Hello from yet another crazy 'rapper

Hello!

If this is not the appropriate subforum for this topic, feel free to zap it.

Just wanted to say a quick hello from Munich, Germany!

I have been toying with the idea of making myself a rep(st)rap for a few years now, but right now it looks like my plans are getting more acute. My goal is simply to have a doable project with a clear goal. I have no particular needs except that my first machine must be able to produce parts in a good enough quality for the next one.

I have a small metal workshop including a mill (no lathe though). I can also cast aluminum, and might just try something with those techniques. Not because it would be particularly quick/easy, but because I have all the raw materials here and it would prolong the time until I have to start thinking about sourcing the other stuff. That is the part of hobby projects like this which I am not that fond of. I am aware that my approach would kind of defeat the purpose of the "rep" in "reprap", but I'll survive.

I am not 100% sure yet what model I am going to make for the first try; I'm much torn between the Prusa i3 (as inspiration, at least) and this cheap repstrap. I like the idea of not wasting any money and effort at all in the first iteration but instead to dump it all into one important piece which has to be bought anyways, and can be re-used in the next upgrade.

See you in a "project" post maybe, later, if and when I should actually start to do something! Any thoughts/advice on my situation are welcome as well, of course.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2015 12:12PM by CrazyRapper.

Hi, I wish you well with your project!

As you can cast aluminium, you might want to consider a metal corner Kossel. See [miscsolutions.wordpress.com] for info about mine. OpenScad files for printable corners are readily available, and should be easy enough to adapt for casting.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Thanks for the reply, dc42.

I'll consider the Kossel later. That design looks quite advanced, and while it does fascinate me, I'm not too sure it should be my first reprap project... that aside, congrats on your blog, you seem to have invested quite a lot of time into it, indeed!

So far, I've gone ahead and studied the Y axis and carriage of the i3. I found that all printed parts of those 2 assemblies should be pretty straightforward to mill out of aluminum stock - there are no fancy shapes, just a few holes and cutouts. Also, not many critical dimensions. Thanks to the OpenSCAD sources, the coordinates/dimensions are simple to reverse-engineer. I've made some drawings and will head into the basement tomorrow for some good old fashioned milling, if time/family allows.