Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Thou name shall be Huxley

After listening to "A short history of nearly everything" by Bill Bryson yet again, I got inspired to name my mendel. Thomas Henry Huxley was a fellow biologist of Darwin and became an advocat for evolution, and will be given the honour of giving name to my reprap (or was it the other way around). So I hereby name my mendel "Huxley". *cheeering* Now all i need is a name-plate.

The frog is on the move

Finished up the parts for the y-axis and assembled them on the frog-plate and threw it in the frame. Always a good feeling seeing things work in their intended position. Fascinating to see how compact everything is. Every cutout on the frog-plate is needed and gives it a little more travel. I reckon there is quite a bit of thinking and refining that has gone into the designs.


Finally dawned on me why the build-platform has that little cutout as well, haven´t seen the purge plate beeing used around the web though. Seems like a thing most people skip.

I think iprint3D is getting around to assembling my electronics as well. According to their schedule my order is being worked on this week. Lets hope they do and that I´ll soon have all the stuff needed to complete my mendel.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Assemblies

Got some of the assemblies that make up the x-axis finished. I don't have the stepper motors or the extruder finished so there is only so much i can finish up. I also think my mudguard washers are too small. Can´t find any that are larger either, so I'll have to come up with a clever solution to that one.

Carriage without the extruder on top



Idler bracket



Vert bearing 180



Vert bearing 360


Monday, May 3, 2010

RP-parts! Halleluja!

The real news today is that DHL delivered my set of RP-parts! They only used 4 days from the U.S. door to door, while another package I'm waiting for was shipped 4 days before this one and still havent crossed the Atlantic.


Just like us neatfreaks like it, sorted in bags and with a checklist :) I bought the set from reprap forums user beverageexpert, he comes highly recommended. Fast delivery, good quality parts and a very nice guy.


I could finally assemble something after a few months of careful preparation, getting hold of all the different parts. I still need to get most of the electronics, but with these parts I'm a huge step closer to something that looks like a mendel.

A few hours of work later I got most of the basic frame done.

M3-capscrews

Finally got hold of the M3 capscrews today, ended up buying them from the RC-shop. Got some 23mm and some 25mm as they didn't have 20mm. Let's hope they will fit.