to meeting you all soon!

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