RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

SebastienBailard — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:26:55 -0400

I'm invoking my dictatorial forum-admin powers and locking this thread. :(

I feel many of the points brought here were valid:

* RepRap sucks at agitprop, aka "marketing".
* We have oodles of developers, all of them with a strong vision for what our Road Map should be.
* :)-D I think we should switch to Casainho's emc stuff; he's one of our lead developers. :)-D
* Not everyone is particularly courteous about uploading files to RepRap. (Our web infrastructure may be slightly lacking).
* etc.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

SebastienBailard — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:01:01 -0400

By the way, I'll be locking this thread in a few hours. :(

I find many of Casainho's suggestions or exclamations of frustration have merit, but I'd prefer that we start individual new threads or announce a :)-Dworking party:)-D in reprap-dev.

It will be more fun that way. (:D

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

SebastienBailard — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:56:52 -0400

I were trying to edit RepRap first page to include a link to RepRap self-replication CupCake CNC but I don't have permission. SebastienBailard, can you please put the link? On RepRap first page we can read:

The front page is fairly tightly locked down, Casainho. (:D

Mostly so we don't have new reprap devs tinkering with it. And because we don't want reprap's entrepreneur-developers like Zack tinkering with it. RepRap is a marketplace of ideas, but some parts of it are a formal marketplace as well, and things can get strange.

I'd be happy to showcase that fellow's all-plastic CupCake CNC if he uploads the stl files to RepRap wiki where it naturally belongs. Since it is currently only in Thingiverse, a commercial fork of RepRap created by the RRRF, I'm not going to bother. (:D

I'd rather showcase this machine on the side of the front page.
http://reprap.org/wiki/Pirated_CupCake

However, if Zach and Bre start maintaning that page along with the Gen 4 page, and mirrors the rest of their wiki along with RRRF's Thingiverse over here at RepRap, I'd be more comfortable with your suggestion.

Also, Zach has impulse control and integrity issues, and likes to play control and ownership games with his stuff. He used to work for vimeo.com, and he immediately conceived of Thingivese when he read about RepRap.

So, he joined RepRap's core team as the first step to creating Thingiverse.

The next step was creating the RRRF webspace. (the RRRF is a front company for Thingiverse).

Then, rather than helping build a vimeoesque replacement for RepRap's old twiki, (one with an upload button), the RRRF made sure that reprap research like sanguino and replicatorg is not part of reprap, which is sort of ... strange, but very useful if one's primary reason for joining RepRap was to create Thingiverse.

Basically, your standard Web 2.0 embezzlement scheme. :( I'd forgive Zack if he'd embezzled mere money, but he was after our user-developers. (The most valuable part of RepRap is the documentation and the community, and most of that is flowing into Thingiverse's coffers.)

These days Zack really doesn't care what goes on here at RepRap since he's taken what he needs from it. Still, I find contemptuous gestures like this to be slightly irritating. And considering that Bre Pettis, who I think of as the RRRF's treasurer, likes to write nasty stuff about our documentation system and his fellow RepRap developers on Thingiverse's blog, so ... ???

So, considering all that ancient history, I'd prefer that the RepRap wiki front page point at projects in the wiki rather than point at the webstores of random entrepreneurs who tend not to upload files to reprap.

This includes the Gen 3 Techzone remix, The Gen 6 stuff, LaserCut Mendel and Issac, or your I'm also very interested in your new Unnamed Electronics all of which is neatly documented in the wiki. (:D

Your suggestion does have merit, but considering other factors, I don't think we should do it. It's not fair to other RepRap entrepreneur-developers who are working hard to make RepRap better.

Nice to know! For some reason they "leaved" RepRap to focus on theirs ideas/printers -- and as I still believe, all of them are better than RepRap printers. Maybe that's the better way to go :-)

http://reprap.org/wiki/Pirated_CupCake has a much smaller build volume than Mendel, and it takes a lot more plastic to print one. But I agree it is much prettier.

I do think calling Huxley "RepRap III" is utterly silly; it is faster to print, but has a smaller build volume. Mendel Apollo might be a better RepRap IV, but I think it makes more sense to keep numbering electronics boards and stop numbering RepRaps.

ZetaPhoenix has proposed new electronics naming protocols, but I think he'll find it would be too much work for him to try to enforce:
http://reprap.org/wiki/Electronics_Naming_Conventions

Also, aside from Generic_Ethical_Guidelines, we're not really here to police each other's behavior.

HEY! Even some other RepRap developers are doing this, like NopHead! That do not uses RepRap electronics, firmware and software because: "Since then there are many more design decisions that I don't agree with, like the decision to use gcode, so I have continued to use all my own stuff."

