Is RepRap Going to the Gutter?

Currently, "everybody" is moving towards industry parts. PLA bushings become replaced by linear bearings, rods become replaced by aluminium extrusions, the new Prusa i3 replaces printed parts by lasercut ones, replicatable electronics (Gen7) is considered to be nonsense if "the chinese" can make a RAMPS or Melzi (industry fabrication processes only) cheaper.

If a RepRap will ever be made mostly from printed/DIY'd parts (which would be very welcome to me), at least a paradigm/goal change has to take place.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

If it's not a RepRap (printable), you should not call it a RepRap. This is especially true if you want to make $$$ off of the design, beyond the cost of printing parts. It's really not fair to the people whose shoulders we all stand on to put something out there that does not further the goals of RepRap, and then rely on their resources (knowledge, forums, name recognition,etc.)to support your product.

That being said, the behavior you describe by some members, is unacceptable, if true.

@jcabrer,

"If it's not a RepRap (printable), you should not call it a RepRap." Then there are no true RepRap machines, and there never were.

"This is especially true if you want to make $$$ off of the design, beyond the cost of printing parts." You can definitely produce any type of machine you wish and sell it for any price point people think is acceptable. The truth is, anyone can. It's called free market, but even free market isn't free. But, when it comes time to give machines away, no one seems to do this.

One of the first backers of Makerbot was Adrian Bowler. Makerbot isn't making RepRap machines and they aren't giving their machines away, yet they are benefiting RepRap in drawing people to 3D printing that otherwise might not have been. Makerbot's work was largely based on RepRap though.

Any design, that draws any attention to RepRap and 3D printing, further's the goals of RepRap. Any machine that can produce 3D printed parts for RepRap machines does this also. If you try and police which designs are "acceptable" and which are not, you will choke the creativity that brings true revolutions.

No one has defined the exact percentage or types of parts that would make a machine qualify as being "True RepRap". They probably never will. RepRap defines all non RP plastic 3d printed parts as "vitamins". In truth, they should be considered Bones, Brains, Muscles, Nerves, etc... as without them, they are merely printed plastic parts,not a working 3d printer.

@BeeKeeper

i like your points, and i agree with you allot.

the thought of having a reprap police is not a good idea, and it seems that lately there have been a few people who think that we should be more purist about the open source part. there was a rather entertaining and frustrating thread on that not all that long ago.


i do believe that we need more smarter people working on this project, but the sad part is that one persons way of doing it right is another way of doing it wrong. i was really bad for that some times. but knowing how this project works there will never be a single way of doing things,

at the same time, i don't wanna see so many choices that it gets hard for people to learn about. or to decide what one to build we need the kits and we need the parts. but what is the most important part is that we need to be able to change.

the reason i am moving to using stuff like LM8UU bearings is that i want to be able to make better parts, so that maybe my next upgrade dose not need them, because the parts i can print are at least comparable to industry standards, ( or so i hope )

but i do believe we need the next makerbot to be on out side, if we fight it will be our undoing, i am glad to see that the majority of the top people in the reprap project try to stay out of the drama. that i think is one of the best things they could do, but i would like too see there input some more on new ideas, and explain why they are good/bad/need more work.

How does everyone feel about our Rapid Prototyping Mill? It can machine its own parts (except the exterior panels which are larger than the build area obviously) although in a subtractive form rather than additive. It can also of course print or machine any of the parts to make other printers...

-Chelsea

i think it would be a great idea, but i dont think it belongs in the reprap forums, if i had the money i would love a proper mill and lathe to work with.

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Any design, that draws any attention to RepRap and 3D printing, further's the goals of RepRap.

First, you'd have to define what the goals of RepRap are. If you ask spacexula on IRC, he'll cite Adrian Bowyer along the lines of "RepRap's goal is and ever was to make cheap printers, affordable for everyone. Having a printable design is just a way to get there."

Along these lines, RepRap is pretty much done. Because we _have_ affordable printers now. The only way to get them even cheaper would be to stabilize the design so it can be injection molded.

I'm pretty sure not everybody agrees with the above citation and IMHO it also contradicts Adrian's emphasis on design evolution (which is possible with a printable, replicatable, slightly more expensive design only) as well as "Wealth without money" (which had more emphasis before RepRapPro started to form).

For my part, I'll try hard to stick to the replication thing. No "chinese" Gen7 boards, even if it would take me just 5 minutes to get them.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

lincomatic Wrote:
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> The MendelMax is considered to be a Reprap,
> because it uses printed bits to connect the
> extrusions. I don't think Beekeeper's design
> strays too far. What about the basic Mendel's
> threaded rod frame. No true Repraps exist

I don't like the overblown claims about self-replication on the reprap.org's main page, but in any case the consensus definition seems to be that currently a RepRap is a printer which can be built from a combination of parts it can produce itself and standard off-the-shelf parts. (And I guess the extruders and electronics can be considered off-the-shelf parts now...) So I'd say that anything requiring a laser cutter to produce is definetely not a RepRap unless it comes with a laser cutting capability. Same for milled parts.

ttsalo Wrote:
> I don't like the overblown claims about
> self-replication on the reprap.org's main page,
> but in any case the consensus definition seems to
> be that currently a RepRap is a printer which can
> be built from a combination of parts it can
> produce itself and standard off-the-shelf parts.
> (And I guess the extruders and electronics can be
> considered off-the-shelf parts now...) So I'd say
> that anything requiring a laser cutter to produce
> is definetely not a RepRap unless it comes with a
> laser cutting capability. Same for milled parts.

I agree with you about the overblown claims in reprap.org's main page.

OK, so maybe MendelMax is as much reprap as Mendel because it can be made with hand tools?
While you can use a hand saw to cut the extrusions, you'd probably use a chop saw, anyway, to get more accurate cuts.
Beekeeper's design could be cut out with hand tools, too. The laser cutter just makes more accurate cuts.

As for milled parts, that's a grey area, too. I've been using my drill press as a lathe to make my hot end parts. It's a pain, and I could have bought a real lathe, or a CNC, but I didn't want to spend the money.

One could argue that any part that needs to be drilled makes excludes the machine from being a reprap because a reprap can't drill.

Hobbed bolts can be purchased or made with hand tools. On the other hand, I can (and did) buy a higher performance bolt from Laszlo for about the same price as paying someone else to hob my bolt.

Where does one draw the line? The fact of the matter is that there is no hard line to be drawn.

@Traumflug,
Yes, I like the purist ideal of repraps being built completely of reprapped parts, but if a PLA bushing is sloppy and wears out quickly, I like the option of swapping it out for a linear bearing, so that I can have a trouble free machine that makes more precise prints.

I think it's silly to quibble about whose reprap is a true reprap until true repraps really exist.

I print a lot of marking jigs that allow me to use hand tools more precisely.