Rapid prototyping of rapid prototyping machines

Rapid prototyping tools empower individuals to create almost anything. Unfortunately, these tools are still far too expensive for personal ownership. The do-it-yourself community has responded with a slew of home-made rapid prototyping machines, but development times are slow because of the complexity of the necessary control system and the need to design the mechanical elements from scratch. This thesis seeks to address both of these issues. A control system is developed which treats the machine as a distributed Internet Zero network controlled by a software virtual machine with the benefits of simplified configuration and greater flexibility. A low cost circuit board milling machine, built as the test bed for this distributed controller, is described in detail. Finally, a parametrically designed XY table is introduced as a prototype for a universal machine axis and a first step towards the creation of reusable machine designs. These contributions will hopefully aid in accelerating the development of new rapid prototyping machines.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Moyer, Ilan Ellison

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Neil A. Gershenfeld.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/45321

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/45321