The 3-D printer

I am trying to replace and repair all my existing equipment that is either damaged or worn out. My plotter has been realigned so it should now cut evenly along the role of vinyl, Remap also tightened the stand and put new places on the plotter so that I could take it off the stand easily if needed. I also made a new part so that the blade could be held more securely than the original plastic part which cracked with use.

I am developing a faster more industrial way of putting the models together, I got in touch with a Basingstoke company called solvd which develop software. I gave them a basic brief which explains the issues that I have with the program that I'm using, and they on my behalf got in touch with Boxford the makers of RapidPRO. Boxford replied with an e-mail saying due to a similar program on the market made by schroff Development Corporation called JP System5 it could infringe a copyright issue by changing rapid pro to do things that I want and perhaps I should try the system 5 program. I got in touch with schroff who said that they do not offer the JP System5 program any more but they would be happy to e-mail me a link so that I can try the program out to see if it does what I want. After trying the program and eventually getting it to work it does indeed do some of the things that I would like however it does not create an output file so the standard plotting machine would not be able to use it. The way that you build with the program is also incredibly clumsy and more time-consuming than is practical.

So I have decided to stick with RapidPRO and have thought on a workaround to the output files that the program produces. It should be easy to arrange the segments into the order that I need now I have found a way of saving the .rpp files that rapid pro produce into a standard .EMF file type. I have achieved this by adapting an open source virtual printer called EmfPrinter! The ordering of the segments should be easy enough with another open source program called Inkscape, and because I am only plotting a output file it would not infringe any copyright on the RapidPRO program.

In order to get this done I will take my old computer to solvd it has Windows XP and everything at the moment is set up on that operating system. solvd should then be able to generate a quote on how much the programming will cost and more importantly how I am going to pay for the work that needs doing.

When I was in Cornwall I also got in touch with a model making factory called Design Clinic as I have only spoken to them over the phone and they are interested in a cheap 3-D printer and straightforward way of generating models. It will be important to invite model makers into the process because at the moment I do not have any facilities to generate models from different materials and I want the printer to be able to generate models from as many substances as possible.

Me doing research in Cornwall
Good job I got this hot pasty in before the government taxes it!