Nophead does use RepRap electronics. He is just taking a ridiculously long time to document them in the wiki. The wiki is very patient, but considering the results he is getting, I personally am very eager to see that stuff more thoroughly documented in blog.reprap.org and in the wiki. :D

Casainho, I agree with you that some of RepRap's road map stuff and documentation practices are slightly crazy. You can bring it up in reprap-dev, but it's not really development, so it will probably get bounced back to this forum. The proper place to discuss RepRap Research matters would be a RRRF board meeting. If Adrian and I ever get an email invite to one I'll forward you a copy. :)-D

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

johnrpm — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 10:29:41 -0400

I look upon Reprap as a research and development environment where ideas, problems, solutions are discussed and acted upon, and this has spawned spinouts, directly or indirectly, but I do think that Sebastien has done a marvelous job in opening up the whole site to be as all inclusive as possible, and hope to see it continue as a research type place.

We are here for enjoyment, to share interesting ideas and concepts, each of us has his/her own reasons perhaps, but
to be told what to do and be given a specific direction would be what many of us get at work, for those lucky enough to have a job that is.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

casainho — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:19:01 -0400

VDX Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ... but this all is also the main difference
> betweend democracy and more centralized/predefined
> political/sozial structures ;)
>
> And one of the basic goals of reprap is
> 'democratisation of tools' - so think again, which
> options you'll have with a 'frozen' design, you
> can start perfectioning until it's really mature
> ... or with an undefined, chaotically evolving
> subculture :D

I prefer something between -- I prefer to have a "just work" 3D printer from which I can create many things on my free time and not take all my free time to just create one thing, the 3D printer. Makerbot is the best example, it is self-replicated and "userfriendly". It have the latest technologies advances that RepRap Mendel had, but on this case as "just work/just buy/easy DIY": Heated Bed and Wade's extruder.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

VDX — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:08:07 -0400

... but this all is also the main difference betweend democracy and more centralized/predefined political/sozial structures ;)

And one of the basic goals of reprap is 'democratisation of tools' - so think again, which options you'll have with a 'frozen' design, you can start perfectioning until it's really mature ... or with an undefined, chaotically evolving subculture :D

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

casainho — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 07:42:35 -0400

VDX Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Casainho,
>
> i think it's more a kind of 'symbiosis' - the
> basic design of the MakerBot-electronics comes
> from reprap (Zach is/was in the core-team and run
> the www.rrrf.org then)

Right. Maybe that's because of all this I am being trying to explain, that Zach "leave" RepRap and created the company Makerbot.

> Most actual active companies selling
> 3D-printer-kits (except for f@h) selected (or
> 'froze') a specific version or derivate from the
> rerprap-'ecosphere', added some proprietary
> specifics or changed electronics and/or software,
> wrapped them in a case and start selling them ...

Right. Looks to me that for example, Makerbot continues to improve his printer and make innovation. Makerbot CupCake CNC is full OpenSource :-) -- and I understand why the laser cut pieces of wood instead of printed parts. The only big difference from Makerbot CupCake CNC from RepRap Mendel is the self-replication. However some Makerbot users already fully printed a CupCake CNC (Makerbot CupCake CNC self-replication) and are printing parts as the extruder.

I were trying to edit RepRap first page to include a link to RepRap self-replication CupCake CNC but I don't have permission. SebastienBailard, can you please put the link? On RepRap first page we can read:

RepRap is about making self-replicating machines, and making them freely available for the benefit of everyone. We are using 3D printing to do this, but if you have other technologies that can copy themselves and that can be made freely available to all, then this is the place for you too.

Since Makerbot is OpenSource and self-replicating, I think is unfair to not have a link to it and just for RepRap printers.

> Even most of the progress this companies include
> in their updated versions was prior developed and
> discussed in the reprap-forums :D

Nice to know! For some reason they "leaved" RepRap to focus on theirs ideas/printers -- and as I still believe, all of them are better than RepRap printers. Maybe that's the better way to go :-)

HEY! Even some other RepRap developers are doing this, like NopHead! That do not uses RepRap electronics, firmware and software because: "Since then there are many more design decisions that I don't agree with, like the decision to use gcode, so I have continued to use all my own stuff."

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

VDX — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 07:06:09 -0400

Hi Casainho,

i think it's more a kind of 'symbiosis' - the basic design of the MakerBot-electronics comes from reprap (Zach is/was in the core-team and run the www.rrrf.org then)

Most actual active companies selling 3D-printer-kits (except for f@h) selected (or 'froze') a specific version or derivate from the rerprap-'ecosphere', added some proprietary specifics or changed electronics and/or software, wrapped them in a case and start selling them ...

Even most of the progress this companies include in their updated versions was prior developed and discussed in the reprap-forums :D

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

casainho — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 06:48:35 -0400

Traumflug Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ah, yet another guy trying to enforce others for a
> better world *sigh*

The only way that I see "to enforce others for a better world" is to create a company like Makerbot. RepRap is dependent from such companies, as for example the electronics boards were just source from Makerbot and now from a few other companies. I think the key is to do just like Makerbot, get the development/knowledge from OpenSource RepRap community and after provide the products ready for community consume.

