Well another week and we’re one step closer to getting our 3D printer up and running.

Last week the RAMPS (RepRap Arduino Mega Pololu Shield) 1.3 kit arrived and I was really keen to get the 3D printer up and running as soon as possible. So Saturday morning I took it upon myself to get started on the assembly. Everything was going well until I soldered something in the wrong place. It wasn’t until I cross reference with a photo that I realised my mistake. A bit disheartened, I downed tools and decided to call it a day. Still, it was good progress.

Tonight Si helped me undo that mistake. With a bit of flux and skill I was soon re-armed with a hot soldering iron and a reel of solder. Despite difficulties with the instructions from the RepRap wiki (which are inaccurate and unreachable again), completing the rest of the soldering was fairly straightforward, especially with Si in close proximity.

Tom came down with the new chassis/case which had been machined only minutes before using an industrial scale CNC wood router and got to work assembling it, however due to lack of an 8mm drill bit wasn’t able to finish it so got stuck in with something else. Don’t worry, I’ll bring the drill bit down next week.

Instead Tom decided to recruit Steve and DanR for the Arduino software. Unfortunately we ran out of time to get the software sorted, but we’re not far off now before it all comes together. Fingers crossed for next week. Time to start learning how to use SketchUp. What are you going to print?

In the midst of all of this, our two youngest members were getting stuck in with a soldering iron and their Maplin electronics kits and before the night was over we had a robot dancing around the hackspace floor.

See you next week!