The first post some history about our machine

Well this is the first post about a RepRap 3d printer my son and I are making. We have been working on the machine since January 2007. It is actually called a RepStrap because it is made from parts that are not extruded from a 3d printer.. This machine is made from most of the dimensions of a RepRap machine. the only difference is the parts of our machine that are normally printed are made from wood using a drill press, scroll saw and other hand tools. A lot of the other parts can be bought from the RepRap Research Foundation. A little but about our setup there is the carteian robot, then there is the extruder which I am trying to extrude High Density Polyethylene which seems to be a hard thing to do at times.. Then there is the computer we are using it is an older machine it has a pIII processor and is running Ubuntu 7.04 is has the RepRap host software installed which runs in java I also do not have a monitor connected to the pc I am connecting though VNC to save some space in our "lab" this all seems to be running fine as of right now.. This computer communicates to the machine with a serial port and cable.. So that is enough intro now some pictures of the printer in the next post...