Hi all ,
Is there such a thing as an extremely “beginner” friendly guide for Repraps ?
It should be online , multilanguage if possible, and cover a wide range of subjects ( electronics, firmware, what to watch out for etc).
While the reprap wiki and various blogs and tutorials are a treasure trove, they are often not quite understandable enough for beginners.
I realized , while doing reprap build workshops that a lot of concepts can be hard to grasp, based on each person’s background.
Thanks in advance !
I think a great place to start would be basic terminology. I see things in descriptions like gantry. From context I have a guess what it means. But, with different printer styles question my guess. Also, what different types like box type (not sure what it’s called), Mendle, Prussa, delta and what advantages and disadvantages they have.
@Ashley_Webster I am a big fan of @Thomas_Sanladerer 's videos , they are very clear, instructional and full of infos !
Have not yet checked out 3D printing for dummies yet.
Broad is good actually: some people in the build group did not not what a firmware is, while others have already tinkered with arduinos for example.
Might be interesting to collaborate with a lots of people in the community to create something very user friendly.
I have prepared lots of documentation as well (but in french, I could translate once I release it all).
Also working on interactive 3d build instructions system (ospen source) which might help some.
@Jeff_Jibson for terminology, I think something visual and interactive would be great : search for a term , or hover over various parts of a machine to get explanations.
Box/mechanical types: there might already be articles about that, or we could regroup existing info.
@Mark_Moissette_ckaos thanks for the compliments! I’m always torn between making videos on bleeding-edge stuff (working on Nylon, PC and Ninjaflex printing guides), because i would personally also want to watch those. But i guess there’s just as much a demand for covering basic topics, so the next video coming out will be a short bed leveling guide, for example. Bi-lingual in English and German from now on.
I’d be happy to help where I can with creating accessible documentation!
@Mark_Moissette_ckaos that sounds like an excellent idea.
@Thomas_Sanladerer no problem , it is well deserved 
I guess it is tricky to have a good middle ground between bleeding edge & basics, but for example, when you explained things about auto-temp/pid in one of your videos, it finally made me go and give it a try (shame on me, but I always did it manually in the last 4 years), so they are a good source of inspiration either way!
Language barrier is a bit problematic : some of my colleagues are not really at ease with english or german (only french basically) , If I had a lot more time than I do (I might have some soon , so who knows), I would at do some French subtitles for your vids
(ps also, a very late happy birthday !)
About the documentation, I have been thinking some more about all of it, and will most likely post some draft/ proposal soon.
I also noticed that the whole cad > stl -> slicing -> comms>microcontroller
pipeline sounds like some incomprehensible mumbo jumbo to newcommers, so I am looking into how to make use of existing tutorials and resources to make that a bit clearer as well.
@Jeff_Jibson thanks ! I’ll post some draft of that soon.