Diary of a Technocratic Anarchist

925 Pages·2012·25.4 MB·English

by  Forrest Higgs

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