STAN-ALONE MODE OPERATION.
In a stand-alone mode the indexer can operate independent of the host computer. Once downloaded to the non-volatile memory, motion programs can be initiated from various types of operator interfaces, such as a keypad or touchscreen, or from a switch through the auxiliary I/O inputs.

STEP AND DIRECTION

These step motor drives accept step pulses and direction/enable signals from a controller, such as a PLC or PC. Each step pulse causes the motor to rotate a precise angle, with the frequency of the pulses determining the speed of rotation. The direction signal determines the direction of rotation (CW or CCW), while the enable signal turns the motor on or off.

Note:
For those who aint familiar with a 3D house printer. Just take a peep at the video clip below, of a 3D house printer building a house.
Www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_LLSsNnHn8&itct=CCYQpDAYCCITCMrGn-2avMQCFRNEfgodeDkA2lIiQ291bnRvdXIgY3JhZnRpbmcgM2QgaG91c2UgcHJpbnRlcg%3D%3D&hl=pt&gl=NG&client=mv-google

Nice work man, But I was thinking it would be nice to get a diagramatic illustration..

sunnico:
Nice work man, But I was thinking it would be nice to get a diagramatic illustration..

Offcourse, there would be a diagramatic illustration..

Explaining the building process.

Lets take a look at the diagram below. It is the wall of a building, undergoing construction. The german floor is the slab underneath the blocks. Take note of the way the blocks are placed.
To have a machine that can be coded to build a wall, just like the wall in the above pix. And have it do it just exactly the same way the blocks are placed and the concrete holds them. The machine should be able to do the things i am going to explain and illustrate with some diagrams below.

I have made the diagram in a graphsheet that is calibrated with vertical and horizontal lines, so i can representing each ten lines as 50cm for illustrative purposes.

please continue

Now, to start the operation, the machine will begin at the pre default position. The pre default position is the position the header of the machine is brought to, at the beginning of a building. This position can be anywhere you choose to begin the building, as the instructor of the programme..
In the picture below, i am showing where the header will begin. This position is assumed to be my predefault position.

Now on to the programme.
..
This programme will take simple commands and convert it into codes that the arduino will understand, so it will be easier for me to tell the machine how to build the walls.
The programe will have a series of commands that can be called up.
The command below will be the first command i shall be starting with. Note: some of this commands have bracketed letters. The bracketed letters there mean that anything inside the brackets are variables. It means you will have to provide the information for the arduino to execute that command.

Command number one.
(1) Squirt cement @ length (50cm).
If i write only this command on the programe and click an option called 'convert'. The programme will convert the command into codes that are valid for an arduino. When these codes are uploaded into the arduino and a button pressed, the machine would squirt concrete on the floor at a length of 50cm. Just like the pix below. Note that: the bracked letters are the variables.

The next command:
(2) cut block @ (50)cm
This command will cut the block at a length of 50cm.
Next command.
(3) Drop block.
This command will make an arm to grip the block inside the header, shoving it downward to come to rest on top of the smeared concrete. At the sides of the grips are two pumps,A and B. By the sides of both pumps are four rectangular plates called R plate. Two for each pump . Whenever any of these pumps are turned on, it is this plates that stops the concrete from running out of a gap.
The pix below shows the machine droping a block.

Next command:
(4) Withdraw headear.
This command will withdraw the arm. The pix below illustrate that.

Next command:
(5) Move x axis (+) @ (60)cm.
This command will shift the header 60cm in the x axis. In the pix below, the header has shifted to the right, at a length of 60cm. Since the length of the previous block is 50cm, there will be a gap of 10cm.

Next command:
(6) Squirt cement @ length (100cm)
No need to explain what this command will do.
The pix below shows the smeared concrete, covering a length of 100cm.

Next command:
(7) Drop a block.
The pix below shows that.

Next command:
{8}Activate pump B.
This command will cause pump B to pump ont concrete so as to fille the gap. The gap is importatnt because it is the place where the concrete holds the two blocks toger.
The pix below shows the left pump B on, and the right pump A off.

The next command would be to withdraw, and so on and so on.

