Darwin Reboot

It just occurred to me that the Darwin was a fundamentally sound 3d printer and most everything after it got progressively more complicated and expensive. Take the extruder:


The drive block is so simple, that the source can be converted into a laser cut variant in a matter of minutes. I'd say that it's so easy, I could do it in less than 10 minutes, if that. I'm so confident in this, I'm doing it tomorrow on my lunch break.

So my question is this: Why has this concept been overlooked for so long?
This could be the most affordable extrusion system in existence, yet, it's never been improved upon in a meaningful way for active design standards.

Everyone wants to shove their ideas down our throats. That's understandable. People want to leave their mark in the reprap universe. But what's lacking in 3d printer design is taking an idea that works and expanding upon it, which in a nut shell, is the whole philosophy of the open source movement.

there is a darwin section in the main forms. You would only be called crazy, which fits right in with all of us! edit changes there to the orignal. actually there is a following for the original. I remember dealing with all the fuss, but a new look at the old with what is known know may be good.

the reason why drive system has not been converted to laser: it has several times. look up laser cut on www.thingiverse.com.

also here is a link to the laser cut darwin: [reprap.org] I think it also has dxf files that you would use to make the cuts from. some kerf adjustment may be needed.

also printrbot did the gregs extruder in woodcut parts.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2014 10:45PM by jamesdanielv.