The whole idea of an open source 3D printer is very exciting to me and I have decided to build one. It seems that some of the more commercial offerings like the Ultimaker have solved some inherent 'problems' with the base design to improve overall machine quality at the expense of additional cost. I am not saying that the commercial offerings have a better print quality or speed overall, more that they require less fiddling to get the prints looking good and printing fast. I co-own a CNC machine shop and am wondering what the current users that own reprap/straps see as shortcomings that could be improved upon if there weren't limits per se as far as materials or design was concerned. I have no problem cutting hardened steels or anything of that matter and we have experience with advanced composites. What can I do to help make a 'super reprap' and help the community along towards that goal?

Obviously going from threaded rods and nuts to a machined steel frame would add to the cost, but it might not be nearly as much as you might think especially if we had any sort of volume.

The whole idea behind RepRap is in the name. REPlicating RAPidprototyper. Not that there is anything wrong with machines that don't include any printed parts, just that they aren't RepRaps. The fewer specialized parts the better. That's why the Prusa is all printed parts, common threaded rod, nuts, etc. Even eliminating those would be a worthy goal, as long as overall quality isn't decreased.

That said, more inexpensive and high quality printers can only be a good thing, even if they aren't true RepRaps.

Sure but if you could buy a precision extruder that was superior to all other offerings at a reasonable price why wouldn't you? We can make that extruder or any other part for that matter. I just wanted to make my own printer as good as possible and share the results.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2011 11:55PM by vulcanrd.