Diary of a Technocratic Anarchist by Forrest Higgs Introduction This document collects the blog posts from 3dreplicators.com and technocraticanarchist.blogspot.com so as to provide easy off-line access and also to preserve an archival copy of the work. Permission to publish and distribute this document was given by Forrest Higgs. The original text and images have been extracted and converted by means of a script. This may have resulted in formatting errors or incorrectly transferred text. Please note that dead links may result in missing images. Comments have not been extracted, these can be found on the original blog site, a link to each blog post is given at the top of each post in this document. Please report any errata to [email protected] Gary Hodgson, 2012 Contents March 2006 8th Design study for the 6.35 mm filament extruder, Forrest Higgs P.1 8th Building the 6.35 mm filament extruder, Forrest Higgs P.7 8th Monday tests on the 6.35 mm filament extruder, Forrest Higgs P.10 8th Tests on the 6.35 mm filament extruder, Forrest Higgs P.11 8th We appear to have another successful filament extruder concept..., Forrest Higgs P.15 8th Wednesday morning tests..., Forrest Higgs P.18 8th A note on polymer fouling of the auger..., Forrest Higgs P.21 8th Closing on producing usuable filament..., Forrest Higgs P.22 8th Post extrusion treatment of filament..., Forrest Higgs P.24 9th Closing on producing usuable filament, Forrest Higgs P.25 9th More post extrusion filament treatment..., Forrest Higgs P.28 11th More on polymer fouling of the auger..., Forrest Higgs P.29 11th Results of a complete breadown of the quarter-inch extruder..., Forrest Higgs P.30 12th Making Version 2, Forrest Higgs P.32 12th First Microchip PIC16F628 programmed..., Forrest Higgs P.34 July 2006 20th A new wrinkle on CAPA filament production..., Forrest Higgs P.35 August 2006 8th Grids rock, Forrest Higgs P.39 12th Diagonal Infilling, Forrest Higgs P.42 13th Rack and Pinion, Forrest Higgs P.44 14th Rethinking everything, Forrest Higgs P.45 September 2006 27th Tommelise takes shape..., Forrest Higgs P.48 28th A bit further..., Forrest Higgs P.51 30th Tommelise sliding thrust collar under construction..., Forrest Higgs P.53 October 2006 1st Sliding thrust collar works!, Forrest Higgs P.55 6th Tommelise x-axis underway..., Forrest Higgs P.56 15th Locking down Tommelise..., Forrest Higgs P.58 20th 12v motors arrive for Tommelise..., Forrest Higgs P.60 November 2006 17th Success!, Forrest Higgs P.61 18th Doing the x-axis, Forrest Higgs P.63 20th Z-axis takes shape, Forrest Higgs P.65 21st Wire gauge drill bits, Forrest Higgs P.67 21st Z-axis positioning stage mounted, Forrest Higgs P.68 21st First open-loop coordinated XY-axes pencil tests, Forrest Higgs P.70 25th Odd bits of know-how picked up along the way, Forrest Higgs P.71 26th Z-axis operational, Forrest Higgs P.73 26th Tommelise xy positioning stage, Forrest Higgs P.74 26th Coordinated xy-axis traverses, Forrest Higgs P.75 December 2006 20th First cross-hatch, Forrest Higgs P.77 24th Z-axis enabled on the controller board..., Forrest Higgs P.78 26th USB for Tommelise, Forrest Higgs P.80 27th More on USB..., Forrest Higgs P.81 29th Schematic for the Controller Electronics for Tommelise (in progress), Forrest Higgs P.82 29th Abusing IC's, Forrest Higgs P.83 29th Z-axis calibrated, Forrest Higgs P.86 29th Speak of the Devil..., Forrest Higgs P.87 31st IR Altimeter installed..., Forrest Higgs P.88 31st Testing the IR Altimeter concept..., Forrest Higgs P.89 January 2007 25th Documenting the basic