Reprap prusa build

Overview: This page documents the build of a reprap prusa mendel. A prusa mendel[1] is a style of 3d printer created by the reprap project[2] and then tweaked by Josef Prusa in order to be simpler and have a smaller parts count.

Progress - 2011 06 05

No pictures, but today was productive. I mounted the all-in-one driver board[3] to the frame. I got the power supply hooked up WITH the e-stop mushroom button. I was able to tweak the machines.xml file in replicatorg and get the printer to connect to my mac. When I first tested it all of the axis were backwards. I could have changed it in software, but I just swapped pins on the molex connector instead. Now they are all responding the way they should. I did some re-routing of the belts and am still working on lining everything up squarely so none of the belts want to walk off of the cog.

So far the machine seems very quiet. Surprisingly so. I have only jogged around however, and when printing the back and forth repetitive motions are the noisiest ones. I hope the wade's extruder I have printed will work for this. My print is untested, the design is proven though.

One thing that I think is a neat hack is I wired the e-stop directly to the power supply. It normally connects the green sense wire to ground. By doing that it turns the psu on. When the button is pushed down it severs the connection and cuts power to the machine. This is admittedly a bit overkill for a machine that can't _really_ hurt anyone, but it looks cool and it is safer.

Next To Do:

• build and level bed
• rearrange the board placement to allow for more z movement.
• install end stops
• install thermistor and hot end
• test print!?!

Progress - 2011 06 01

The prusa frame is constructed, with 3 functional axis. It has motors installed but no drivers connected. The next steps are to create a print bed and wire up the controller. After that there will be some significant tweaking and leveling required. The hot end is also untested.