From: martin koch (mkoch@calpoly.edu)
Date: Wed Jun 26 2002 - 00:01:48 EEST
Wow Elaine, you do go back along way if you remember the competition
Phil Dickens and I had with each other to produce a hot melt based RP
systems!
Phil's was based upon a CNC mill with a system to push a large glue
stick into a glue gun mounted on the mill head. Mine was a batch melt
system based upon a small xyz controller with a batch melt system that
consisted of basically:
- a pipe section with replaceable nozzles (needle mounts from the
local Ag. supply house) with an air nipple on the top
- the melt chamber set into a Buehller metallurgical heater an old one
"borrowed" from the back cupboard of the Materials department
- a single valve air system that extruded the glue under about 4 psi.
We programmed it via our standard Autocad to an HPGL plot file that we
converted with a simple Basic program to Gcodes although we have used
one of the simple CAD programs that you buy at Office Depot off the
candy bar and knickknack rack for $30.
We are currently (oddly enough) making a few of the systems for use in
investment and precision sand casting.
Additionally, what we have the metal casting student do is machine foam
plate and assemble patterns for Lost Foam casting. Sort of like the old
SPARX system out of Sweden.
Our goal, this next year, is to develop a little table top mill for foam
cutting and also hot glue RPing that we would have high school teachers
build during seminars on campus for them to take back to their classes.
We would have them build the circuit boards, machine the frames, learn
alittle about the programming, etc.
Anyways, have fun
martin
ehunt@ces.clemson.edu wrote:
>
> where is the vision? innovation? promotion?
>
> Get rid of the idea that younger generations will not invent things we
> are yet to think of..........
>
> I am not pushing the development of a commercial system but the need
> to get design, prototyping, and imagination into the class room while
> RP vendors are focusing on your pocket book....
>
> Yes Pete Sferro did refire my dream of a 2k system and helped me
> realize that a commercial system does not have to exist as long as the
> attempt to make such a machine educates students. John Miller, while a
> RPA board member, did RP in a Box but his plan did not call for the
> use of a RP system. While Pete and John both realized the importance
> of RP, I, along with others, am calling for a competition to make
> prototyping part of the educational process.
>
> If you look at the numbers of commercial RP installation at
> educational institutions (over 350 worldwide) you will find that they
> are used for education less than 15% of the time. That is sad......
> and the bottom line is that if a system is purchased it has to be
> maintained and therefore education comes in last behind research and
> SB work. Of course I'll be flamed for saying research is not
> education. It is education but limited to a select few which again is
> sad...
>
> As long as students can design a part in CAD I don't care if second
> graders use bread, peanut butter and jelly to build a better
> sandwich....... as long as the machine does it without hand labor from
> a CAD file....... I would think that other grade levels would be more
> inventive..Martin Koch demonstrated RP with a glue gun before getting
> a commercial system so this event should be a piece of cake for him.
>
> Tim is correct that now is the time to push the technology up through
> our educational institutions and make RP fit into the education box.
>
> Elaine
>
> "In war (or business), attempts thought to be impossible do often for
> that very reason become possible and practical, because nobody expects
> them and no precautions are taken to guard against them." Benjamin
> Franklin
>
> Elaine Hunt, Director
> Laboratory to Advance Industrial Prototyping
> 100 Fluor Daniel Building
> Clemson University
> Clemson, SC 29634
> 864-656-0321
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://rapid.lpt.fi/rp-ml/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Tue Jan 21 2003 - 20:13:56 EET