Introducing RepPresent: Our Newest Toy
Dec. 24th, 2012 09:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deaneSeveral years ago I got interested in 3D printers - machines which build physical objects by laying down thin layers of a material, like plastic or metal, and binding them together. In particular I was keen on the RepRap project as their machines were the cheapest to build and I liked their goal of trying to create a machine which was capable of duplicating itself. So I began salvaging stepper motors and other components from old floppy drives and 2D printers, with the idea of maybe, someday, getting around to building my own machine.
About a month ago the paramour caught the 3D printing bug. Having observed my glacial progress zie decided to speed things up by ordering a kit containing all the necessary parts. The kit arrived on the 14th. We're considering this to be our christmas present to each other and have tentatively named it the RepPresent.
The machine is currently a little over half complete, but the pace is picking up now that the holidays are here and I'm able to devote more time to it.
Behind the cut is a picture of the machine in its current state, with all the main bits labelled, and a description of how it will work.
Click on the image to see a larger copy.
We bought the kit from RepRapPro, a company run by Adrian Bowyer, the former Bath University lecturer who started the RepRap project. The design is RepRapPro's own variation of the "Prusa" variation of the standard RepRap "Mendel" design. So it's officially a "RepRapPro Prusa Mendel". Try saying that quickly ten times in a row.
In the center of the image is the X carriage which moves left and right. Eventually it will hold the extruder which will take plastic filament with a 1.75mm diameter, heat it, and then squirt it out as a 0.1mm diameter thread.
The X carriage is mounted on a pair of smooth metal rods which run from the X motor mount on the left to the X idler on the right. Both the motor mount and idler are attached to long vertical lead screws which are driven by a pair of Z motors on the top of the machine. These are used to raise and lower the X carriage.
Beneath the X carriage is the print bed. It consists of a heater with an aluminium plate on top of it. Missing from the image above is a glass plate which goes on top of the aluminium. The bed moves backwards and forwards along two smooth rods.
When building an object the X carriage is lowered by the two Z motors until the tip of the extruder is just 0.1mm above the glass top of the bed. The extruder begins squirting out hot plastic onto the glass. The first 0.1mm slice of the object is "drawn" by moving the X carriage left and right and the print bed backward and forward. When that slice is done the Z motors raise the X carriage by 0.1mm and the process repeats for the next slice. The extruded thread of plastic is hot enough that it will bond to the previous layer. In this way, slice by slice, the object is built, from bottom to top.
Because the heated filament of plastic is so soft and thin, it can only bridge very small spans without sagging, so for longer spans the machine will build narrow support columns which must later be removed manually.
All of the machine's plastic parts (pretty much everything white in the image, except for the rolls of wire near the top and the toothed belts) were printed by another RepRap machine, so that gives you some idea of the machine's capabilities.
About a month ago the paramour caught the 3D printing bug. Having observed my glacial progress zie decided to speed things up by ordering a kit containing all the necessary parts. The kit arrived on the 14th. We're considering this to be our christmas present to each other and have tentatively named it the RepPresent.
The machine is currently a little over half complete, but the pace is picking up now that the holidays are here and I'm able to devote more time to it.
Behind the cut is a picture of the machine in its current state, with all the main bits labelled, and a description of how it will work.
Click on the image to see a larger copy.
We bought the kit from RepRapPro, a company run by Adrian Bowyer, the former Bath University lecturer who started the RepRap project. The design is RepRapPro's own variation of the "Prusa" variation of the standard RepRap "Mendel" design. So it's officially a "RepRapPro Prusa Mendel". Try saying that quickly ten times in a row.
In the center of the image is the X carriage which moves left and right. Eventually it will hold the extruder which will take plastic filament with a 1.75mm diameter, heat it, and then squirt it out as a 0.1mm diameter thread.
The X carriage is mounted on a pair of smooth metal rods which run from the X motor mount on the left to the X idler on the right. Both the motor mount and idler are attached to long vertical lead screws which are driven by a pair of Z motors on the top of the machine. These are used to raise and lower the X carriage.
Beneath the X carriage is the print bed. It consists of a heater with an aluminium plate on top of it. Missing from the image above is a glass plate which goes on top of the aluminium. The bed moves backwards and forwards along two smooth rods.
When building an object the X carriage is lowered by the two Z motors until the tip of the extruder is just 0.1mm above the glass top of the bed. The extruder begins squirting out hot plastic onto the glass. The first 0.1mm slice of the object is "drawn" by moving the X carriage left and right and the print bed backward and forward. When that slice is done the Z motors raise the X carriage by 0.1mm and the process repeats for the next slice. The extruded thread of plastic is hot enough that it will bond to the previous layer. In this way, slice by slice, the object is built, from bottom to top.
Because the heated filament of plastic is so soft and thin, it can only bridge very small spans without sagging, so for longer spans the machine will build narrow support columns which must later be removed manually.
All of the machine's plastic parts (pretty much everything white in the image, except for the rolls of wire near the top and the toothed belts) were printed by another RepRap machine, so that gives you some idea of the machine's capabilities.
