Binary Construct

After building two more extruders, I think I've got it down. The body of this one is constructed almost entirely of MDF, with one aluminum angle to attach it. It only took about half an hour with a hand drill and some calipers to measure where to place the holes, but it is defiantly working far better than anything I have built previously. As you can see from the pictures it is a pretty simple design but is cranking out parts as fast as I can skeinforge them.

Click for larger versions of the photos.

 More after the break, including skeinforge settings.

Here is a simple gcode generator to test out some settings on your reprap/repstrap if you are having trouble getting skeinforge working. This only has a few settings (layer height, extrusion width and speed) and will make either a open-top cube or cylinder.

 Keep in mind when using this, it is just testing software and some quick scripts to see if your machine works at all. It is not intended to make high quality prints or complex objects.

You may wish to adjust the temp settings of the output (just search and replace all the M104 SXXX T0 lines with XXX = to *C of the temp you want). Some of the setting, like the warmup/cooldown I borrowed from skeinforg. Some of the gcode might need to be cleaned up (line breaks before M commands) or you can fix it in the source.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/binaryconstruct/files/RepRap/

The new extruder is complete and here are some shots of the first build. A few settings need to be tweaked for quality, but I'm very excited as this is the FIRST time I've actually extruded an object and I've been working on this off and on for over two years.

Next Project:

OBD-II Dashboard with Logging 

 Here is a teaser screenshot.

Pinch Wheel Extruder Complete

Here is the completed pinch-wheel extruder only deviating from my plans slightly. For build details read more.

I decided to use SourceForge to host my projects instead of attempting to set up my own SVN.

You can use this link to access the BC projects page at SF.net

https://sourceforge.net/projects/binaryconstruct/

Interfacing with vehicle OBD-II

Using a board based around the ELM327 I designed this simple software interface (c#) to communicate with my vehicles onboard OBD-II connection. The ultimate goal of this is to build a gauge display on an LCD driven by an ARM microprocessor. Currently the project is in its initial phase where I am working on decyphering the PIDs and their responses. 

You can download the source code for the program from Binary Construct's SourceForge page. Download Source Code

Feel free to modify, reuse, redistribute etc (See GNU GPL 3). Thanks.

Note: If you order a USB programmer such as the Olimex USB-ARM-JTAG programmer, it comes with a CD that will install and set up all the required drivers and settings that this tutorial covers.

This is a brief tutorial on configuring Eclipse Ganymede for programming the ARM Cortex M3 on Windows XP. Codesourcery G++ will be the compiler and OpenOCD used to communicate with the MPU. Sample OpenOCD configurations for Parallel and USB JTAG devices will provided.

Step 1: Download Software

Before continuing download all of the following software packages (click read more to see full article)

• Codesourcery G++ Lite for ARM EABI (Win IA32 Installer) - [Install Instructions]
• Java Runtime (required for Eclipse) - [Install Instructions]
• Eclipse Ganymede IDE for C/C++ Developers - [Install Instructions]
• OpenOCD Cortex-M3 2008/04/09 or OpenOCD 0.1.0 - [Install Instructions] and mirrors

I found these two bits at Lowes and decided to test them both for milling. Both are 1/8" Rotozip bits that will fit in the Dremel tool.  My plan is to mill the parts for an acrylic body plastic extruder.

Test Results

Using the Sabercut Bit, I did my first milling experiment.  I started at the lowest speed on the dremel (5000 rpm) but moved up to the highest setting by the end (25000 rpm) of the run. I had a few problems with geometry due to the flex in the mount holding the dremel and the flex in the bit itself. Overall I was pretty happy with this first run-but next time I will do a better job setting the Z-height so I don't run the mill into the base plate again. Below are photos and a video of the mill in action.

I used a feed rate in the gcode of F75. Next time I think I will try a little slower and keep the rpm high on the dremel to start with.

More pictures below...