On Mon, Nov 04, 2013 at 07:09:02PM +0000, Curt wrote: > On 2013-11-04, Jerry Stuckle <jstuc...@attglobal.net> wrote: > > > > I'm waiting for a 3D printer that builds itself :) > > > > A self-replicating 3D printer? > > That's in the cards, isn't it? > > Or maybe it isn't. The economic model may be faulty; I dunno. > For what its worth, I have assembled a SeeMeCNC 3D printer but have not yet had it operating. The physical components for this kit come close to self-replicating. The kit consists of numerous plastic parts, four twelve volt stepper motors, two 1/4-20 threaded steel rods, four 1/4 inch steel rods, a half dozen ball bearings, numerous small bolts, nuts and washers and one machined metal part, the extruder.
The printer is capable of reproducing all the plastic parts but this would be quite time consuming. The kit manufacturer injection molds the plastic parts. The stepper motors can draw as much as 15 amps each. The four controllers for the stepper motors are mounted on a circuit board connected to a 12 volt power supply. The leads, four for each stepper motor, are optically isolated from the computer and connect to the computer from a parallel printer port. Because of the isolation there is little drain on the computer power but a usb cable is useless because of the need to control the x,y, and z steppers and the extruder stepper independently. I have installed linuxcnc on a dedicated computer and loaded the initial settings but the dedicated computer failed and had to be sent back for warranty repairs. Finally, note that while linuxcnc will run the printer the cnc programs must be written separately. Tom Thes > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org > Archive: http://lists.debian.org/slrnl7fs7k.3mh.cu...@einstein.electron.org > > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20131104215320.ga23...@tomgeorge.info