structure of Tommelise, Forrest Higgs P.90 28th First tries at code transfer, Forrest Higgs P.91 28th Firmware for the Mk 2.1, Forrest Higgs P.92 28th Heated extruder barrel power circuit wired into the board, Forrest Higgs P.93 29th Mk 2.1 controls working on the Tommelise controller board, Forrest Higgs P.94 29th Mk 2.1: Defining the envelope, Forrest Higgs P.95 30th Forensics on Tommelise's polymer pump, Forrest Higgs P.97 30th The Mk 2.1 extruder is operational, Forrest Higgs P.98 30th Bloody HPP and HDPE extruded thread everywhere, Forrest Higgs P.99 31st Tidying up the Mk 2.1 for Tommelise, Forrest Higgs P.100 31st Tommelise rollout, Forrest Higgs P.102 February 2007 3rd Mounting the Mk 2.1, Forrest Higgs P.103 4th Time for a new controller board for Tommelise, Forrest Higgs P.105 4th Building the new Tommelise controller board, Forrest Higgs P.106 23rd Chasing bugs in Slice and Dice, Forrest Higgs P.108 24th Still chasing bugs in Slice and Dice, Forrest Higgs P.110 24th Documenting the Mk 2.1: the polymer pump, Forrest Higgs P.111 25th Mk 2.1 documentation section, Forrest Higgs P.112 25th Printing circuitry in the low-rent district, Forrest Higgs P.113 26th Printing with conventional solder, Forrest Higgs P.116 26th Buggy as a Texas Summer Evening, Forrest Higgs P.117 27th Different eyes, Forrest Higgs P.118 28th Inch by inch, Forrest Higgs P.120 28th Got it finally, Forrest Higgs P.121 March 2007 15th Extruding onto foamcore boards, Forrest Higgs P.122 15th Absolute vs relative measurements, Forrest Higgs P.123 16th Coding absolute positioning, Forrest Higgs P.124 17th May have cracked the problem, Forrest Higgs P.125 17th A testament to Scots-Irishness, Forrest Higgs P.126 18th Trying something different, Forrest Higgs P.127 19th Testing the new idea, Forrest Higgs P.128 22nd Problems with the z-axis shaft encoder, Forrest Higgs P.129 26th Tooling up for eTech, Forrest Higgs P.130 31st ETech 2007, Forrest Higgs P.131 April 2007 21st The world class retard finally "gets it", Forrest Higgs P.133 21st Doing a maintenance breakdown on the Mk 1 AEM extruder, Forrest Higgs P.134 21st More on the Mk 1 AEM extruder, Forrest Higgs P.135 22nd What to do next, Forrest Higgs P.136 22nd Punch list, Forrest Higgs P.137 25th Tweaking the x-axis, Forrest Higgs P.138 26th Serious printing, Forrest Higgs P.139 27th Ready to print, Forrest Higgs P.140 28th Fixing the z-axis encoder, Forrest Higgs P.142 28th Memories of Duco Cement, Forrest Higgs P.143 May 2007 10th New z-axis shaft encoder built and tested, Forrest Higgs P.144 11th Interrupt-driven shaft encoding on all three axes, Forrest Higgs P.145 14th Lost weekend, Forrest Higgs P.146 18th Printing the polymer pump, Forrest Higgs P.147 18th Five layers, Forrest Higgs P.148 19th Dropping foamboard, Forrest Higgs P.149 19th Another support material miracle?, Forrest Higgs P.150 19th Duct tape fails, Forrest Higgs P.152 23rd Blog comments down for a little while..., Forrest Higgs P.153 29th Back to slicing and dicing..., Forrest Higgs P.154 June 2007 22nd Rafts sticking again, Forrest Higgs P.155 22nd Printing HDPE at room temperature, Forrest Higgs P.156 23rd It may be, Forrest Higgs P.157 23rd Z-axis "bug" "fixed", Forrest Higgs P.158 24th Ten layers with no curling, Forrest Higgs P.159 24th Something curious, Forrest Higgs P.161 25th An update on "no curling", Forrest Higgs P.162 25th Twenty layers, Forrest Higgs P.163 27th Making a hole in it, Forrest Higgs P.164 30th Printing the night away, Forrest Higgs P.166 July 2007 10th Printing a polymer pump, Forrest Higgs