In future I will help/participate on RepRap (enforce RepRap community for better world) by making a company and providing products that RepRap community is dependent. Inside that company I can define the roadmaps and organize the team.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

Traumflug — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 05:21:36 -0400

Quote

Casahino gets reprap, likes reprap, and is one of our lead developers for heated bed and emc-reprap. He wants reprap to become better and blow away competing commercial forks.

Undoubtly, he'll also swallow the fact ranting or sending long wish-lists doesn't help, but actually doing things. Huxley's page has already some sort of roadmap, so there's nothing stopping him to dive in there, maintaining this paragraph and refining things.

Quote

Because we're getting good proposals in this thread, but they need to nucleate in their own new threads, and grow there.

Ah, yet another guy trying to enforce others for a better world *sigh*

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

SebastienBailard — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:46:15 -0400

sebastien, as i saw you discussing mediawiki on the mailing list, maybe i can share these links:

Thanks, nonchalant noman, we really need something that acts as the front end to a bunch of developer's git stuff, with git->povray->wiki page. And we want an upload button of the front page of the wiki.

[*] [gitit.net] , a git-based wiki written in haskell. it has a clean and simple interface.
Interesting. I don't know haskell, but it may be worth looking into. I'm assuming that gitnet allows folk to upload xml files, unlike mediawiki. (:D

I'm waiting to see what Bryan and Fenn have been working on.

[*] [wiki.bildr.net] , a wiki for diy and electronics, focusing on the integration of components.
That's some flavor of mediawiki. Interesting. I like the css skin they're using.

[*] semantic mediawiki , an extension allowing to embed properties like weight, license and author on mediawiki pages.
I've heard of it, and if we stick with mediawiki, we may want it.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

SebastienBailard — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 23:58:33 -0400

I think a more accurate statement is "reprap sucks - it's the worst of all 3D printers (because I'm too lazy to put in any effort to understand it)

False. Casahino gets reprap, likes reprap, and is one of our lead developers for heated bed and emc-reprap. He wants reprap to become better and blow away competing commercial forks. He just wishes we were organized and disciplined. I can't blame him. But I don't think a road map will help us do it, because that road map will be a stop sign for the cool drive-by uploads reprap needs to mutate and grow. (:D

I'm going to put on my crypto-facist control-freak hat and lock this thread in 12-24 hours, abusing my powers as reprap forum administrator. >:D<

Because we're getting good proposals in this thread, but they need to nucleate in their own new threads, and grow there. We really don't want new devs to have to wade through stuff like me bitching about our mildly forked documentation system, etc. 8-)

To all readers, expect a blog.reprap.org annoucement of an emc, reprap-host, support material, or mendel-mechanical working-party in reprap-dev, as soon as Casahino figures out what our mission objectives should be.

Or maybe Nophead will announce his deep stealth alternative electronics on blog.reprap.org. (:D

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

jkelso — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 23:13:50 -0400

I think that the statement "reprap sucks it is the worst of all 3D printers" has to be examined. He is saying it because he likes the idea of a polished product that you can buy and it works right out the box. But, any one with common sense would rather spend the same money to get quadruple the print area size. Who would pay for a 4X4 build area cupcake when, with a little more effort or money, you could get an 8x8 print size? Cupcakes were cool, but anybody wanting their first printer wants the max build area for the money. The fact is, go on youtube and search "mendel reprap" and look at all the videos on there of actual people printing and building these mendels. I think a more accurate statement is "reprap sucks - it's the worst of all 3D printers (because I'm too lazy to put in any effort to understand it)

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

SebastienBailard — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 22:07:51 -0400

In future, I would prefer to work on an organized team, be it an OpenSource project or a small company as Makerbot. RepRap community is unorganized and for me that sucks because as I think/learned that RepRap have the worst printer(s) from market because of that unorganization.

Likewise. But we're RepRap. Sometimes, drive-by uploads like Frank Davies' Saurrus Linkage, Nophead's deep stealth electronics (:D, or your EMC stuff blow away anything that would be on Adrian's (fictional) roadmap. Heck, look at the gada prize "Let's reinvent every part of the toolchain" stuff. ::o

I propose that you go for a long walk, brainstorm on paper, and then organize a working party in reprap-dev with a focus on one of RepRap's weak spots.

I would suggest either
1: improving reprap-host. Bug hunt and Improvement.
2: :)-D your emc stuff. :)-D
3: Mendel mechanical fix. Let's polish it until it's a glowing gem!

Please pick one, and I'll relay it on the blog, and then we can organize a team on something you know is important.
(Hint: emc for the win!)

This is RepRap. You're in charge, Casainho. (:D

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

BodgeIt — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:19:23 -0400

This is an interesting discussion I would like to add my thoughts to.

1/. RepRap could be made to be a lot better than it is at present.

Here are my Ideas on how to make it better.

Using all the know how & Experience gained over the last 2-5 years of rep raping.

A basic simple 3D printer design could be created lets call it Basic RepRap.

