So after moving house and becoming a father for the second time, I'm just about getting the DIY out of the way and have started to build another Reprap. Having burnt out the control board on my Huxley, all part of the early adopter learning curve, I bought a kit to build a Foldarap. As you may have guessed, its a Reprap that you can fold up. This was the moment I opened the box:

Designed by Emmanuel Gilloz (#Foldarap, openedge.eu) and shipped in from France, the kit reeks of aesthetic consideration. Colour coded RP parts and everything screwing easily onto the aluminium frame makes the construction of the mechanical parts a pleasure. The record for putting one together with friends is 4 hours would you believe :O

I do very much like the idea of cycling from client to client along the winding lanes in France, or here in Berlin, carrycase in hand printing something special for someone not too far away, then folding together again, off to the next damsel in distress in need of a plastic part. Maybe my Foldarap has turned me into too much of a romantic, maybe I was too much of a romantic all along.

Grab those tools and start making something or I'll shoot!

Moving into a new house of course means finding a new corner to tinker in and here's what it looks like now that I've "pimped" my space!









Its really theraputic and soul enriching putting together something like this, and setting up has none of the frustration that fiddly electronics has. All that goes through your head is the romance and the sugarcoated glowing vision of how productive you're gonna be. Oh joy!

Now for the actual work to start. And this time it's serious, my contract ran out at work and in effect I'm now a full time maker. Gulp, here goes nothing!

 

Unpacked and unassembled

 Here are all the reprapped parts, they look quite good huh? The orange is Y-axis, blue Z-axis and extruder, grey X-axis, couldn't be simpler...or could it?