P.167 10th Definitely a McAllan's 12 year old single malt evening..., Forrest Higgs P.169 10th Installed, Forrest Higgs P.173 12th Moving on, Forrest Higgs P.174 15th Bushing wear on the Mk I AEM, Forrest Higgs P.177 21st Designing the next generation Mk 2 AEM, Forrest Higgs P.178 24th Next Generation?, Forrest Higgs P.179 24th Next Generation?, Forrest Higgs P.180 24th Second pass at the Mk 2 AEM polymer pump, Forrest Higgs P.181 August 2007 2nd Tommelise 2.0, Forrest Higgs P.182 3rd Mocking up the x-axis, Forrest Higgs P.188 4th Buying the bits, Forrest Higgs P.190 5th Trying out gearmotors, Forrest Higgs P.191 6th Virtual Circuitboards, Forrest Higgs P.192 13th Changing directions (again), Forrest Higgs P.194 13th A matter of timing, Forrest Higgs P.195 22nd Modeling firmware behaviour, Forrest Higgs P.196 25th Mime gets a t-shirt, Forrest Higgs P.199 26th Some notes about gearmotor/rotary encoder ensembles, Forrest Higgs P.200 September 2007 3rd Printing very short line segments on Tommelise, Forrest Higgs P.202 9th Four down, four to go, Forrest Higgs P.203 10th All eight done, Forrest Higgs P.204 12th First perimeters traced, Forrest Higgs P.205 14th Refurbishing the Mk 1 Extruder (again), Forrest Higgs P.206 16th Building a "new" heated extruder barrel for the Mk 1, Forrest Higgs P.208 17th Was it Vikodin or was it just being 60?, Forrest Higgs P.213 17th Finishing the extruder barrel, Forrest Higgs P.215 18th Run in, Forrest Higgs P.217 19th Gears are going to be possible, Forrest Higgs P.220 November 2007 11th Thoughts on printing at ambient temperatures, Forrest Higgs P.221 January 2008 26th Saturday morning ironies, Forrest Higgs P.225 29th Getting on with Steppers, Forrest Higgs P.227 29th Wielding or wrecking the soldering iron, Forrest Higgs P.229 31st Getting my ducks in a row, Forrest Higgs P.230 31st Stepper motor arrives, Forrest Higgs P.232 31st Checking out the stepper, Forrest Higgs P.233 February 2008 18th More on skateboard bearings, Forrest Higgs P.234 18th 3D Scanning for stupid people..., Forrest Higgs P.235 19th Bingo! The PC-side Visual Basic 6 problem solved!, Forrest Higgs P.236 20th Good to Go!, Forrest Higgs P.237 21st Extending the USB prototype board, Forrest Higgs P.238 23rd Stepping out with USB, Forrest Higgs P.239 24th To every thing, there is a season..., Forrest Higgs P.241 24th Dyslexia and the MC14069UB chip, Forrest Higgs P.242 25th Preliminary measurements on the Sharp IR distance measurement chip, Forrest Higgs P.244 27th Steppers and couplings, Forrest Higgs P.246 March 2008 7th Tommelise 2.0 goes cross-platform, Forrest Higgs P.248 8th A bit further with USB, Forrest Higgs P.249 9th Edging into full speed USB, Forrest Higgs P.250 10th Digging into the 18F4550, Forrest Higgs P.251 10th A note about the McWire design, Forrest Higgs P.254 10th An interesting thing about USB, Forrest Higgs P.256 16th Buffered USB running, Forrest Higgs P.257 17th Thinking about guide rails..., Forrest Higgs P.259 19th New IR thermometer arrives, Forrest Higgs P.260 27th Buffering USB comms for Tommelise 2.0, Forrest Higgs P.261 April 2008 16th Taming the tin can stepper, Forrest Higgs P.263 17th Building the big board for Tommelise 2.0, Forrest Higgs P.265 17th Revisiting the warped HDPE polymer pump, Forrest Higgs P.266 20th Testing USB on the Big Board for Tommelise 2.0, Forrest Higgs P.268 20th USB comms established on Big Board, Forrest Higgs P.274 21st A note on the MC14069UB hex inverter chip, Forrest Higgs P.276 25th Three pin stepper control, Forrest Higgs P.277 25th Engaging