Taking time

Well since I'm back to more work at work, there's mainly just time at home now devoted to working on the RepRap. I've been looking for sources for the electronics.. I know that shouldn't be my top priority, but I've still been looking.

Got the extruder nozzle in today, took a couple pictures of it since there weren't any good ones at the time.



Since MakerBot has stopped carrying the v2.3 of the stepper motor controllers in favor of most likely moving to the v3.0 soon, I might be looking for an alternative stepper controller if I'm not able to procure some from the one lead I mentioned earlier.

The controller that's been mentioned and that I'm looking at is this one: A4983 Stepper Motor Driver Carrier with Voltage Regulators
It's been proven to work by some of the big names on the forums, so I think I could get it to work as well.

The next bit I'm going to start working on is the hardware bits and pieces. I need to locate somewhere like Fastenal that has a lot of the nuts/bolts/screws/washers/etc that I'm going to need for this thing. Getting all of those will help position me better for when the other goods come.

I've also been looking at some software casually, and while I haven't played with any of it yet, the stuff that's in use looks pretty darn interesting. I'm also looking into perhaps designing my own extruder.. I've got this idea for a gear reduction without using worm drive, so potentially less play in the gearing. My main thing is how to grip the plastic reliably, but i've been thinking up some ideas there as well. The whole extruder also needs to have parts bought for it, like the nichrome wire and motors I'm going to use.

I'll keep pounding away on this.