Tantillus portable 3D printer

Hello everyone,

I'm proud to announce that I've finally reached the point that I can release Tantillus.

I'm running a one month Indiegogo campaign before releasing the files to the public as to get a head start.

For more details please visit Tantillus.org and Indiegogo.com/Tantillus.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2012 03:39AM by Sublime.

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Excellent stuff! I really like the concept of being able to print the whole body, how much do the body weigh? Is it economically feasible to print if if you have the tools to hand cut the frame from wood or acrylic yourself?

I also really like the daisy chain idea, looking forward to see more of that.

Does it use any special hardware, or is it mostly m8 rods and lm8uu bearings?

Do you have any newer video of it printing?

Thank you for sharing!

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--
-Nudel
Blog with RepRap Comic

Nudel Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Excellent stuff! I really like the concept of
> being able to print the whole body, how much do
> the body weigh? Is it economically feasible to
> print if if you have the tools to hand cut the
> frame from wood or acrylic yourself?

The printed case does not weigh much because it is designed with thin walls and structural elements ( my guess is about 500g of PLA in the case and another 600+ in the other parts )

But the Laser cut case could also be made by hand.

>
> I also really like the daisy chain idea, looking
> forward to see more of that.
>
> Does it use any special hardware, or is it mostly
> m8 rods and lm8uu bearings?

Nothing special. That was one of the most important things for me. The first one was built using a prusa and the local hardware store. You do not even need the LM8uu's , the first one has printed bushings everywhere.

>
> Do you have any newer video of it printing?

There are some clips in the Indiegogo campaign video and we will film more very soon.

>
> Thank you for sharing!

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Sublime Wrote:
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> > Do you have any newer video of it printing?
>
> There are some clips in the Indiegogo campaign
> video and we will film more very soon.

Ah, flash was stopped so I didn't see it. Very nice!

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-Nudel
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Nice! I have been looking for a gantry printer for printing paste-type materials.

BUT... will there be a metric version?

Great work, Thank you.
1st to donate... woot.

How do the axes work? I can't see any belts in the pictures or the BOM.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

ttsalo Wrote:
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> Nice! I have been looking for a gantry printer for
> printing paste-type materials.
>
> BUT... will there be a metric version?

Not exactly,

No matter what it must use 5/16" rods because 8mm will not fit through the 608 bearings but 5/16" which is 7.92mm fits perfectly.

And the rest of the nuts and bolts can easily be substituted for metric.

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nophead Wrote:
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> How do the axes work? I can't see any belts in the
> pictures or the BOM.

I will post some better pictures and a video of the mechanism as soon as I can. But in short it works the same way as an Ultimaker where the guide rods are also the drive rods. The exception is Tantillus uses gears to transfer the motion from the motors to the shafts and cables under high tension to transfer the rotation from the shafts to the axis just like Ultimakers belts do.

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Sublime Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No matter what it must use 5/16" rods because 8mm
> will not fit through the 608 bearings but 5/16"
> which is 7.92mm fits perfectly.

Uhh... are there metric and imperial 608 bearings? Because even the bog standard metric Prusa design has all the 608 bearings mounted on 8mm rods.

ttsalo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Uhh... are there metric and imperial 608 bearings?
> Because even the bog standard metric Prusa design
> has all the 608 bearings mounted on 8mm rods.

They will fit over 8mm threaded rod but not over high quality 8mm drill rod that measures 7.99 to 8.01

And technically 608's will fit on 8mm drill rods if you heat the bearing until it expands and fits over, but it would be really hard to assemble the machine that way and we do not need a press fit just a nice snug one and the 80 micron clearance of the 5/16" rods is perfect as it fits and does not show any play.

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Funny all my 8mm rods measure 7.95mm and are nice snug fit in 608 bearings, even precision linear shaft from Zapp.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

nophead Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Funny all my 8mm rods measure 7.95mm and are nice
> snug fit in 608 bearings, even precision linear
> shaft from Zapp.

Well I guess I should note on the wiki that some 8mm shafts will fit. But all the ones I have purchased so far have been 7.99 - 8.01 and did not fit unless you heated the bearing or used a press.

The specs on the rod I am using is:

Quote

Diameter tolerance for 4mm to 12mm sizes is +/-0.013mm

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I wonder if this is a sign of buying metric rod in a non metric location. I.e they supply Tues 8mm. Whereas in "metric" locations thy provide a nominal 8mm.