the windmill, Forrest Higgs P.279 26th It's really very simple, Forrest Higgs P.283 28th First tests of the Haydon linear actuator stepper motor, Forrest Higgs P.284 May 2008 4th Nophead spots a major boo boo..., Forrest Higgs P.285 6th Good to go, Forrest Higgs P.287 11th Breaking the PC/Microcontroller comms bottleneck, Forrest Higgs P.288 16th Wiring up the 24FC1025 EEPROM, Forrest Higgs P.292 18th Testing the Haydon 26000 series linear stepper motor, Forrest Higgs P.293 19th Tuning the voltage on the Haydon Series 26000 linear stepper, Forrest Higgs P.295 21st T2 takes shape, Forrest Higgs P.296 22nd Building the y-axis table for T2, Forrest Higgs P.300 24th Running the Tommelise 2.0 y-axis, Forrest Higgs P.302 25th Building and running the T2 x-axis, Forrest Higgs P.304 June 2008 2nd A 512 KByte data buffer for T2, Forrest Higgs P.307 3rd T2 USB transfer speed takes a big jump, Forrest Higgs P.308 4th 512 Kbyte EEPROM buffer operational on T2 big board, Forrest Higgs P.309 7th PIC 18F Instruction Set, Forrest Higgs P.310 9th Talking to the EEPROMs through the USB link, Forrest Higgs P.312 23rd Mapping print data onto the EEPROM buffer bank, Forrest Higgs P.314 25th Measuring extruder temperature using Adrian's circuit, Forrest Higgs P.317 29th Headaches, Forrest Higgs P.320 29th Nophead's recommended extrusion temperatures, Forrest Higgs P.321 30th Dusting off Slice and Dice, Forrest Higgs P.322 July 2008 23rd A bit more about Zach's opto-endstop, Forrest Higgs P.323 24th Tommelise 2.0 x-axis operational, Forrest Higgs P.325 24th Using (or not) telephone coil wire, Forrest Higgs P.327 24th Tommelise 2.0 x and y axes operating in concert, Forrest Higgs P.328 25th Off to the races, Forrest Higgs P.329 27th Stepping with interrupts, Forrest Higgs P.330 27th First steps towards printing a stepper motor, Forrest Higgs P.332 29th A design charette for a printed linear stepper motor, part 1, Forrest Higgs P.337 29th A design charette for a printed linear stepper motor, part 2, Forrest Higgs P.342 31st An affordable alternative to JB-Weld and BBQ paint?, Forrest Higgs P.343 August 2008 14th Z-axis positioning table takes shape, Forrest Higgs P.345 15th Selecting a linear actuator for the T2 z-axis, Forrest Higgs P.348 16th Testing the Tommelise 2.0 z-axis, Forrest Higgs P.351 17th Gantry finished, Forrest Higgs P.352 18th Milling plastic with a Reprap machine?, Forrest Higgs P.357 22nd Changing firmware compilers, Forrest Higgs P.359 24th Changing firmware compilers (part 2), Forrest Higgs P.360 25th Limits to growth, Forrest Higgs P.363 28th Fixing a software problem with hardware, Forrest Higgs P.364 29th Tooling up to mill plastic with Tommelise, Forrest Higgs P.366 September 2008 1st Milling Stuff, Forrest Higgs P.369 14th Shifting gears, Forrest Higgs P.374 14th 18 teeth - living and learning, Forrest Higgs P.380 21st Milling around objects, Forrest Higgs P.382 24th First try at cutting steel, Forrest Higgs P.387 29th Meshlab, Forrest Higgs P.390 29th Second try at cutting steel, Forrest Higgs P.394 October 2008 2nd Tommelise 2.0 goes into production, Forrest Higgs P.396 6th Notes on the Sarrus linkage, Forrest Higgs P.398 9th Notes on the operation of T2, Forrest Higgs P.400 12th A new use for J-B Weld..., Forrest Higgs P.402 14th J'en ai marre!, Forrest Higgs P.405 17th Sort of like designing with 2D strip board, Forrest Higgs P.411 17th Some good advice about milling PCBs from Fred, Forrest Higgs P.415 21st Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life - Oscar Wilde, Forrest Higgs P.416 22nd PCB