Basic RepRap can print all the parts needed to build Huxley

Basic RepRap uses only materials and components that any one can build or buy no RP parts.

Basic RepRap is low cost low tech simple to install software no bell no whistles it is only designed to print a Huxley.

As many bought in parts as possible can be re-used in Huxley.

2/ The software and hardware design of Basic RepRap is frozen locked it is the starter machine the seed.

Any one or his sister can make it and install the software an print Huxley parts.

3/ The cost of Basic RepRap should be in the region of £150 to build from scratch.
Pocket money price that the partner of the builder will not need lots of persuading to approve the expenditure.
Keeping the price within the range of buy your self a present ability.

From my experience and reading those of many many others over he last two years it is the fluid nature of the open development environment that is causing the many disillusioned experiences as its a forever ever changing project.

Making a common starting block for new users that provides instant gratification from the get go of the build.
We will achieve the goal of spreading the use and idea of printing your own self replicating self modifying ever evolving home use 3D printer.

As to one of the comments earlier regarding using replicatorG on Mendel I don't think it is that easy.
The communication protocol has now been changed to this:-

[docs.google.com]

1/ the V2 G3firmware can not be built using Arduino in Windows.

2/ Even using the recommended configuration as described here [wiki.makerbot.com]

For Windows using

* The avr-gcc compiler and library
* avrdude, a tool for uploading hex files
* scons, a build tool

Still results in a failure to build the firmware.

3/ I need to re-build as the hardware I wish to use is not supported in the ready made builds.

4/. Even using the correct hardware and the ready made builds I fail to get a working system due to RS485 communication problems. Which seem to be quite common reading the forum and google user group. As yet there appears to be no tip or trick to solve this problem or any kind of indication as to what could be causing the problem.

It looks like it could be a known problem by the number of RS485 test applications found dotted all over the Makerbot source code.

Saying that though the ReplicatorG software package is the bees knees it is well documented easy to use and by far the best candidate for a Basic reprap machine according to the forums it will soon support 5D printing.

I forgot to say all other rep rap development activity remains the same as it is now every getting better and improving the vision. May be we should also make each older machine IE Darwin frozen projects in same sense as the Basic RepRap machine would be frozen.

For example new user builds Basic RepRap then they can choose to build Huxley or one of he fully working fully documented frozen machines or the latest cutting edge machine which could be Columbus or Ifel or RepOla.

So there you are my 2p worth..

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

kludgineer — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:01:28 -0400

casainho Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I still think this sucks...
>
> In future, I would prefer...

But this is the problem with everything you are saying! You are expecting everyone else in the very large global RepRap community to work the way you want them to. It should be clear by now that it is not going to happen.

At this point it seems to me that you have two choices: You can accept that RepRap development as a whole is never going to be quite as organized as you would like and dive into the chaos and try to make things better from within the chaos, or you can give up and buy the universally-agreed-to-be-inferior Cupcake and go complain on the Makerbot list. It's already clear that neither path is going to satisfy you fully, you only need to decide which is more important to you: Short term ease or long-term quality.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

nonchalant noman — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:39:20 -0400

sebastien, as i saw you discussing mediawiki on the mailing list, maybe i can share these links:

[gitit.net] , a git-based wiki written in haskell. it has a clean and simple interface.
[wiki.bildr.net] , a wiki for diy and electronics, focusing on the integration of components.
semantic mediawiki , an extension allowing to embed properties like weight, license and author on mediawiki pages.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

nophead — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:26:05 -0400

You keep saying it is the worst, but it is the cheapest and produces prints better than a CupCake and probably the same as a RapMan.

Quote
casainho
NopHead, and you maybe could say why are not using RepRap electronics, firmware and software! I am sure that if they were good, you would use them.

Historically, at the time I found the project it was using a token ring of PICs , full step bipolar stepper motor controllers and an open loop DC motor. I knew that would never work well, so I designed my own electronics using parts I had laying around. Since then reprap has gone through many generations, but in that time I simply updated my extruder controller from DC motor and shaft encoder, to a microstepping stepper.

Since then there are many more design decisions that I don't agree with, like the decision to use gcode, so I have continued to use all my own stuff. It is quite primitive in the sense that it does not have a GUI with jog controls and a 3d view. I simply have a script that makes an object. Having recently watched the videos here I could not believe what a faff it is to do it the way Adrian does.

I should do a comparative video.
When I reset the machine it homes.
I run a script telling it to make an object specifying the file and the plastic and the bed. It warms up the bed and the extruder which takes 8 minutes. When they are both up to temperature it moves the nozzle over the edge of the bed and extrudes for a few seconds and plays a sound to prompt me. I pull the dribble off the nozzle and hit a key. It makes the object, cools it with a fan and them moves the bed to the front and waits for me to pluck it off. That's it, job done. I occasionally clean the bed with acetone.

If I want to make several objects together I position them in AOI, union them and save as a gts, which I then slice.