I simply ordered 8mm stainless rod from an online metal merchant here in the uk and there is no problem with 608 bearings.

Craig

CraigRK Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I wonder if this is a sign of buying metric rod in
> a non metric location. I.e they supply Tues 8mm.
> Whereas in "metric" locations thy provide a
> nominal 8mm.
>
> I simply ordered 8mm stainless rod from an online
> metal merchant here in the uk and there is no
> problem with 608 bearings.
>
> Craig

It sounds like you used 8mm round stock which is not true 8mm and when you run linear bearings on them you will see significant play.

This is not to say you can not use them in place of the 5/16" as it has printed bushings riding on them. But you really should have high tolerance 8mm on the 170mm cross bars.

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Any reason for the high price? Also why the delay in releasing the files. Technically it's not open source until the files are in the public domain.

gerards1111 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Any reason for the high price? Also why the delay
> in releasing the files. Technically it's not open
> source until the files are in the public domain.

The price in not high. To have a single set of panels cut from 6mm acrylic it costs 150+ and I am selling them for 90. The plastic parts take 100hrs + to print and use almost 1kg of plastic. The hardware would cost you 150+ if you sourced it yourself.

The biggest problem is people add the cost of a RAMPS kit, motors and the acrylic parts and think that is the price. I on the other hand accounted for everything like shrink tubing, zip ties, tape, wire, connectors, plugs, every nut, bolt, washer, every mm of rod, all the bearings etc. I then figured out pricing which I was planning on selling them for but decided to drop the prices dramatically on Indidgogo so those prices are barely over cost (and if I have any problems will end up costing me money).

Also if you compare the price to a Thing-o-matic with control panel you will notice it costs a lot less and if you compare it to the only other machine capable of the same things (Ultimaker) you will see it is dramatically less even before adding the Ulticontroller to the Ultimaker. In fact it is the lowest price of any autonomous machine available especially if you factor in print quality with out any upgrades needed.

Technically it is not released yet so you can not say it is not opensource. This is a pre-sale before it is released and when it is released all the files will be made available. The reason is because I am still making a few changes as I find ways to make assembly easier. Also I have spent some 1000-2000hrs on development and thousands of dollars so I am giving myself a head start before others start selling them as I am not licensing them under some restrictive licence, it is being released under the GPLv3. I had the option of making it closed source and not giving it away at all.

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>I had the option of making it closed source and not giving it away at all.

Giving it away? You mean, contributing to the reprap community, right? You have spent (allegedly) 1000-2000 hrs (thats a pretty big difference... between 1000 and 2000) on this design. Do you think it is ready yet? Have you predicted every possible thing that could go wrong and accounted for it? No, you use electronics designed by others, hot ends designed by others, gantries and other systems conceived by others... you have no idea whether your design is really any good in the long run, and frankly, I'm not convinced by your very few videos that this is going to be a "finished product" any time soon.

You said you are going to provide support on the reprap forums for this devce. There will be LOTS of people that are going to buy your kit expecting it to just work. They will come here and flood this forum with negativity, rage at a nonfunctional kit and then quit, calling reprap a waste of effort. Spreading the word that reprap is stupid. Selling a kit will do more harm to reprap than good.

Release it to the community, let us finish it. It is the way of reprap. It is the whole point of reprap. By holding the plans to yourself you are slowing down progress... All in the name of a few bucks? You said yourself you aren't going to be making much profit for each kit sold. Why do it?

Understood, but i thought we were talking about 608 bearings, not linear bearings, sorry about the confusion.

I just found it interesting how people seem to be getting different tolerances in different parts of the world.

If this is how you feel that is fine. But I have been part of the RepRap project for almost 2 years and have answered almost 1000 questions (not asked) to help people for no reason other than to help them.

Can you tell me exactly how many hours you spend doing anything? Unless you clock in and out every time you work on something it is very hard to calculate the time. How I came to that number is I have been working on it FULL time since January (8 - 16 hrs a day) 8 * 125 straight days = 1000hrs 16 * 125 straight days = 2000hrs. This does not include the other peoples time to print test parts and build prototypes.

>Do I think it is ready yet?
Yes otherwise I would not be releasing it yet.

