Rav's Lab

I got ESP127 power supply from an old Compaq server some time ago, with intention to use it as my RepRap printer power supply. But I couldn't find any useful information on the internet on how to get it to power on.  Today, I've decided to grab my multimeter and play with it to see if I will be able to get it to work. By default when you plug the power cord to it, the cooling fan will start spinning but the green LED at the back will stay off and there will be no voltage (or almost no voltage) on any of the power rails +3.3v, +5v, +12v. This power supply +12v rail can handle 25 amperes which makes it perfect for a reprap.  After an hour or so... I saw a green light ;)  I've soldered terminal socket to the 12v pads to make it more portable and easy to setup.

I have done some progress on my large hbot printer over last two weeks. I hope to get this project finished in a few weeks time. There is still plenty of things which have to be re-design and adjustments to be done.. here is a few photos and movies I made during XY gantry tests. here are y axis belt idlers with added slot for core XY configuration (for fishing braid only..) some tests using a pen this one looks quite good Pen is no the best tool for repeatability test, I planing to run test with one of my hotends as soon as I will put Z axis on it.

I'm back on track with my hbot printer. Development is in progress and I should be able to run some test with stepper motors very soon. Last time I tested it only with some 608z bearings and it didn't went great. Metal on metal wasn't great idea.. with this type of kinematics there is quite big skew force when only one stepper motor is on. There is two ways to fix this issue, either go for linear bearings and rods or go V wheels. Luckily I got mini lathe and that's why I have decided to try second option first as I really like the idea of direct extrusion gantry. Anyway here is a short movie showing one of the carriages with mounted V wheels.  And some pictures  Pic1. home made V wheels :) Pic2. I really like those aluminium spacers Pic8. Looks like they fit really nicely

I have been printing with my Prusa Air 2 since a few months already and I'm quite happy with it but... I want to be able to print larger objects!. I was reading about CoreXY kinematics and it's something I decided to try.. To build gantry system for it you can use either smooth rods or aluminium extrusion, I wasn't sure if system build of extrusion will be sturdy enough but I like challenges.. I'm currently designing y and x carriages and slowly printing parts for the frame, hope to get it ready in a next few days and start to work on the aluminium sliders..  here are some of the designs pictures

Arduino + Nunchuck Wii + Servos and some BEEP ;)! I have been busy with few things recently but after a while I got my hands on Arduino... and what I can say.. I love it!!  pic1. nunchuck connected to I2C bus controlling two servo's. All together.. wiring is not perfect but it's fine for now ;)... there is an option to use either joystick or nunchuck accelerometer to control servos, by default it gets values from accelerometer and when you presss 'C' button it switches over to joystick. As an extra there is a beeping sound when you press Z :) Arduino code is a bit tatty and needs some cleaning I will post it here very soon

I put some video on youtube showing my new hotend printing parts for another prusa :) http://youtu.be/e0U8G4x3B9E