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Welcome to The Phlatforum PhlatPrinter III

Questions to get started

Discussion in 'Trouble Shooting - Support - Help Section' started by MartinT, Jan 31, 2009.

  1. MartinT

    MartinT Member

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    Hi all,

    Let me start off by complimenting the designers of the PHlatprinter! What an awesome achievement.
    I am serously interested in gettting one, and willing to invest my 600 dollars, but I am intimidated by investing another 175 bucks for the Mach3 software. Are there any other cheaper ways?
    And secondly, I will not be spending much time (read:none at all ;-) in designing my own RCplanes, there are many out there who do a superb job at that, so my question is: When I buy a set of plans, the plan is in .pdf format (and tiled). So now how do I get the parts cut? Is there an automatic conversion tool to convert it to a CNC file (a DXF I guess). And since the plan is tiled it is optimized to use as little paper as possible but it most likely it is then not optimized to fit the constraints of the size of the foamsheet to be cut...?

    Once again, hats off to you!

    Anyway, thanks for your time!

    Martin
     
    MartinT, Jan 31, 2009
    #1
  2. rcav8r

    rcav8r Moderator Staff Member

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    Yea, the PhlatPrinter is a great design.. So simple, yet so effective.

    Check out EMC as an open source (read Free) alternative to Mach3. Easiest Linux install I ever had. http://linuxcnc.org/

    I wish it was easy as taking a PDF and turning it into a file to load to the PhlatPrinter... maybe some time, but not now.

    If you haven't download sketchup ( http://sketchup.google.com/ ) and do a quick search on YouTube for learning Sketchup. Try the keywords sketchup foamie

    Once you have a Sketchup drawing of your plane, you will need to lay out the parts, so you can run the PhlatScript against them to assign outside/inside cuts, tabbing, etc and finally generate your code to make the cuts (G-Code)

    Once you get a work flow going, it really isn't hard.

    That should get you started until others chime in .
     
    rcav8r, Jan 31, 2009
    #2
  3. kyyu

    kyyu Active Member

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    There is a thread on this forum on EMC:
    viewtopic.php?f=10&t=24
    It's not as complicated, an install as he makes it. That's because he install the linux ubuntu os first and then EMC later. You can even run into trouble that way, with EMC not running. Happened to me. What I would do is just downoad and burn the 'live cd' from the EMC website. It boots and runs the os & EMC right off the cd. You can preview it without installing. Then if you want to install it, just click that install button on the desktop. I will even guide you to automatically, do a dual boot install, if you are already running another os. But I wouldn't do any of this on your main pc, just to be safe. Once you get it installed, if you want to see the software simulate a job, you have to pick one of the simulated machines in the setup. It has a really nice graphical display of the cut, I think much better than mach 3. Otherwise, you won't see anything happening because the software doesn't detect your controller card connected. Here is a video of someone running a PP with EMC:
    http://www.strimoo.com/video/12400628/P ... Vimeo.html

    You really want the non-tile version of the pdf plans. There are free programs to convert pdf to dxf, for import into sketchup.
     
    kyyu, Jan 31, 2009
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  4. MartinT

    MartinT Member

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    Thanks for your inputs guys!

    Lucky I did not make a descision yet, since I just saw the vids of the new Mark II printer.
    It looks like the thing has evolved to a whole new level of professionalism!

    Later,
    Martin
     
    MartinT, Feb 26, 2009
    #4

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