supplies arrive, Forrest Higgs P.421 28th Generating PCB milling toolpaths for Tommelise 2.0, Forrest Higgs P.423 November 2008 2nd A tale of two rulers, Forrest Higgs P.424 24th Chemically grinding ABS scrap, Forrest Higgs P.430 27th Heating the print surface: doing the numbers, Forrest Higgs P.434 30th Another approach to heating the print surface, Forrest Higgs P.439 December 2008 5th Building a printable stepper for a next generation Tommelise, Forrest Higgs P.442 11th Chemically grinding ABS scrap: part 2, Forrest Higgs P.448 13th Upgrading T2's z-axis, Forrest Higgs P.450 14th Tommelise 2.0 operational again, Forrest Higgs P.455 17th Developing HDPE milling know-how on Tommelise 2.0, Forrest Higgs P.457 January 2009 8th Making a thrust collar in Art of Illusion, Forrest Higgs P.461 15th Non nobis Domine, Forrest Higgs P.462 15th And then there were two, Forrest Higgs P.467 16th After Darwin: Should Mendel be a specific 3D printer or a technology toolbox?, Forrest HigPg.s469 17th Anti-backlash nut, Forrest Higgs P.477 20th Going high risk steampunk, Forrest Higgs P.479 27th Conserving MCU pins via the I2C bus, Forrest Higgs P.482 February 2009 4th Pushing the limits, Forrest Higgs P.486 6th Milling the starfish, Forrest Higgs P.490 6th AoI gets extra innings, Forrest Higgs P.494 10th More steam punk, Forrest Higgs P.495 10th A note about milling polypropylene, Forrest Higgs P.500 10th First thrust plate for a printable stepper motor milled, Forrest Higgs P.501 11th A much simpler approach to the backlash problem, Forrest Higgs P.503 15th Picking up speed, Forrest Higgs P.505 18th IR Ranging, Forrest Higgs P.507 22nd Racks and pinions, Forrest Higgs P.510 March 2009 2nd For now we see through a glass, darkly..., Forrest Higgs P.513 5th Vitamins and minerals, Forrest Higgs P.519 7th Powering the tin can stepper lead screw, Forrest Higgs P.524 9th A small milestone, Forrest Higgs P.527 9th Abandoning the conventional approach, Forrest Higgs P.529 14th Direct drive turns out to be the best, Forrest Higgs P.531 20th Having another go at milling polypropylene, Forrest Higgs P.532 April 2009 12th Getting a handle on milling accuracy, Forrest Higgs P.535 30th A different approach to extrusion, Forrest Higgs P.539 30th Milling polypropylene, Forrest Higgs P.542 May 2009 3rd Documenting the Mk I Nutjob, Forrest Higgs P.544 3rd Stovetop recycling of HDPE swarf, Forrest Higgs P.552 5th Taking the Gm-17 out of Nophead's GM-17/tin can stepper hack, Forrest Higgs P.555 8th Doh!, Forrest Higgs P.557 9th More thinking about Nutjob, Forrest Higgs P.558 15th Some notes on the way to an easy-to-make pinchwheel extruder, Forrest Higgs P.559 17th A new controller board sooner than I'd thought..., Forrest Higgs P.565 26th I2C-based Reprap control, Forrest Higgs P.566 June 2009 6th Tommelise 3.0 I2C board finally built, Forrest Higgs P.578 November 2009 15th More printing large objects with HDPE, Forrest Higgs P.580 15th Bogdan's acid test, Forrest Higgs P.582 16th Making spares for Rapman, Forrest Higgs P.590 16th Exploring support material in Skeinforge, Forrest Higgs P.594 29th Slicing and dicing with image processing, Forrest Higgs P.599 29th Patching slices and building rafts, Forrest Higgs P.605 30th First Rapman raft with Slice and Dice, Forrest Higgs P.611 December 2009 5th Can we print belts?, Forrest Higgs P.612 5th Killing flocks of birds with one stone, Forrest Higgs P.615 7th Printing the big bits of Mendel, Forrest Higgs P.619 8th Got it!, Forrest Higgs P.624 9th z-leadscrew-base-bar-clamp_2off, Forrest Higgs P.627