Robin2

You seem to be the only person who disagrees with their present location, so I reckon they are already in a "commonly agreed topic" ...R

Nice to see progress. Rather than going to all the trouble to make a neat control panel I prefer to put all the switches on a PC screen. Makes it much easier to correct my inevitable mistakes and changes of mind ...R

Then nobody would find it - maybe that's what you really want. You have just started a pointless discussion that has sidetracked a series of helpful contributions by the OP. ...R

Are you implying that this Thread should be moved in with DCC? I like to control trains with a PC and I use Arduinos as part of that. What harm is it doing to leave this Thread where it is? What section do YOU think it should go in. ...R

I reckon this is a good place for it. I vote to leave it here. ...R

OK, that makes things a lot clearer. I had been assuming that to get started you would need to put 3 or 4 litres into the tank and then keep it topped up as it gets used. Thanks. ...R

Thanks. However I'm still not getting any sense of how much resin you need to put into the tank. How much resin is needed to give you the 5mm depth? And I presume that means the things you are printing cannot be more than 5mm thick. Also based on what is in Reply #9 the whole management process seems to be very messy and time consuming compared to the extruder type of printer, though I do recognize that the ability to produce fine detail is much better. ...R

Thanks. Can you say how much resin needs to go in the vat to start things off? I presume it's more than 500ml. Or is the initial vat full of resin included in the printer price? ...R

The resin looks very expensive. How much of it do you need? ...R

It is perfectly possible to have several versions of the Arduino IDE on the same PC if it is necessary to maintain compatibility with older programs you have written. Unfortunately the Arduino developers don't pay much attention to backwards compatibility. ...R

And even then it just sounds like a toy Class 66 (An annoying toy) ...R

Welcome to the club. And thanks for all the info. ...R

What have you got underneath the material that is to be cut? And does it also get burned? ...R

Thanks. ...R

Make some quick mock-ups of proposed buildings from pizza cartons or cereal boxes and then you can position them on the baseboards to get a sense of how things will look. Think carefully about what you want to do with the layout when the construction is finished. I really have no interest in "playing trains" but I like the planning and construction. ...R

Unless a person is already familiar with web programming the switch from I2C (or Serial communication) to WiFi will involve a very steep learning curve. The Nodemcu does provide a convenient package of wireless and microprocessor, but I don't think it has as many I/O pins as a Nano. There would also be a need for adding an ESP8266 to the Master Mega so it could communicate with the Nodemcus. For this sort of application the ESP-NOW capability would probably make more sense than using regular WiFi and web programming. For my own wireless communication I use nRF24L01+ modules. ...R

If you have not already bought the Dremel then I suggest you get the Proxxon equivalent. I reckon it is a much better tool. For example it has a steel collar for fitting into a drill stand which means you can take it out of the drill stand and put it back in exactly the same position. I had a Dremel and I sold it. When I brought my Proxxon drill home and switched it on for the first time I thought it was broken because I could not see the chuck rotating - but it was. ...R

We won't fall off that bridge until we get to it Adapting the system to use RS485 would be straightforward I believe I have. But no plan survives contact with the enemy ...R

I am not using RS485 as it is not an in-built feature of Arduinos and the distances for my data have not yet required me to add the extra hardware. ...R

Yes. Each message contains the ID of the slave it is addressed to and when it receives a message with its ID the slave replies. That way only one slave uses the "bus" at any one time. If the master does not hear the Reply within a specified time it goes on the next slave - or deliberately causes the system to stop. The IDs are set on the slave boards with a jumper (or 2). ...R

With a pullup resistor for the "master" RX and diodes on the slave TX lines (to prevent them pulling the master RX high) you can have several slaves connected to the same Serial connection. I am doing that for a club layout where the turnout and uncoupler servos are controlled by Atmega 328s receiving instructions from a Mega as master on the control panel. ...R

Interesting. I have never had a need to use I2C but from what I have read I am surprised that it works at 2.5m. I had the impression that 0.25m would be more like its limit. ...R

How do you deal with the smoke and fumes? ...R

For longer distances Serial communication would be suitable. For very long distances RS485. ...R

Thanks. It is obviously an effect of the lighting. ...R