No bells or whistles, but it gets the job done reliably. I find scripts are much more powerful for automation than GUIs.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

Bruce — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 17:51:50 -0400

I must have missed the point right from the get go. I thought that Reprap was a project not a product. And here I thought that Mendel was a step in the evolution of this project. How can you compare it that way. It doesn't cater to it's customers because it doesn't have customers. It's just a growing group people from all over the globe trying to leave their little mark on it. Whether it's a major innovation or an update on the Wiki, there is a chance for anyone here to say: I did that......

I must say I find myself a little disgusted at the comparisons made between Mendel and Cupcake. I printed several Mendels on my Cupcake, “I should say we, there are three of us” .I spent so much time cleaning cobwebs off of the prints. I spent so much time nursing that little wooden hobby toy along to a maximum 33 millimeters per second while it tried to shake itself to pieces. It took numerous modifications to even achieve that speed....... Crazyglued bushings, “Priceless”......... Captivated nuts cutting through soft plywood end grain like a knife through warm butter....... What were they thinking? How to keep them tight? I ended up gluing all the wooden parts together. I bought their first heated plate, glass on silicone. What a joke, unfortunately the joke was on us. We were out the Seventy five bucks. I ended up making my own. And then That Freaking Extruder. I saw mention of the MK5, looks kinda like a Nophead knockoff to me.

I have a tray that I print on my Mendel, I start it up, make sure the fist layer goes down OK and then I walk away. Nine hours later I come back to forty six shiny little Mendel parts ready to pop off the plate “ready to use”. There's no cleanup, well a little trimming on the bottoms here and there. People look at the parts and say WOW are they ever nice. People looking at the Cupcake parts would ask: What's with all that stuff stuck all over it “ie cobwebs”.

Our Mendel prints at 55 millimeter per second. Do any other machines run that fast?

By the way Casainho Our Cupcake is now a Mendel....... Thank goodness. The only reason that we bought a Cupcake in the first place was to print the parts to build a Mendel.... because there was no other option at that time.

So you have problems. I think we've had more than our fair share as well........”With both machines”
I see that you posted about nozzles. I made my own, drilled the tip with a .016” drill bit that I bought from a local hobby shop. There's no need to go any smaller than that.
I'm not engineer, I don't have much in the way of education at all, but I managed to make a whole tube and nozzle assembly on a cheap old drill press. It.... actually two now, never plug or fail. I posted a picture. Nobody responded...... whatever. Between the two we've now run nearly 30 lbs. of ABS in the last few weeks. In the big picture that's not a lot but it's a pretty good sample run, I think.

Getting frustrated is understandable, we've been there too.
But to call Mendel the worst is a blatant lie.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

casainho — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 17:36:13 -0400

I still think this sucks because there are a lot of people working but everyone is working for his side. OpenSource community may be big when compared with small companies as Makerbot, such a big community would be able to make the best 3D printer, no? but that is not the reality! A small company/group of people (3??) as Makerbot ended up with one printer more accessible than the one(s) made by RepRap big community.

The good thing is that they still are OpenSource, they can take advantage from work/development made by unorganized RepRap community and earn money :-)

I guess the same as UP printer (although not OpenSource) , they wrote that they follow RepRap community. I am sure they are selling UP printer for $1500 and earning a lot of $$$, they did lowering the price to be just equal to Makerbot CupCake CNC or RepRap Mendel. I am sure they can go lower, but as good business, they should sell at/earn the maximum as possible :-)

In future, I would prefer to work on an organized team, be it an OpenSource project or a small company as Makerbot. RepRap community is unorganized and for me that sucks because as I think/learned that RepRap have the worst printer(s) from market because of that unorganization.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

nophead — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 16:54:16 -0400

The reprap materials page puts the parts cost at $520. It allows £15 for RP parts. They currently cost £160 or less on eBay, so that is an extra $223 making ~$750, which makes it still the cheapest 3D printer if you buy the bits from different sources. You pay a lot of money for somebody to collect all the pieces together and make a full kit, but then that is quite a lot of hassle.

Quote

Should everyone take many months to build a RepRap? does they need to have tools for/know about mechanics, electronics, firmware and software?

Yes I think so. It took me about a month of my spare time to make mine with a lot of experience.

So Mendel is cheap in terms of parts, but expensive on time. That is always the trade off with DIY and why only enthusiasts or people that can't afford the alternative do it.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

SebastienBailard — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 16:13:41 -0400

Finally, as I've mentioned, you can run a RepRap on Makerbot software. =)
Technically, replicatorg, like sanguino, is RRRF's rather Makerbot's. It's not clear to me if it is RepRap's, although I should create a replicatorg forum. In operational terms you are correct that replicatorg and sanguino belong to Thingiverse. I mean Makerbot.

(Development may be slightly forked.) 8-)

Unassembled complete printer kits:
Makerbot - $950 to $1185
Rapman - $1225.25
BotMill Mendel - $1252.75

:)-D LaserCut Mendel, $799 :)-D

Also, we had people selling assembled Pirated_CupCakes at the RepRap booth for Bay Area Maker Faire back in May. Don't remember the cost. $1200-$1300?