With 3D house printer in mind. I've taken my time to study bricklayers while they are on the job. I got to note the time it takes to lay a single block using concrete. The result seems to vary from individual to individual. I've measured anywhere from 4 minutes, 3 minutes to 2 minutes for a single block layed. And i consider this a huge waste of time considering ...
the amount of blocks needed to build a house.
What i am trying to convey here, is a way to reduce the time it takes to lay each block to a time frame of 6 or 7 seconds per block.
The relatively long time it takes to erect a building by manual labour is evident enough to indicate a huge waste in time.
The 3D machine would be a cool solution to that. Lets take an example where 500 blocks was to be layed a manual labour, at the rate of 3 minutes per block. Then it would take 25 hours to do just that.
With my 3D house printer, laying each block at the rate of 6 seconds per block, it would take just 25 minutes to lay 500 blocks with concrete. Nice time recovered.
The market opportunity for this project is so large, because houses are continually bein built all the time, irrespective of the location. The project touches almost every life that wants to build a house.
With the rates estates and houses are springing up here and there. When we're fully into the market, the demand will be so high that even with a hundred 3D machines at our disposals, there would still be alot of clients on the waiting list.
The current market cannot be described as stagnant, neither can it be described as dwindling. Building takes place every day, every hour, every minutes, probably all the time. We can capture a gread deal of the market with the reduced time frame of building a house and the reduced price as a dangling bait. The only barrier to that, is gaining access to the capital that will move this project off the blueprint stage and into a working prototype.
The only competitors in the market is the Southern Californian Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis, whose 3D machine is undergoing laboratory test, and the Chinese firm Winson that went commercial with there 3d house printer in 2014.
These aforementioned printers share one thing in common; they use fast drying concretes and dont use pre made blocks to print a house.. Some houses are cast as a single piece while some are built by laying blocks and using concrete to hold them..
There might arise the need to print a house using blocks and non fast-driying concrete. This is where Professor Behrokh and Winsun's machine would fail to deliver. And this is where where my 3D printer would come handy.
You dont gain everyones trust when you tell them that you are going to print a house for them, when they know you will be using fast drying concret's, and a contour crafting technology, because it's in its infancy. But you can some reasonable amount of trust when you tell them that you are going to print a house for them, and they happen to know that you will be using the the conventional and traditionaly tried and tested method; by using concrete to lay blocks one after the other.
In my humble opinion, i think these factors would allow us to gain sustain and grow in the market.
The ability of the 3D printer to grip blocks, cut them if necessary and place them in the desired position, would be what makes this machine unique compared to its competitors.
The product can be mass produce if deemed so, and sold to the public. Or it can be leased out to other construction companies and real estate developers.

In this project, i am estimating roughly 1 million naira to be the cost of building it up to a full working prototype.
Here's the breakdown of the amounts and the materials that will be purchase:
350,000naira would be used to acquire 18pcs of small, medium and large stepper motors, 18pcs of stepper drivers, 6pcs of microcontrollers..
100,000naira would be used to buy an oxacetylene welder and a Tig welder machines.
50,000naira would be used to acquire a laptop for programing the machine.
Then 400,000naira would be use to buy the iron steels, e.g steel rails, steel girders, steel pipes of various sizes.
Then 100,000naira would be used for miscallaneous.

Wow, boss, i dont know what to say. Keep it up

There has been talks concerning the time frame that would be spent in building the first 3D house printer prototype.
The drift is; the nine months i stipulated to be the time that would take to build the 3D printer might be seen as too long a time. This is because in every first prototype of a specific model of 3D printers, they will pass a rigorous scrutiny of numerous calibrations, because they are going to be the yard stick for subsequent mass production of the model.
So after this first prototype is built, it will only take two and half months to build one, if i were to be working with one assistant.
If i were to be working with two assistants, it will only take one and half months to build one 3D house printer.
Hope you now get the drift?

50% of the 3D house printer would consist of a truss.
The picture below is a diagram of a truss.

But in my design, the whole lenghth of the top of the gantry would be a truss, and this truss is going to be extremely long.

The pix below is just what my 3D printer will be like. On one side of the beams would sit the feed systems. But i didn't show them in the drawing below, for explanatory purpose but i shall later.

Dekatron:
Nice concept pakingzzz. But i have few questions: have you made a more simpler printer? The theory may/might seem easy, but such project has a small/little probability of succeeding at first instance/build .

2. Since i knew arduino, it us used by hobbyists/engineers for smaller/less complex project. WHAT ARDUINO IS BIG/STRONG ENOUGH FOR THIS?? CAN YOU KINDLY GIVE US LINKS/VIDEOS/SPECS/IMAGE.


Since i knew you, this is the ONLY project i see that seems great, not some CHILDISH R.C that millions of 16 year olds build. No insults o.

Thanks.

Cc: baba11,princejude,gaussian .


Make i call them

i'm 16. . . But you said no insults, so.


When i heard 3D printer, i thought he was talking about a layer manufacture machine. This project is more of a building machine. Hydraulics for movement. Also, what about multistorey buildings? Anyway, reading. . .

Teempakguy:
This project is more of a building machine. Hydraulics for movement....

No am not using hydraulics for the movements.

Pakingzzz:


No am not using hydraulics for the movements.

impressive!
I read something about stepper motors. Anyway, i will reread the thread with a bigger phone later to grab all the details.

Hello pakingzz, first and foremost I would like to say that I am impressed by your technical knowhow and ur ingenious projects(wireless RC helicopter). I know very well d level of work u must have put in them because I have been handling the design and fabrication of complex machines myself. Don't mind d people who say that ur project can't be done, I know very well from experience that it is very possible. keep up d good work and if u need any technical input, don't fail to notify me @ embeddedstar9ja@gmail.com

PERFECTION88:
Hello pakingzz, first and foremost I would like to say that I am impressed by your technical knowhow and ur ingenious projects(wireless RC helicopter). I know very well d level of work u must have put in them because I have been handling the design and fabrication of complex machines myself. Don't mind d people who say that ur project can't be done, I know very well from experience that it is very possible. keep up d good work and if u need any technical input, don't fail to notify me @ embeddedstar9ja@gmail.com

Thanks alot.. I'll be mailing you.

I'm an Engineer sir, I have worked with and programmed CNCs...

Pakingzzz:


Thats small! Way too small. Not untill you see a cnc machine, you will have a rethink.
3D printers aint rocket science. They are just movements in 3 axis that move independently. Just get them to move in a co-ordinated way, and you have a 3D device.

litaninja:
I'm an Engineer sir, I have worked with and programmed CNCs...

Thats quite interesting.. What type of CNC have you programmed?