In the end it is like any other RepRap in that it will always be under development and can never be considered "finished" but it is further along than most machines when being released. For example of how this works please see: E-Maker Huxley, Printrbot, Ultimaker, Orca, etc, etc, etc, etc. All of them were released before the files were released to the public. The difference with Tantillus is I plan on releasing them the day the Indiegogo campaign ends not a few days, weeks, months afterwards.


destroyer2012 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >I had the option of making it closed source and
> not giving it away at all.
>
> Giving it away? You mean, contributing to the
> reprap community, right? You have spent
> (allegedly) 1000-2000 hrs (thats a pretty big
> difference... between 1000 and 2000) on this
> design. Do you think it is ready yet? Have you
> predicted every possible thing that could go wrong
> and accounted for it? No, you use electronics
> designed by others, hot ends designed by others,
> gantries and other systems conceived by others...
> you have no idea whether your design is really any
> good in the long run, and frankly, I'm not
> convinced by your very few videos that this is
> going to be a "finished product" any time soon.
>
> You said you are going to provide support on the
> reprap forums for this devce. There will be LOTS
> of people that are going to buy your kit expecting
> it to just work. They will come here and flood
> this forum with negativity, rage at a
> nonfunctional kit and then quit, calling reprap a
> waste of effort. Spreading the word that reprap is
> stupid. Selling a kit will do more harm to reprap
> than good.
>
> Release it to the community, let us finish it. It
> is the way of reprap. It is the whole point of
> reprap. By holding the plans to yourself you are
> slowing down progress... All in the name of a few
> bucks? You said yourself you aren't going to be
> making much profit for each kit sold. Why do it?

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CraigRK Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Understood, but i thought we were talking about
> 608 bearings, not linear bearings, sorry about the
> confusion.
>
> I just found it interesting how people seem to be
> getting different tolerances in different parts of
> the world.

I was referring to the 608 bearings. The outer rods that rotate are in 608's at the ends and have printed linear bushings on them in the middle. These are the ones I have to use 5/16" rods on because my high precision 8mm rods will not fit through the hole of a 608 as 10micron or less is not enough clearance. The other bars that are 8mm have to be true 8mm because the LM8uu's ride on them and need to be really precise due to the carriage configuration.

I am glad you guys brought this up as I have never received any that are that far out of tolerance but will be watching for them as stock arrives and make sure all are with-in the specs I have come to rely on.

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Let's hope unlike the companies you mentioned that all files are released so that it can be called open source.

I still don nderstan the high price. Also n the campaign I am sure you quote different numbers. Maybe you should say it takes 100 hours on there to print and a kilo of plastic.

One positive is you have after 1000 hours proved why reprap main goal of replication is unrealistic. Nophead has the right idea with his design. Easily sourced materials.

Open source isn't what it used o be, see Linux.

gerards1111 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Let's hope unlike the companies you mentioned that
> all files are released so that it can be called
> open source.

You can bank on it.

> Also n the
> campaign I am sure you quote different numbers.
> Maybe you should say it takes 100 hours on there
> to print and a kilo of plastic.

It does say that all proceeds from the almost 1kg of printed parts are going to members of the RepRap community to print them. They are receiving every cent except what Indiegogo and the Credit card company is taking off which is 8-13% depending on whether I reach my goal.

>
> One positive is you have after 1000 hours proved
> why reprap main goal of replication is unrealistic.

Not really true, It can reproduce itself. I made the laser cut case so that more people could get them, not because there is anything wrong with the printed case. So it can still print the case and uses all the same axis parts which meant development on both happened simultaneously. I hope this will remain to be, but after people get their hands on the source I think they will separate into two different machines. The laser cut case has 10mm more clearance inside than the printed case because it has reliefs and cutouts for all the axis parts that the flat panels do not. So I can see people developing parts that use the extra 10mm's in the laser cut case but may not fit in the printed case as it is has very tight tolerances to fit everything in that small of space.

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>
> It does say that all proceeds from the almost 1kg
> of printed parts are going to members of the
> RepRap community to print them. They are receiving
> every cent except what Indiegogo and the Credit
> card company is taking off which is 8-13%
> depending on whether I reach my goal.


???? Are you the reprap community? Why not just release the files if profit isn't your goal? This doesn't make any sense?


>
> >
> > One positive is you have after 1000 hours
> proved
> > why reprap main goal of replication is
> unrealistic.
>
> Not really true, It can reproduce itself.


Yes it can in 100 hours. How can this be a good use of a 3d printer. Like I said you managed to get nearer to he goal of reproduction but in doing so made it obvious why it was a pointless goal. The same parts in wood or plastic would probably take an hour.

