Great Confusion!

I have a makerbot "building" my Prusa parts. Now lets talk hardware. I have scoured the Earth looking for a complete vitamin kit and every time I read another post I get more and more confused. I am just looking to buy the vitamins kit in a whole. Is there 1 certain place to do so?

Plus, I have to add everyone in this forum kicks ass. It is a pleasant surprise to see people actually caring about someone elses issues. If anyone has any sugestions please let me know. That would be stupendous.

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The Rev

There are a whole bunch of places that sells vitamin kits, so feel free to take your pick. Note you might need to order belts, pulleys and lm8uu bearings separately.

There already exists several lists of RepRap shops, and I won't list them here. But I have personal experience with and can recommend [xyzprinters.com] though I have not ordered vitamins from them.

You might also want to have a look at [forums.reprap.org] and ebay.

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-Nudel
Blog with RepRap Comic

I know that there are a hundred different "flavors" out there and you didnt really mention anyhting specific about your new build (congrats), but a good place for me when I started a month ago was the BOM on the wiki Wiki The list is for 8mm build, but I was able to swap out for 5/16 easily where applicable.

If you really want to waste a bunch of time, you should be able to source everything on http://www.mcmaster.com/# but it can be a little overwhelming. And I tend to get caught up in tangents, and keep finding myself saying "Oh look at that thing! What could I use that for?" Be warned!

Best piece of advice? Start somewhere with a reasonably well put together vitamin list and start buying. And overbuy by maybe 15%. I constantly find myself rooting back into that little bag o' left over bits. Resign yourself to the fact that your're probably not going to get it all in just one trip or one box. Proper planning prevents poor performance, but with repraps, there is always an inherent "creative interpretation" decision that needs to be made on the fly.

Sorry I dont have an easy answer, just some recent experience advice

JW

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Josh

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I got my vitamin kit from www.a2aprinter.com. Comunication tends to have a 2-3day lag, but I got my parts in about 8 days. I'm in California. The delay was resonable.

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//Prusa / RAMPS_1.4 & ATMega_2560 / Slic3r > Repetier > Marlin
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I honestly do not see why such a fuss over vitamins. With the occasional exception, every single piece can be had at the local hardware store.

Taking some time to make sense of the BOM will go a long way to insuring a good solid build. After you decide which machine you want to build, put together your BOM, and see what you can get from the Hardware store, then eBay, then McMaster-Carr. You should not have to go much farther than that.

I get all of my nut's, bolt's, washers and threaded rod from one supplier here in NZ they are a specialist engineering supplier and all they do is nut's and bolt's and assorted fittings to go with that. I have a set list of what I need for each kit setup with their own product codes and when I need another set I email the list and pick up the next day

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Experimenting in 3D in New Zealand