Tuesday 3 August 2010

Sketch it Up

Just thought I would write a few words about using SketchUp for modelling with RepRap. I'm not sure if it's just me but very few people seem to be using SketchUp for doing their designs for the project. I really like Google's SketchUp and think it is fantastically easy to use. Capo's recent comment reminded me of the fantastic model he put together of Mendel and prompted me to have a play again myself. A quick look at Capo's blog and you can see how he has used SketchUp in a number of ways for both presenting idea's and for component design.

The below video shows Capo's model that I have coloured then animated.

Link to the SketchUp Mendel Model by Capo:
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=86dc5e3cc80958355ad914839c51e370

Link to Capo's Blog
http://capolight.wordpress.com/



Monday 2 August 2010

Geared Extruder and X Carriage

I've done some more work on the extruder build. I had some problems getting the gears to mesh correctly, I found that the large gear seemed to be slightly ovalised which meant that as it turned the wheel would grind in some places and miss in others. I think I have solved this by filing down the teeth that were grinding using a triangular file (note the red marks I have put on so I know where to file) until eventually the gear wheel was circular. It's still not perfect but should be workable I think. I still need to glue the nozzle assembly in place.





I have also starting working on the x-axis. Beginning with the x-carriage. Nothing too difficult here except the captive nuts. A few of the nut locations had to be drilled to the correct shape to hold the nut, I did this using my dremmel clone with a small drill bit and file attachments, time consuming but works in the end. It is also important to remember which holes have to be drilled at an angle.