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

SebastienBailard — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 15:19:26 -0400

i am a little disappointed by this thread so far, i was hoping to see some more good and productive things come out of it.

At some point it will. I'm hoping to get Casainho to start a working party in reprap-dev. Hopefully on his emc-reprap stuff. Although if he'd prefer to work on reprap-host, which is "official", I guess that is ok.

Casainho, what do you think? (:D

i tend to put it in my mind the following way: the official reprap project has dedicated people in part funded by a university bringing new technologies to the table and going down the fundamental route.

nonchalant noman, Adrian and Rhys are at a university, this is correct. And they do tend to have a bit of seniority, meaning we often listen to them, unless *oooh, a shiny thing*. What was I saying? Ah yes. We really don't do "official" any more. The very idea, for electronics, means favoring one entrepreneur-developer over the 10,000 others. And that would be a little bit corrupt. 8-)

Also, I'd like to see Tim Schmidt's Eiffel and Frank Davies' Sarrus stuff become more official than Mendel. Once we know they're better, which means I'll have to build each of them. Also, they've been absent from reprap-dev for too long, I need to email them.

Casainho, you mentioned in reprap-dev that we use the Mendel pages should point new-developers at reprap-entrepreneurs who sell built Mendels as opposed to lots of random suppliers.

This page is weakly biased towards that. http://reprap.org/wiki/Mendel_Buyers_Guide. But beyond that, I'd rather we host a marketplace so that people can buy mendel parts from you, as opposed to one or two "I sell everything" Suppliers.

Because it's a lot cheaper to buy your mendel parts from Casainho then to buy built Mendels from one or two devs in the US. B)-

Regarding the sidebar, Rob, then I, then Adrian just edited it. Once Adrian's not looking, I'm going to sneak in and put WolfStrap back in there. And maybe MetalicaRap. Also, I'm favoring Brutis over Huxley.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

rhmorrison — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 15:09:40 -0400

@dissidence: I have been following your blog for awhile now and I have not yet seen any negative comments or got the feeling that you thought the RepRap was a waste of time. In fact you were working on creating your own Mega board instead of using what is already available. It was also your choice to build a RepStrap using a chair frame - pretty cool actually... B)-

I feel like the RepRap 3d printer is like home computing when I started with it 35 years ago.

I bought my first computer my second year in college (Georgia Institute of Technology) in 1975.
A 4k SWTPC 6800 computer.

I built my own serial terminal using the SWTPC Termnal kit and then had no mass storage capability at all.
I did use the terminal with a 300 baud acoustic modem so I didn't have to go to the computer center to drop off my batch jobs. I could then later go by and pick up the output.

I purchased the cassette tape interface to have a way to save/load programs.

After my receiving my commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Force I was first assigned to Keesler AFB for communications school. During this time I was able to buy a dual floppy system for my SWTPC 6800 that cost $1,000.
My first assignment was to Communications and Computer Programming Center (CCPC) at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.
There I joined the Oklahoma City computer club where we first developed 16k memory boards and then a video board.

I can't tell you how many hours I spent reprogramming the monitor program for the computer to work with the video board instead of the terminal, or to move the I/O to 0xE000 from 0x8000 so we could have a whopping 56k of memory (instead of the original max of 32k). Then I bought (and built - because it was a kit) my first dot matrix printer from Heathkit. It cost $650 and took an entire weekend to assemble. All in all I spent at least $4,000 on a computer that has less computing speed and capacity than a digital watch does today (at least the programmable one from TI).
But I learned more about computers and programming than you can learn by any other method.

I could program the Motorola 6800 (and 6809) in hexadecimal (because I had to).
When I finally got an assembler I understood what it did and why the output looked as it did - because I understood the process. Then I got the UCSD pascal compiler and could see how the high level code was converted to assembly language (that I understood) that was converted to binary machine code (which I could read/write and understand).

The kids coming out of school nowadays almost always only have experience with a high level language but when you have problems with a program you often have to look at (and understand) the machine code that is being executed. Hell, most of them don't understand what a pointer is or how to go about debugging a problem with their program.

I have been following the RepRap and fab@home projects for a couple of years now but only after the Mendel version was released the end of last year (I first noticed it sometime in Nov 2009) did I like the design enough to say that I wanted to build one. I like the A-frame design and the way Ed Sells constructed the axis with all those bearings.

Did I think about buying a MakerBot - of course I did. The price (for the cheaper of the two kits) wouldn't really have been much more than making a Mendel (considering the price for the RP parts) BUT I would understand it much better, it has four times the build area, and there is something cool about saying you cut all the metal rod and threaded bar from parts bought at the hardware store around the corner.

