Unpacking And a Little Building

All neatly laid parts of what you get in the box

Arrived home with my 8kg box of printer parts.  Read the enclosed paper work before setting out to sort all the items and check that they were all there.  I was mildly surprised find that the invoice was for £311 not the £500 I thought I'd paid.  Um, this may have meant that I didn't purchase the correct kit?  Quickly checked the website.  You can buy the kit with or without the printed plastic parts and indeed I did have the plastic parts.  I'm assuming that as I do have the plastic parts that then the prices indicated on the site must be old and that they are selling for a lot cheaper.  All is good.  Have spent about £100 less than I thought, can't be bad.

Whilst doing my research I had watched a few build videos of RepRap printers being built.  Some of those vids where done in time lapse video.  I went about to find some free software that would allow me to do the same.  Suppose I couldn't gotten an app for my Iphone to do the job, but I wanted something I could use my webcam with as this is sitting on top of my monitor and provided a nice view of my build area on the computer table.  Have never used time lapse video recording before, but have worked out that it takes a snap about every half second.  Yet to see what it actually looks like when viewed.  I will upload this to the my blog at some point to give my 'bored with text' readers something to look at.  btw I have 2 page views since I put my blog up and I think one of those was me!  Not expecting much.



All these bits go somewhere!

In the box is a big polyurethane bag full of white PLA plastic parts.  Upon inspection these parts seemed quite well made, light with not bad resolution I thought.  However I never held a 3D printed plastic part before anyway, so who was I to know.  Needed to check that I had all of them, so refered back the RepRap site and layed them out exactly as in their picture.  Yep, all parts were there  Some confusion over the U bend joints as they were different sizes and I had a fairly big box shaped item that was in the picture.  I think this must be something to encase something.  No doubt I'll find out what it is later.

This is my starting point for the build.  As you can see the way everything is laid out makes it all very clear.  The author I think his name is Adrian Bowyer instructs in a way that so far does not lead to any ambiguity.  He puts notes in areas where it's likely you could slip up and thus ensuring that you don't.  So, last night I got as far as Step 3 in the frame assembly.  This meant putting together the many threaded rods and plastic interconnects between them.  This was fun.  I took it slow, carefully measured the distances using the provided template that was shipped with the kit.  All only hand tightened at this stage.  I even went as far and making sure I had the M8 nuts the correct way round and I knew from my GCSE technical drawing days at school that nuts may seem that you put them on either way, but in fact on side is slightly more beveled than the other, meaning that the none beveled side or bottom is the end that is meant to meet the surface where it tightens up to.  Lots flicking nuts around long threaded bars!
All done for now.  Hope to get back to building soon.

3D Printing My First Blog Entry

6 weeks ago I somehow got interested then fascinated by the whole concept of being able to print something out in 3 dimensions.  From that point on I researched the Web to find out more.  It wasn't too long before I found out that 3D printing is massive and that it really is available to the ordinary folk to do at home.  This led me to looking for the best way forward in terms actually obtaining one for myself.  That in turn led me to realising that I could buy one in kit form and build it myself!

The obvious place for me I thought would be where I could find the most support as I was sure that it would not be easy.  This is where I learnt about reprap 3d printers and thier online community.  So 3 weeks ago I ordered a RepRapPro Mendel printer in kit form for about £500.  This arrived at my work place today.  Tonight i'm taking it home to check out the contents.  Not sure if I'll start building it tonight, but thought it wise to ensure that I have all the parts I need.  I must say that the RepRap people kept me fully informed about the delivery of my printer.  There was a slight delay as they were waiting on some components to complete my kit.

Really though,  this delay was good, in that it gave me time to do more research.   I have a basic knowledge of electronics from college in my younger days and I like to think that I have an engineering mind.  I relearnt OHM's law, this was interesting because you can actually download simple electronics course via ITunesYou.  So, have done that.  Also as I know that an Arduino board is used with this printer I ordered an Arduino Started Kit, that teaches a noob simple electronics with LED's Motors Sensor and the like.  There is a tool list you require to build, most of which I had from normal DIY bits and pieces that collected over the years.  I've gone out bought the items that I didn't have.  Now I'm prepared.

It's going to be a long journey.  There will be lots of things that will go wrong.  Frustration will befall me.  I will need to stop playing games and dedicate my spare time as and when I can.  Family, come first of course, but I'm hoping they will allow me to carry out my new hobby.