5.12.2010

3d printer stepper motor extruder

I am sure we will make this a more complete post some time in the future but for now here is a short version of the rabbit hole.

We built the Megarep to use stepper motor extruders. We figured by the time we were done building it eveyone would have it in their software.  This has not been the case, after working for a week trying to rework the the design to use a DC motor and finding that controlling the power was going to be an issue, it was time to start making the stepper motors work again. So here are the choices Comparison of RepRap software tool chains.

We began this project by using the makerbot boards with makerbot software path.  (makerbot firmware, replicatorg, SkeinForge compiler). This software is almost ready to support stepper motor extruder drivers, hopefully it will show up in version 2.1 of the makerbot firmware.

Our next choice was to upgrade the firmware to 5d and follow the reprap host software path. This also had it's trials.  More to come later but the bottom line is that tis was a very complex tool chain and just left us bewildered for a week.

Our current choice thanks to Matt at metrixcreatespace.com is starting to look promising. We are using 5d firmware with RepSnapper Driver software, and RepSnapper compilers. This tool chain has it's issues as well and is said to be a little unstable but we now have a system that can drive the stepper motor extruder for the Megarep. 


This has been a month long process to make the stepper motor extruder work. It would have taken even more time if we had not had the expert help from Matt. hopefully the next post you see will be the first 3d object from the Megarep. By the way it will be the traditional shot glass. :)