Would I have had a working 3d printer quicker with a MakerBot - certainly, and just as certain I would not understand it nearly as well. MakerBot is also going with the flow. They now have their MK5 extruder which although very large appears to be very study and certainly more reliable than previous versions. I still think a DC motor is the wrong way to go but what they have continues to improve. They also have a heated bed that can be bought separately and added later.

The average consumer never understands the technology which is fine when you can buy consumer items cheap that are reliable, but not so good for new technology that doesn't always work right. Take my wife (please) (:P) - she used wireless internet for a full year before the removed the electrical plug from the wall allowing the laptop to run from battery and was amazed to find out that she still had an internet connection. She asks, how can that be? I give her the only answer she understands - "It's magic honey!".

Something that is a kit (even a complete kit such as MakerBot or the new BotMill Mendel) will only be used by early adopters of a technology. The home computer didn't take off until you could purchase the product pre-built for an affordable price. The C-64 was the first computer that hit the proper price point such that many people bought them. I would guess that over 90% of computers bought today are production models. Only the computer savvy elite piece meal their systems using separate components - or people that have very limited funds but still want a top system. Or individuals that want/need the best of the best. Joe Blow normal consumer goes to K-Mart, or Computer whatever and buys whats on sale. And even then putting the red jack into the red plug, blue jack to the blue plug and yellow jack into the yellow plug is too much for many of these consumers.

Within five years it should be possible for the average consumer (that is the average well funded consumer) to purchase a plug and play 3d printer. But they will still have to learn how to use it. How to avoid it's limitations and exploit it's strong points. My wife couldn't program the video recorder if her life depended on it (because it doesn't and she has me to do it). I would think that the current Chinese 3d printer could be sold for $1,000 and still make a good profit. As more competition develops (and the technology improves) prices will drop.

So buy the Chinese printer, or the new BitsFromBytes pre-assembled 3d printer, or a MakerBot (although you still have to build it) and leave the RepRap to those that understand that you learn by doing and can save money at the same time.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

kludgineer — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 15:09:09 -0400

Casainho: You have some valid points here, but by framing the whole issue as an attack on the RepRap community, you have lost any credibility to deliver those points. In the Dev list posting, you lost all credibility when you made statements that were flat-out wrong (that the Reprap lacks support material, for example).

Think of the Reprap project as analogous to the beginnings of the automotive industry or the PC industry. Right now, there are a bunch of people working on different designs. That is a GOOD thing. Mendel may be a good basic design, but I doubt it is the best one, so other people need to be exploring alternate concepts. At the same time, as you note, Mendel is not perfect, so we need people working on making improvements to it's design. And separate from any one design, we need people working on improving extruder designs, materials research, etc. THESE ARE ALL VITAL PROJECTS!

If these people feel limited by a roadmap, they may choose not to follow a whim that may lead to the next big breakthrough. Take the HBP for example. A year or so ago, I was talking about building a bot with an extra-large build platform, and I was told that there was no point since the parts would warp anyway. Sometime since then, someone came up with the idea of the HBP, tested it, and got great results. What if the person who thought of the HBP had been working on some roadmap and didn't follow that inspiration through, what would be the state of the Reprap project today?

Like in the car or computer industires, as the designs become more robust and refined, you will see exactly the thing you seem to be wanting: A readily available, off-the-shelf, simple to use, inexpensive bot kit that beats the Makerbot for price and the Mendel for ease of use. But these options won't come about because of some grand roadmap, they will come about because the wild and disorganized reprap community continues to improve the state-of-the-art on a daily basis. A road map won't help this, and in fact would likely slow it down (or even more likely be ignored by everyone but the people who come up with it).

Roadmaps work great for top-down organizations with very specific goals. The RepRap community is neither. It may seem like we have a well defined goal: To make the best 3d printer possible, but that is actually quite vague. One person's "best" is someone else's "eh, it's ok". For example, I personally find the goal of self-replication to be a distraction from the goal of improving print quality. For that reason I choose to focus my skills on making the best bot possible, at the best price possible, without regard to whether it is self-reproducible. That is not to say that the core Reprap goal is not a good one, it's just not where I choose to focus my efforts.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

jbayless — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:51:49 -0400

Casainho, we can't compare apples to oranges. Even Makerbot's deluxe kit comes unassembled, and that's at $950 without the Mk5 extruder, heated bed, or relays. The Mk5 extruder -- almost a necessity, given how failure-prone the previous one was -- is a further $185.00. The heated bed is another $50.00. So that adds up to $1185. And you still then have to build it yourself and tune the software to get good prints.

BotMill's unassembled printer plus electronics kit together cost $1252.75. And they're using Stratasys-printed parts, which contribute significantly to that cost.

BitsFromBytes' RapMan comes unassembled, for $1225.25. The BFB3000 comes assembled, at $3074.70.

So you can't compare the cost of a fully assembled printer with the cost of a bunch of parts. For a fully assembled and running Mendel, I think BotMill is offering an incredible deal.

