Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Demozendium

Demozendium

The skeinforge manual has been moved to:
http://fabmetheus.crsndoo.com/wiki/index.php/Skeinforge

I'd like to thank Bogdan Kecman:
http://www.bitsfrombytes.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:Bogdan.kecman
http://picasaweb.google.com/bogdan.kecman/RapMan
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bogdan

and in serbian:
http://www.mysql.rs/
http://elco.crsndoo.com/

who made the skeinforge download site and has now finished the new Demozendium wiki:
http://fabmetheus.crsndoo.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Demozendium is an open source encyclopedia that gives contributors a fair share. Basically, decisions about this wiki are made democratically, by range voting to select between choices and by median voting to determine quantities. The adsense revenue is shared among the contributors. More information is on the About Demozendium page at:
http://fabmetheus.crsndoo.com/wiki/index.php/DEMOZENDIUM:About

The content from the old manual was copied on Thursday, November 18th. So if you made any edits to the old manual since then, please reenter them into the new wiki.

To prevent spam, registration in the new wiki is by email to:
perez_enrique yahoo.com

If your contributions online have been seen, you will get an account. If you haven't contributed somewhere before, then include your first article or edit or artwork. When registering, please also indicate if you want a share of revenue and/or you are willing to help administer.

For those who have written tutorials, the updated list which is now at the top of the skeinforge manual:
http://fabmetheus.crsndoo.com/wiki/index.php/Skeinforge#Tutorials

please either register and add your tutorial to the wiki directly, or send me an email granting me permission to add it to the wiki.

The new demozendium wiki is meant for anyone to write good articles on any subject and get a fair share. It's starting with skeinforge because it has to start somewhere, but it is not limited to skeinforge or reprap. Please send in your articles and artwork, all contributions are appreciated and rewarded, there are no requirements for notability and with controversial topics multiple viewpoints are accommodated with multiple articles.



Command Line Interface

The command line interface for slicing a file directly has been changed and there are now more options. Programs which call skeinforge from a shell command to slice a file may have to change the command string.

Slicing a file from skeinforge_utilities/skeinforge_craft.py, for example:
python skeinforge_application/skeinforge_utilities/skeinforge_craft.py test.stl

will slice the file and exit. This is the correct option for programs which use skeinforge to only generate a gcode file.

Slicing a file from skeinforge.py, for example:
python skeinforge_application/skeinforge.py test.stl

will slice the file and bring up the skeinforge window and the analyze windows and then skeinforge will wait for user input.

Slicing a file from skeinforge_plugins/craft.py, for example:
python skeinforge_application/skeinforge_plugins/craft.py test.stl

will slice the file and bring up the analyze windows only and then skeinforge will wait for user input.

Note, this does not change the command to bring up the skeinforge dialog without a file name, which is still:
python skeinforge_application/skeinforge.py



Scale Tool

There is a new tool scale which scales the carving to compensate for shrinkage after the extrusion has cooled. This is useful for things like gears which are eventually connected to non extruded components and must mesh precisely. The scale tool is not activated by default, so if you don't want scale you don't have to change anything.

It is best to only change the XY Plane Scale, because that does not affect other variables. If you choose to change the Z Axis Scale, that increases the layer thickness so you must increase the feed rate in speed by the same amount.



Delete Comments in Export

The Delete Comments checkbox in export has been changed to the Delete Comments menu. The new default is 'Delete Crafting Comments', which is similar to the old 'Delete Comments' default, so you don't have to change anything. The new choices are explained below:

Do Not Delete Comments
When selected, export will not delete comments. Crafting comments slow down the processing in many firmware types, which leads to segment pauses.

Delete Crafting Comments
When selected, export will delete the time consuming crafting comments, but leave the initialization comments. Since the crafting comments are deleted, there are no additional segment pauses. The remaining initialization comments provide some useful information for the analyze tools.

Delete All Comments
When selected, export will delete all comments. The comments are not necessary to run a fabricator.



The stable cached skeinforge is the latest file at:
http://fabmetheus.crsndoo.com/

the unstable skeinforge is on my website at:
http://members.axion.net/~enrique/reprap_python_beanshell.zip

the infrequently updated subversion version is at:
https://reprap.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/reprap/trunk/old_files/miscellaneous/python-beanshell-scripts/


Enrique