Saturday, April 18, 2009

Fan remved from power supply

Well I got tired of hearing my PSUs fan squeak all the time (it has a bad bearing) so I removed it...So far I haven't had any temperature issues but I have not run it for more that 5min we'll see. My idea was that in a PC the fan is used more to remove hot air from the case than to cool the power supply but please tell me if I'm wrong before I burn down the house:)

Stepper Motor Driver Issues Resolved!!!

I have finnaly finished debugging my Stepper Motor drive circuit! This is one giant leap for me and my repstrap and I can now move onto less tedious things (I hope) like building an extruder and buying a bigger PSU for my repstrap mine outputs 5A at 12V, My steppers are 6V but I am running them at 12V for extra power, running 3 stepper in high torque mode (2 phases at once for extra torque) since my steppers are 1.3amps phase this gives me 2.6A per stepper=7.2 amps for all 3, my power supply only produces 5A at 12V, whoops :), I guess I will need a new PSU or I will have to drive my steppers in Wave Drive mode.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Stepper Motor Driver Issues

Well I started the switch from NPN transistors to HEXFETs. So far it hasn't gone so well. I tested my circuit before I conencted the HEXFETs and it worked as i should, but once I connected them the whole circuit stoppd working :(. I am now trouble shooting the problem and will get back once I find/correct it.

EDIT: Well I have had to post the problem on the RepRap forums so I guess I wont be the one fixing my circuit... It will probably be some electronics whiz working on the reprap project :)

Sunday, April 12, 2009

I have established communications between the PC controlling my repstrap which I will call my RC (RepStrap computer) from now on. Now when I tell my RC to "print" an object, I get the appropriate voltages on the appropriate pins (YAHOO!) sorry that took me a long time to figure out. Any way next step is to power up my electronics and hope it works :).
BTW Happy Easter All!!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

First Real Post

So I dont think anyone is reading this as it comes out so I'll just let it get anyone up to speed as to what I have done so far that decides to look this far back. I set out to design a low cost RepStrap after I learned that Tommelise 2 was above my price range. Anyway so far I have finished (I think) the hardware part and my external electronics have been tested as much as possible without the software part working. My repstrap is controlled by 3 unipolar steppers turning 1/4 20 threaded rods running through captive nuts on all of the axis. The stepper motors are controlled by stepgenie stepper controllers currently activating NPN transistors but I plan to switch to HEXFETs before I start printing. Everything else is the standard RepRap electronics. I have decided to mount a dedicated repstrap pc on my repstrap, it is a compaq laptop with a cracked screen plugged into an lcd monitor and external keyboard/mouse. I am using the RepRap host to control my RepStrap through an Arduino. If you are reading this blog I expect you to have a knowledge of RepRap/RepStrap systems and if you dont please head over to www.reprap.org to learn before reading. I have decided to use a dedicated repstrap pc because I dont want printing things getting in the way of me using my main pc. I dont want to not use my repstrap because I need to use my pc. Anyway if you have any questions feel free to ask in a comment.

First Post

Well I have decided to start a blog about my Rep(St)Rap Adventures. Here it is... my main Rep(St)Rap site is www.repstrap.weebly.com. Thanks for reading stay tuned. Sorry about the ads, I have to keep the project funded though :).