Welcome to the Egyptian Hall of Mysteries…
The yellow Drazzi …
Many years ago my late friend and mentor John Grass sold me a desktop CNC machine. John was a machinist of the old school, and could not make the machine work. I think he wanted to prove a point, that having something was not the same as wanting something.
Here is an image from the sales brochure:
What the machine looked like when new.
The machine came complete with all the manuals, and a Dos program called RobotMart. Many times I searched the net for more information on this. Several years after I acquired the machine in I was able to upgrade the Dos program and purchase a few more collects and accessories. I set the machine to making roll transports for Piano roll scanning. I also used it to create some parts for a mechanical doll. More recently I modified some hobby gears for use in a difference engine model.
At the time I lived in a 2 bedroom apartment, I leased the machine in exchange for shop space at a friends company. This worked out well. I was also able to make an EDM sinker machine and a watch pinion cutter. The the dot com era came to an end. My friend moved his tools into a Silicon Valley Garage, where I continued to use it for making roll-scanner parts.
We nicknamed the machine “Yellow Drazzi” as the eastern European name rhymed with an alien species on the Babylon-5 show, popular at the time. Where there were Green and Purple Drazis.
My work took me to Kentucky were I worked for piano movers designing a floppy disk MIDI playback system for pianos. This company failed after a few months and I was left with the floppy disk player to manufacture on behalf of one of the partners. This poor machine sat idle.
My workshops are in a barn like structure in my parents back yard. This is a potting shed, not water tight. I did not want the machine rusting, so left it in my friends unheated garage, Which also gave me access to the Bridgeport mill and atlas lathe. When it came time to make the feet for my Caliola Pipes, having to travel 60 miles to use it I moved the machine to my parents garage.
Over the years I have owned this machine, I have wanted to speed up the axis, which move around 5 to 10 inches per minute. When the machine sat idle, the fans developed a rattle, which was annoying. A few weeks ago I took the controller apart. Replacing the fans with new ones that glow with blue LEDs, these fans were half the price of the black ones.
While I had the machine apart I drew a schematic of the controller. The electronics were made in 1989. The stepper chips were manufactured through 2008. Searches of the network, I found better programs such as KCam and Mach3 to run the machine. The controller was compatible with these programs. It is like getting a whole new machine to play with.
For the last year I have been reading the Reprap forums and blogs reprap.org. Having worked with printers and scanners in the 1990s I have collected quite a few rods and steppers. Having spent so much time consuming information from these forums and blogs, It is time to start sharing my own progress under the name of sheep. Since I am simply just another sheep in the fold.
The first plan was to use the Yellow Drazzi as a repstrap. This may be a bit slow, as the old stepper controllers are resistive limited and max out around 10 inches/minute. A desire for speed improvements, has lead me to completing the reprap (now Mendel version) stepper electronics. While this will not run the coffee can steppers, I should be able to mill the Mendel parts on the Drazzi.
The ultimate goal here is to be able to replicate, not only a Jaquet-Droze style keyboard player, but the connected pieces, such as Babbages analytical computer, The mechanical calculators from Swilgue’s astronomical clocks, and the Antikeythera device. This while at the same time looking for work/contracts, speaking at conventions and working out a new act for the Dickens Christmas fair. So there may be gaps here as these project progress. No promises on updates, bit there is a lot to share and much more to come…