Finally, as I've mentioned, you can run a RepRap on Makerbot software. =)

Overall, comparison:

Unassembled complete printer kits:
Makerbot - $950 to $1185
Rapman - $1225.25
BotMill Mendel - $1252.75

Assembled complete printer kits:
BotMill Mendel - $1545
UP! 3DP - $3000
BFB 3000 - $3074.70

If you're willing to put research and effort into purchasing parts and looking around for good sources, such as buying RP parts from Ebay, the cost of a Mendel can drop significantly even from what BotMill is offering. This is also partly an option for Makerbot, as you can save money by switching to their basic kit if you can find your own power supply, tools, plastic, etc.

It's not an option for Rapman, BFB 3000, or Up!.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

casainho — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:55:36 -0400

nophead Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > Would any common user do the same I did to build
> a RepRap Mendel? take 9 months to build it and end
> have the worst/userUNfriendly 3D printer of the
> market?
>
>
> Why do you say that? Why did it take you 9 months?

It took 9 months because was very difficult to source all different parts!! I started to build a RepStrap and with that printed the Mendel parts. Just right as you did NopHead, although you my not took all that time but you are much more experienced than me.

Should everyone take many months to build a RepRap? does they need to have tools for/know about mechanics, electronics, firmware and software?

> Apart from being harder to put together, doesn't
> it outperform a Cupcake in every other respect and
> is also cheaper?

I do not own a Makerbot CupCake, but for what I tested their software, is much more quick and simple to print than with RepRap software.

rhmorrison just wrote about RepRap software: I agree that the Host software needs some work. It crashes often. After creating gcode you have to exit and restart...

Also we desperately need a way to auto calibrate the system, for example a special Skeinforge calibration sheet print (or prints) that allow easily setting the most important parameters. That is still my number one problem. I have yet to get a good print using the Host software to generate the gcode. Skeinforge on the other hand gives great results when you get the parameters configured properly.

NopHead, and you maybe could say why are not using RepRap electronics, firmware and software! I am sure that if they were good, you would use them.

And CupCake is cheaper for sure, because it is sourced just from one shop and the kit is tested/working. For having a Mendel in kit, assembled, the market price is the $1545 from BotMill.

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

nonchalant noman — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:23:43 -0400

first i thought: reprap should have a strong vision (because the first impression of the website is that things aren't organized).
but then i noticed that there are very different ongoing developements, there is no single center encompassing all of the projects complexity.

i tend to put it in my mind the following way: the official reprap project has dedicated people in part funded by a university bringing new technologies to the table and going down the fundamental route.

then there are tinkerers who have fun, are dedicated and experiment (this obviously has overlaps with the first group).

then the third group of people who want a 3d printer.

i think it would be cool if reprap had one central site, about the work of the central group, but all other groups as well. people would become more aware of each other. a diverse set of developers and users can be highly beneficial, but outsiders also want to know what's going on, what were the basic developements of the past and what's state-of-the-art? non-redundant, all in one place for easy access (a must have for any open source project imho), giving information on what has been accomplished, e.g. mendel buying and building manuals, while still allowing for different marches of different people. it would make it more easy to "get the big picture".

the wiki could become this place. and then there is this nice aggregation software: [www.planetplanet.org] (used for example on [planet.ubuntu.com] for hundreds of developers).

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

nophead — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:59:40 -0400

Quote
casainho
Would any common user do the same I did to build a RepRap Mendel? take 9 months to build it and end have the worst/userUNfriendly 3D printer of the market?

Why do you say that? Why did it take you 9 months? Apart from being harder to put together, doesn't it outperform a Cupcake in every other respect and is also cheaper?

Re: RepRap sucks -- it's the worst of all 3D printers

richrap — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:18:49 -0400

For what it’s worth from a newcomer I may as well chip-in.
If you only want to print things without hastle then maybe buying something in a kit or completed is what you need. But after you have printed some things with your off-the-shelf printer what are you going to do with it? Probably feel annoyed when the next model comes out.

I think the Reprap Wiki does a very good job of showing just what you are getting into, maybe this was not the case 9 months ago, but after reading the Wiki and the posts on this Forum I felt very confident about not buying a kit and started hacking together a repstrap. I have had so many problems along the way but they have all been fun, and now I understand all about why the electronics have ended up the way they are, and some of the odd ways the firmware operates and I feel even more convinced to tell people to have a go if you feel you are up to it.

Ironically I think the self-replicating thing actually holds back newcomers as it’s still hard and expensive to get hold of the RP parts, but that will not always be the case. That’s why many build a repstrap, but when you look at what developers like Nophead have achieved on Mendel hardware it makes a goal that’s worth perusing. Things are becoming more streamlined with electronics and suppliers, so it’s now easier than ever to get something working quickly.

All the problems you and I have had are exactly the information newcomers need to make it easier and faster for the next.

I’m 90% finished now on my Repstrap, and with a bit of luck maybe printing (slowly) at the weekend (famous last words).

Enjoy the cutting-edge, make things better and if you’re not having fun doing it… stop.