Like I said nophead seems to of got the point of getting a cheap machine into people's hands with the minimum of tools. You on the other hand have tripled the cost and effort whilst shrinking the build area.

gerards1111 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ???? Are you the reprap community?

No but if you look at the fraser vallay RepRap forum that I started a year ago you will see we have more than 20 members and are the most active group in north america.

Why not just
> release the files if profit isn't your goal? This
> doesn't make any sense?

This is to get a start and establish a reputation, not make money. You seem to not understand how a lot of us work. I have designed all kinds of things without any profit involved. Have a look at my Thingiverse page and Github page and you will see I have spent thousands of hours to create things for people like yourself to print. Originally I designed it for myself with no intention of ever selling them. The only reason i am selling them is because I was asked to sell them hundreds of times.

> Yes it can in 100 hours. How can this be a good
> use of a 3d printer. Like I said you managed to
> get nearer to he goal of reproduction but in doing
> so made it obvious why it was a pointless goal.
> The same parts in wood or plastic would probably
> take an hour.

No, it takes you a few minutes and the machine 100hrs. Where as a wooden machine takes you hours not minutes.

>
> Like I said nophead seems to of got the point of
> getting a cheap machine into people's hands with
> the minimum of tools. You on the other hand have
> tripled the cost and effort whilst shrinking the
> build area.

First off how is $850 for an autonomous machine triple a printrbot (the cheapest on the market so far) none autonomous's $549. I think you need to do some more math. Further more you complained on this thread [forums.reprap.org] that there is no way he can make and sell machines for $300 and now you are complaining that 850 is way to much even though it is not triple the price you yourself say is too low? Which is it?

I did not design it to be cheap. I have not compromised anything to do so. I have not priced it so low that I give up and not deliver the items or it takes two years for all contributors to get what they asked for.

I would suggest that you buy one of the really cheap machines and you will see why they are cheap. The video I posted last night shows Tantillus doing hex infill at 80% and and 90mm/s something that no machine other than an Ultimaker can do well because of the moving mass.

The size is on purpose to be portable. Also if you have printed much you will see there is a physical limit to the size we can print. Unless you have a heated chamber anything larger than 100 x 100 x 100 will warp and crack and even with the heated chamber you still have problems.

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If you think 900$ is a reasonable amount for a reduced print area 3d printer then so be it.

You seem to be in this for the profit which is ok and seems o be the way this forum is going. Design something based on everything out there then sit on the design until money has been made then release half the files.

In the mean time innovation is slowed down.

gerards1111 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you think 900$ is a reasonable amount for a
> reduced print area 3d printer then so be it.
>
> You seem to be in this for the profit which is ok
> and seems o be the way this forum is going. Design
> something based on everything out there then sit
> on the design until money has been made then
> release half the files.
>
> In the mean time innovation is slowed down.

Hahaha....

Once again you get everything wrong. It is 850 not 900 and you did not answer any of my questions about your completely incorrect math. I can see that you are just a troll and I will not be responding to anymore of your remarks as my time is better spent helping nice people and on development. Please try and show some respect to everyone on the RepRap forums that has allowed you to do whatever it is you do with a RepRap (by your 20 posts I can see it is complain and not help).

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It seems you don't like rounding up?

Yes the 300$ machine couldn't make money but he also said he wasn't in it or profit.

There are many options a lot cheaper than yours with bigger build areas. So after your many hours you have decided like everyone else fom the top own you need to be paid.

It seems though the ones who have given he most require the least reward, nophead Prusa wade et al.

You are in the second band that has profit as the goal, not innovation.

Again I hope you make it clear how long and how much material is needed to make your machine on Indiegogo.

Keep innovating

gerards1111. You are free to create your own design and release your own files and set your own pricing as you see fit. Of course it is so much easier to state that everyone else is just doing it wrong.

The first defence of the indefensible.

Like I said instead of just letting the community have the files and figure out the flaws on the design, first we must make money out of the believers. See printrbot for comments relating to the poor performance. Soon we will have others, bukobot being the next.

Regarding pricing it seems we are going backwards if we assume break even is the price of the 300 dollar printer. That's going to be one rich no profit reprap group.

Even sublime doesn't believe in his machine enough given the creation of the acrylic version. May as well make a ultimaker but smaller. Waste of 2000 hours.