Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Gear

Gear

You can now use xml to define a gear. The gear script can generate a spur gear couple, a bevel gear couple, a ring gear couple and a rack & pinion couple.

A helix pattern can be added to each gear type. All the gear types have a clearance and all the teeth can be beveled. A keyway, shaft and lightening holes can be added to all the round gears, and rack holes can be added to the rack. The script can output solid gears or only the gear profiles. Both gears of the couple can be generated or just one.

You can experiment by opening xml files in the models/xml_models/creation/gear folder. To see xml files in the file chooser, make sure that the 'Files of Type' pop up menu is set to either All, All Readable or XML files.

Gear options and examples are described at:
http://fabmetheus.crsndoo.com/wiki/index.php/Fabmetheus_Creation_Gear

One common gear type is the spur herringbone gear, the slice file for which is at:
http://members.axion.net/~enrique/fabmetheus_model_creation_gear_spur_herringbone.xml



Bridge

The 'Bridge Thickness Multiplier' has been removed, now all layers are the same thickness.

'Bridge Cool' has been added to the cool tool. If the layer is a bridge layer, then cool will lower the temperature by 'Bridge Cool' degrees Celcius.



Export Replace

Export now deletes any empty lines from a replace operation. So now if you have a line like:
M101

in the replace.csv file, all lines which have only M101 will be deleted. There is no longer a need to replace gcode commands with placeholder commands like M105.



Global Settings

The remaining global setting tools have been changed to profile setting tools. This means that you should check the settings in any global setting tool where you've changed the default settings. The remaining global attribute tools were:
home, lash, unpause, all the analyze tools & all the export plugins.



Granule Extruder
This has nothing to do with skeinforge, but someone made a small granule extruder:
http://web4deb.blogspot.com/2010/12/plastic-extruder-for-growing-media.html

The Web4Deb Extruder is a functional auger based granular extruder that produces perforated HDPE strips for use in aquaponics. A video of the extruder in action is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anqKC0i0a7Y

More information is on the reprap wiki at:
http://reprap.org/wiki/Web4Deb_extruder

Note, this produces strips rather than round filament. But the die can be changed so someone could add cooled grooved rollers to finally make home built filament for reprap.



Infill Interior Density over Exterior Density

The 'Infill Interior Density over Exterior Density' setting has been removed. It was originally added to prevent the problem of excessive plastic when extruding cones:
http://hydraraptor.blogspot.com/2008/08/bearing-fruit.html

However, it led to the problem of incorrect deposition on some other shapes:
http://hydraraptor.blogspot.com/2010/12/tip-top-top-layer-tip.html

So the 'Infill Interior Density over Exterior Density' setting has been removed along with a different interior density. To prevent the problem of excessive plastic, the infill algorithm now looks around with a double cone at 45 degrees rather than a pillar. There is no setting to control the new algorithm.



Start From Choice

There is now a choice or where to start the layer from in fill. The default is the lower left.

When 'Lower Left' is selected the layer will start from the lower left corner. This is to extrude in round robin fashion so that the first extrusion will be deposited on the coolest part of the last layer. The reason for this is described at:
http://hydraraptor.blogspot.com/2010/12/round-robin.html

When 'Nearest' is selected the layer will start from the nearest point to the end of the last layer. This leads to less stringing, but the first extrusion will be deposited on the hottest part of the last layer which leads to melting problems. So this option is deprecated, eventually this option will be removed and the layers will always start from the lower left.



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