On Tuesday 04 April 2017 06:04:50 Erik Christiansen wrote: > On 04.04.17 05:00, Gene Heskett wrote: > > On Tuesday 04 April 2017 02:51:22 Gregg Eshelman wrote: > > > I wonder if they've heard about lost PLA casting? One off and > > > short runs without needing to make expensive, reusable patterns, > > > plus the ability to do casting shapes impossible with patterns > > > that must be removable from a sand mold, could be a money maker > > > for the foundry. 'Course they'd have to get and learn to use a 3D > > > printing setup. > > > > That looks like something I could do, if I had a big enough printer > > and could learn how to do the 3d model to feed the slicer software > > for the printer. I'm thinking of the belt guards in particular which > > would need at least one dimension in the 250mm by 100 by 100 range. > > Much much easier (and faster) for a relatively simple L-shaped angle > bracket with webs is lost polystyrene foam. For best finish, a > hot-wire cutter is a quite simple tool to make and use. (For the big > central cut-out, scribe the circle in pen, or pin on a cardboard > template, and cut radially to that circumference. Once around, exit by > the same radial cut. A little PVA glue seals that up again.) The foot > of the L, and webs, are similarly attached with a little PVA glue. > > In extremis, lacking a hot-wire cutter, the only slicers needed are a > pointy breadknife to hack out the hole in the middle, and a sharp box > knife or similar to slice out the rectangle, triangles, and external > radius. Cold cutting works better (finish-wise) on that fine blue > "Styrofoam", sold by Dow as "Blue Ribbon Insulation Boards" or > "Wallmate". > > Do you have any offcuts remaining from lining the garage door, Gene? > You could have the pattern done in a day - for nix. > > Erik > Those scraps of that blueish foam have all been binned or used years ago. And Lowes no longer carries that same board in 2" R22 thickness. The current product the last time I looked is a white, larger cell product and only about R20 because of that, but its the same $35 & tax a 4x8 foot sheet. How it would cut with a hot wire would be TBD.
The composition SW you folks use is I assume OpenScad? I started to do a belt cover with librecad, and had made good progress with a wire outline of unk dimensions but found its 2d only when I went looking for an extrude function. Dropped that, installed openscad, but the only place I can find docs is at wikibooks. Without downloading both books from there, I've no clue how many pages of dead tree that would be. librecad apparently does not have any docs, there are none in the installed librecad, and clicking of the help button gets an oh fudge, I can't find the docs message. Theres not a separate docs package in the repo's for wheezy. But its pretty intuitive to draw outlines and such. So openscad seems to be it if I make a full 3d model, mounting tabs and all. Its help docs buttons go straight to wikibooks. How hot does the hot wire need to be? Seeing as how thats best jiggered up as a wire support frame I could stick in a vise on the g0704's table and rig some sort of a sheet gripper leaving a cutaway, for the hot wire to move within, attached to the chip pan, if I get it rigid enough to keep its place as the wire moves, I could probably just write gcode to drive the cutters path. Where it needs a lid like the outside face of a belt cover, just cut the outline out and glue it on. But, I think buying the printer would get me a nicer looking belt cover. Have any of you bought an open frame big enough to use, then built an insulating box to make it run smoother and faster? Best deal for the dollar but with a pellet fed head, that and working envelope big enough for a 10x5x4 length.width,height, or 250x125x100 in mm's. Throw some brand names I can google for at me please. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >-------- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's > most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
