fab at home.. anyone seen this? is it prop worthy?

sharpie

Funny thing, I was thinking about building a 3d printer... using the propeller... and the next day I see this article in popular science....
Which led me to this site..... http://fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

I want to build one, albeit a larger and better one ...· To the tune of eight feet tall and wide..· My original idea was a little more flexble in that the "tool" would be interchangable allowing either depositing materials as this one does to build up a form, or a router type tool that would cut into blocks of material to form shapes.· Also, my idea included the ability to scan a 3d object first and then replicate it..

How about fabricating multilayered PCBs this way... Who knows..

Graham Stabler

I'm sat here surrounded by a half build homemade 3D printer (starch based like zcorp) so I'm up on my rapid prototyping.

The fab at home machine is just a light weight three axis gantry they have attached a syringe too, I don't quite get the hype but it is cool.

You could use prop to control it or you could use PC based hobby CNC programs like Mach3 or TurboCNC. I'd build the machine first, eight feet tall and wide would be doable for something just laying low resolution materials but as far as it having a router on the end you would have to spend some serious cash.

Graham

sharpie

I'd be looking at the big one to cut large stryofoam or similar material blocks into shape which I could use for forms for fiberglass, etc.. Unless someone knows an automated method for laying up fiberglass! I'm sure boat manufacturers probably have figured that one out by now...

M. K. Borri

I've built a few boats but all by hand, sorry ^^;

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http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=650217

meow, i have my own topic now? (sorta)

rePete

Have been thinking the same thing

have you seen reprap? http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome

sharpie

Looks like a lot of people are thinking in similar directions with this stuff.. I know there are already big machines that do what I'm looking for, Scaled Composites (Burt Rutan's company) uses them.. Not sure who makes them and where to get them but I am sure they are expensive. I don't mind spending a few thousand bulding one myself but the tens or hundreds of thousands for one like they use isn't worth it to me..

Graham Stabler

Well if we forget about fabbing for a bit and think about big foam routers the main problem is stiffness and the large amount of z travel needed.

Probably you should go smaller be happy to glue sections together to make larger plugs.

One of the best machines I have seen on the net uses lots of carbon tubing to form its structure, low inertia means either higher speeds or smaller motors so look into low weight yet stiff structures so you don't have to go to massive AC servos and the like.

If I was to go crazy I consider building a roof mounted triaglide:

www.indoor.flyer.co.uk/kinematics.htm

see the first image, its a parallel kinematic machine, you need a lot of rail for a given working volume but the structure is just some rods, the inertia is tiny and all the motors work together. Control is possible via Mach3 (read my document) and certainly by the propeller as the mathematics if done as I did it using Pythagoras only is simple. Another issue is the depth of cut possible because of potential for the arms to catch the work but if you build up larger models in layers it could still work well and it is possibly to get very long ball nosed cutters for this sort of thing.

Just a thought, don't wish to pervert you too far [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Graham