As you probably don’t know, I wear glasses. Well I was wearing them until I lost them somewhere :-D It’s not a big deal, I have only -0.75 on left eye, but it sucks to watch blurred movies in the cinema, or see all the beautiful girls here in Prague with less detail.
Fortunately I have a 3D printer and I like to tinker, these two things together gave birth to this little project. Printed wearable glasses. The main goal was not to look like a dork wearing them, in which I think I succeeded although I look a bit like a hipster now :-D
Obviously the lenses are not printed, RepRap isn’t quite that far yet. So I went downtown to get some lenses. It turned out to be bit awkward, since at the shop, they usually cut your lenses to frames you buy. I didn’t want to buy the frames but I needed the lenses cut (default state is about 5cm big disc). So I picked the frames I liked at shop, let them cut lenses to them and only bought the lenses. When they asked why I need them, I replied I will make the frames myself. They told me that I’m crazy :-D I proved them wrong at the end and it was fun!
First step I did when I got back home was to scan the lenses, since it will make drawing them in CAD easier. Then I found some suitable frames on the internet, again took a picture, and redrew it in CAD. Easy peasy huh? :-) Next time Ill do it generate the frames automatically but this time it was more proof of concept. Long story short, I printed them and it worked! Lenses are in a small cavity secured by melted plastic (I used a soldering iron).
Obviously I had to go to shop and boast with the glasses. They were impressed, since it took me about 20hrs to create completely new frames! Also when they asked on which machine I made them. They were amazed, since you can get my redesign of RepRap for about $500 http://tinyurl.com/mendel-price They had far more expensive frames in the shop :-D
Price to make the frames was under 1$ in material, obviously I don't count my time, which is free for me. Lenses cost like $60.
Source files are GPLed and on Thingiverse http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5544
(RepRap – Replicating Rapid Prototyper is open source 3D printer. It can recreate your imaginations out of plastic. I’m Josef Pruse one of core developers of project.)
You can check out the project at http://reprap.org and don't forget to look at my version http://reprap.org/wiki/Prusa
Sometimes you cant home automatically. You might have non standard printer or you are using FW which doesn't support it.
Anyway, its pretty easy and straight forward. Theory: You send the gcode to go beyond axis limits, printer will hit endstop and you can assume its the MIN. There are some tricks like initial run goes faster and then you return back a bit and go again way slower for more precise homing. You should add this g-code to your start.gcode G92 X0 Y0 Z0
It's been long time since I recorded set. Anyway, here we go.
awsm by prusajr Jo
Really Really quick! I hacked Skeinforge to generate perimeter at thinner layers!! But infill can be printed less detailed faster!!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8967423/37_reprap_python_beanshell.zip Few hints: Set carve at 0.2mm layers if infill should be 0.4. Counted line width has to be same as for 0.4 so set Width over thickness variable accordingly to it (just mutliply by two) and set perimeter flow rate to half. That should be good starting point!! Happy holidays!! Jo
Guys got the awesome idea to make holiday Prusa Mendel contest.
For the winner:
So I think I can say that linear bushings provide still same quality as on begining :-) Even that they are bit wore out.
And the bearings replacments dont do anything to quality to. Pretty darn good.
10x10cm, black ABS
