burning fingers.

i finally started on the circuit boards for the reprap a couple of days ago. after placing the solder paste onto the pads with a cocktail stick, i placed the components with a pair of tweezers.

then, once i’d cursed and swore about a few missing components and pinging one across the room, i placed them on a sheet of tinfoil on top of the electric oven’s ring. a lot of people talk about correct heating profiles and temperatures, but i must’ve just been very lucky. i whacked the ring on full power and waited for it to reflow.

once it had, i dragged it off and let it cool, then soldered the through hole parts on.

at the moment i’ve done two stepper motor drivers and the motherboard, still the extruder controller and one stepper left to do. unfortunately the atmega chip for the motherboard didn’t come with it (deliberately or not, not found out yet) so i can’t test any of the boards. still, i’m confident that all the joints are solid.

i’ll get some pictures of all this up later, lost the flippin lead again.

realised that i’m going to have to remake the z-clamps as well, the ones i have installed at the moment don’t clamp the rod at all. still, they’re hardly the most difficult to parts to fabricate!

A thought occurred to me before. Actually, it’d be more correct to say it hit me with a painful thump:
The motors I have at the moment are nema 23’s, but the Mendel brackets are 17’s.

Has anyone got any dimensional drawings/.stls for nema 23 size motors please? Otherwise it’s time to get the callipers out and knock something up that way.
Drop me an email at plainnash [at] gmail [dot] com if you can help.

hi all,

i guess if you’re reading this you’re either interested in the reprap project or your day has been very boring thus far and you don’t think it can get much worse. either way, welcome.

this blog will be a quick and dirty documentation of my reprap mendel build, just so my head doesn’t overheat and i forget things. i’ve assembled the frame already with some frame parts from oregon but i fear the other parts may have to be made from wood… great.

the electronics came in the post a couple of days ago from iprint3d at a very reasonable price. in fact, he sent them before going on holiday, doesn’t want payment for a couple of weeks, AND put a few little easter eggs in the parcel. what a gent. i can’t recommend this site highly enough, the boards are good quality and all the components are there.

6 opto-endstops soldered and ready to go, just got to rig up a test with an arduino for them next. as for the rest of the boards, i need to wait on some solder wick to get started on the SMT soldering.

i’ll crack a few pics up when i get the time later. if anyone’s willing to make the remaining RP parts for a reasonable price, get in touch at plainnash@gmail.com and we can talk.

cheers for reading,

dave