I see I didn't add any of the pictures of what I had been doing except the movie of the rope....that didn't work out. After just a few minuets of moving back and forth the rope was already wearing and stretching. Not likely to work for very long. Ordered some timing belts. Now to try to make some gears.

wooden repstrap

The current work is drawn in a lot of detail using Google's Sketchup 7. Here's a link to the latest drawing.

Click the picture to go to my Picasa web album. The triangle shape of the mendel was dropped because the width of the skate x-axis limited the amount of vertical movement on the z-axis. The box shape gives plenty of room for the x-axis. I only used one 8 foot 1x6 for the box.

reprap

This album has some earlier pictures where I was building the triangle box. It was cute. Just limited the height available.

From reprap

The latest picture is of the Box mendel wannabe. No name yet. I just have it posed there. The motors are hooked up but the controllers aren't yet. Still have to work on the top where the z-axis is just clamped and held up with some scrap wood.

From wooden repstrap

I first draw what I plan to do using Google's Sketchup 7. The current drawing is very detailed. If you have sketchup you can download the latest drawing.

wooden repstrap

I have accomplished more the last couple of weeks than I have accomplished in the three years that I have been "playing" at making a repstrap.

What's a repstrap. Go look at http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page and you'll know what a reprap is. A repstrap is a way to make a bootstrap of a reprap. Had made something that can then make the parts for a reprap.

Here's a video of what I've been working on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5N5D4YhE_Q
and here I hooked up a rope drive to it.

It's been going through several renditions and has been taking on some complications to get rid of wobble on the z-axis. Have made changes to the y-axis too. It now uses skates as show in the video. The green plastic that I thought would be slick enough to not use bearings wasn't. Went with skates that I first saw here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-CNC-Router-from-Scratch-Part-1%3a-Complete/

Mainly because I already had six of them built from attempting to make one of Daniel's cnc's. Too slow using 1/4-20 threaded rod. Same problem I have with the McWire here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-to-Build-Desk-Top-3-Axis-CNC-Milling-Machine/

I have a very detailed drawing done in Sketchup here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4861696/Wood-repstrap.skp

As you can see, I've been working hard. The next weeks are going to be interesting.