[Noisebridge-discuss] reprap status report

[Andy Isaacson]

The RepRap team is busily beavering away on various parts of the
problem.  Turkshead is working on the "McWire Cartesian Bot" frame:
http://www.reprap.org/bin/view/Main/McWire_Cartesian_Bot_1_2
and I've characterized the control electronics and am placing orders for
the PCBs (from rrrf.org) and components (from Mouser).
http://www.reprap.org/bin/view/Main/Generation2Electronics

There's one big research question left open still -- which extruder head
we should build.  I'm more or less in favor of the Darwin Extruder 1.1:
http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/RepRapOneDarwinThermoplastExtruder
but am open to other suggestions, if anyone wants to jump in and take
over this part of the project.

Other subprojects that need help are
* acquiring the relevant stepper motors and DC motors:
http://www.reprap.org/bin/view/Main/StepperMotor
http://www.reprap.org/bin/view/Main/Stepper_Motor_Driver_1_1
(I haven't put any work into this, a great subproject for somebody who
wants to deal with the mechanicals)

* figuring out a better way to drive it than their Arduino-clone
schemes:
http://www.reprap.org/pub/Main/Generation2Electronics/single-arduino-with-valve.png
(I have some opinions about this, we should talk if you're interested in
doing something better.)

* Attacking the host software problem.  If someone is interested in
learning the RepRap Java software, that would be *great*.  If interested
in developing more robust software, that's awesome too.

-andy