Roller Assembly

The kit includes (5) short roller mounts and (3) long roller mounts.  As pictured below, a roller assembly is bolted into each of the two holes.  The first roller assembly can be attached with the mount free of the larger assembly.  The second should be attached after being inserted.  Once attached the bolt and lock nut can be screwed down snug.

Roller Assembled

Lift Bolt

The plate also has a hexagonal cutout for a large nut.  After inserting the nut, the retainer plate can be placed over it.

Elevator Left Assembly

Next, the two grooved rectangular plates with the square cutout are added onto the bottom of the long bolt holding the retainer plate on.  Leave these bolts loose for the time being.

Belt Roller Assembly

On each of the outer corners not covered by the last step, a belt roller assembly is added as shown above.

Complete Left Elevator

The final piece should look similar to the above (One bolt is missing).   The assembly for the right side of the elevator is very similar.  There is just one more set of rollers and the plates with the circular cutout are used instead.

Extruder Mount

The extruder mount uses the three long roller mounts.  In addition, two roller mounts are already attached to the device and also get rollers.

Elevator Assembly

Finally, the two shorter smooth rods are inserted into the assembly.  Keep the bolts loose enough that the rod length can be adjusted as needed later in the setup.

In May of 2011, http://techzonecom.com LLC introduced the RepRap Mondo.  With a print volume of 18″x12″x11″ it is a big printer.  We decided to purchase the Mondo after getting timely feedback to questions asked of the company.  After a slight delay the printer kit arrived.  What follows will hopefully serve as a guide to others building a Mondo and as a close-up tour of this fascinating machine.

Unboxing

The first surprise was that, as of this time, there are no instructions for how to assemble the Mondo.  The website simply says that its construction is similar to that of the Mendel or Huxley.  However, no one on the team has assembled either of those machines before, and the instructions on the RepRap site were not helpful.  To assemble the Mondo, the pictures of the prototype as posted on the TechZoneCom website were used as our guide.

It is important to note here that because we never had official instructions we cannot be sure that we did everything as it was intended.  All we can claim is that at the end of the project we have a working device.  When official instructions are released, we will edit these posts to note where our version differs.

All the parts as taken out of the box

After unboxing the parts, we divided them into a few categories: rods, large frame pieces, small pieces, hardware, and electronics.  Almost everything needed to get the Mondo printing is included except for the printing material and the computer and USB cable to drive it.  We ordered a five pound roll of ABS to go with ours.

Major parts arranged by eventual positions

To get a sense of what things were we started by arranging the parts roughly be where they belonged according to the pictures.

Small Parts

The small parts were grouped to keep track of how many we had. Note that the two plates on the bottom left with five holes are stacked two high.  We later discovered that there should have been two of the small piece rectangle with two holes as shown on the top row.  Luckily we were able to fabricate a replacement easily.

Hardware

Various pieces of hardware used to assemble the device are included in the shown sub-divided plastic bag.  We simply cut one end off to keep the parts organized and accessible.  Some of the parts are mixed together which became frustrating at times.  There are a lot of locking nuts.  Before starting assembly make sure that you have a ratchet set for  the lock nuts.  This will make the assembly go much faster.

Bed support with loose part

A number of the laser cut parts assemblies came pre-glued.  This, without a doubt, saved us many hours of gluing and frustration.  One example is the bed support shown above.  One piece did fall off sometime during transportation, but it was easily re-attached.

Overall Results

Once the full rankings are released, this list will be updated to include all the teams.  In the meantime, the top five overall teams are listed below.

More information and a lot of great photos can be found here at rcgroups.

ArcWulf UAV on Autonomous Landing Approach

Autopilots

The competition offers an excellent opportunity to see what systems other universities are using and to gauge how they performed.

Piccolo

1. North Carolina State University
2. United States Air Force Academy
3. Kansas State University
4. University of Arizona
5. Mississippi State University

Paparazzi

1. Utah State University
2. Sherbrooke University
3. M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology
4. Utah States University ROSAM

Ardupilot

1. Delhi Technical University
2. Bucknell University
3. Embry Riddle Aeronautical University
4. Rutgers University

Micropilot

1. Florida International University
2. Great Mills High School

Kestrel

1. University of California at San Diego

Custom

1. Hampton Roads Area High School