Equipment/Stratasys FDM 1650

Background

http://groups.google.com/group/london-hack-space/browse_thread/thread/a4088a8560511d67

Information

UK reseller is http://www.laserlines.co.uk/. This one may have come direct from Stratasys, though.

• Extensive blog on the 1650 and 2000
  • Manuals for an FDM 2000 (includes description of Quickslice 5.0 - 1997):
    • Applications
    • Utilities
    • Manual
    • Procedures
  • Page referencing these and C:\QuickSliceV64-qsni
  • Calibration file
  • Webcams
• Another 1650 owner
• Repairing an FDM 2000

• Insight User guide (2005)

• Stratasys product page (1999)
• Philadelphia hackspace with an FDM 2000

Training

• A course on this machine
  • homepage
  • operating directions
  • tips for Quickslice
  • environment variables for Quickslice 6.4
  • nice presentation on the machine

Modification

• Lengthy description of the print process (for automation)
• Modification for makerbot-style self-supporting objects
• Using makerbot parts

Software

Quickslice known versions are 5.0, 6.0, 6.1, 6.2, 6.4 Insight known version are 3.4.1, 4.2, 6.0, 7.0. Only 4.2 and below works with the 1650[1].

Answers from Stratasys to emails:

We stop supporting this system a couple years ago, so getting the software for this system is not possible because it cannot be purchased and is only available through a maintenance contract. We are not aware of any third party or open source application that would work on this system.

Quickslice might be archived somewhere, however, we have to adhere to company policy.

Reverse engineering

• Description of SML as ACL (Asymtek)
• Description of ACL
• Blog post about reverse engineering a tiny bit of the SML file
• 3d4u's notes
• Some guys at UTexas managed to cope with it
• Some guys at UChicago did too

TODO

• Open her up, document the position of the switches on the back of the automove unit.
• Determine serial parameters from the dip switches, see page 9 of the automove operation manual.
• Possibly document connections from the automove unit -- at some point, we're going to need to figure out how to drive the heaters/extruder from the automove. Might as well do as much as possible now, while it's open anyway.

 * Is anything connected to the 38v coil drivers, the DE-9?
 * What is connected to the digital I/O connector, the 36-pin female "printer" port?

• Power up normally. Are there any bad-looking lights on the front panel? If so, something is stuck.
• Power up with left and right buttons pressed, should start self-test run. It will loop, power-off or hit reset to stop it.
• Connect the serial port up. Document how to reach it on this wiki page.
• Using the acl docs, find the current values of the personality parameters, document them here. This will hopefully keep us from loosing them by accident later, and tell us a bit about how the machine is set up. You'll want the OP command, page 3-50, and the list of personality parameters, page 14-1.
• ???
• Profit