The next generation of the Reprap concept

The original idea behind the Reprap was a machine that could replicate itself and would evolve as people required. A wonderful idea which has brought us all here today. The problem is that the technology and designs have quickly run into limits due to materials available and the cost of goods needed. I would like to propose an extension to the Reprap concept. I think that reprap should include a sister CNC router or mill machine that would work in symbiosis with current reprap designs. A well build shapeoko could mill some small aluminum parts which would allow us to greatly improve the performance of RepRap machines. Plastic is a great material but it isn't great for everything. You can't print out a print head but you could machine one out of aluminum stock.


Here is another idea of mine, I believe I am the first one with this concept. Down the road I see that we could create a rotating build platform and attach a spindle/router with a ball end router bit on the side of our repraps. After your print, you just rotate the bed and have the spindle/router to smooth out the exterior of the print.


I understand this may be viewed as a step away from the all in one concept behind Reprap. I see it as a step forward or put another way, a step back that will take us many steps forward. Maybe it's time for a Reprap ecology to grow out of the Reprap species.

... the idea of using the RepRap with a millhead and/or modify the frame for higher stiffnes is as old, as RepRap itself - search in the forums with the option "All Dates" set.

There are some projects around CNC-milling in the wiki ... and some other ideas around exchangeable heads for laser-cutting, paste-dispensing, soldering ... and more too ...

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Viktor
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Mill-Printer hybrid machine is a somewhat popular concept for the next generation, but the taskloads are just so vastly different (milling: slow speeds, heavy loads from the cutting forces, very stable fixtures for the workpiece needed, printing: fast movement, no opposing force from the work, smooth and heated build platform needed) that any such machine would be an inferior compromise compared to a dedicated machine of either kind. You would be saving some in hardware (and even that is somewhat doubtful) but at the cost of never milling or printing as well as a dedicated machines do.

I am sure the current designers of reprap probably know what direction to take it. Maybe they don't have a consensus yet, who knows.

But i do think that the reprap is the 'tinkerers version' of the projects' 3d printing device. There is room for an 'ease of use' version. 'Reprap' isn't the right banner to sail that under, because people think of it as "the printer that aims to print printers", and see it as something for tinkerers. It probably has to pander to the public a bit, cover its electronics, not be a kit.(better control.) Of course to be true to openhardware, it has to be 'openable'.

Question then is how do you research in the 'ease of use' direction?

One idea is to try model things better by measuring a bunch of stuff on it, while in normal use. You can also try introduce faults, for instance, see what happens if you nick a hole in filament, and see how the filament drive moves, and extrusion works, when it passes through.

Also if an openhardware printer like that is sold by different people, how do you make sure that either they all work nicely, or that buyers know where (not) to go. Same for the filament. Maybe it isn't possible and shops will have to have different trademarks.

I guess i am throwing ideas here a bit.(Edit: going from the other thread, presumably lulzbot knows a lot of quality management) Next Christmas build a reprap.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/2012 05:42PM by Jasper1984.

Keep an eye out for our RPM (Rapid Prototyping Mill) project. While there are a couple small changes we are implementing before our 100 unit public beta test, we have successfully been able to mill aluminum at 60IPM while still being able to do 3D printing moves of over 300mm/s, using ball screws.

Chelsea - QU-BD

I think that a family of machines that work together to build each other would allow us to create much better and more useful machines. This could culminate into a single machine that does it all but I have a feeling that may have to many compromises to be viable for some time. By expanding the ecology of the reprap to include machines that do work a 3d printer can't do, we can push our designs and our machine designs much further.

Jasper, a kit is still very marketable if you make it easy enough to assemble and get running right. The problem with open souce projects like the reprap is that everybody is focused on what the device does, nobody focuses on the things that make it easy to use. It would not take a huge amount of time for someone to design and assemble a kit that could be put together in 3-4 hours. With a lot of work and possibly some pre-processing steps, that could be down to an hour to assemble or less. From there you just have to write out a manual that any ikea shopper could follow and/or make an assembly video to include with the kit and sell it.

I have found that many engineers and tech guys are kind of lazy when it comes to designing ease of use, that doesn't mean it is hard to research though. It's just hard for them to bend their mind to imagine what the experience is like for the user. If your significant other or children can figure it out with out you doing much more then explaining the basics, it is easy to use. If they have trouble then you need to work to make it simpler to use. There is no such thing as a product that is to easy to use. Although they are not the only company who is good at it, Apple works very hard to make their products easy to use. If you have ever worked with engineers, you will know exactly what I am talking about.

Awesome

jzatopa Wrote:
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> The original idea behind the Reprap was a machine
> that could replicate itself and would evolve as
> people required. A wonderful idea which has
> brought us all here today. The problem is that
> the technology and designs have quickly run into
> limits due to materials available and the cost of
> goods needed.

I think this is a great idea. I'm a big proponent of new materials (See [forums.reprap.org]). Also my friend (DaveyCrocket on reprap) has plans to build an all in one printer and he thinks the key is a robotic arm rather than XYZ gantry. The same arm could do pick and place, PCB making, milling, and printing kind of like how a CNC machine switches tips - expect the arm is more versatile. Crazy stuff. The "do it all replicator" is coming some day soon.

@jzatopa: The point is that 'kit' is a different market segment, and that there is another market segment, that wants things to 'just work'. Those might not want to make a kit, and if you make it a kit, you have to convince them it is easy,(probably in a very small attention span) aswel as make it actually easy.

Honestly, i don't have that much trust in people and i think they'll go for the one-liner explanation and think: 3d printer + kit = for tinkerers.

Besides, as you said, it can be difficult to see what the users experience will be. So if you limit it, you have less to worry about. Bre Pettis also mentioned less support issues is also why Replicator 2 is no longer a kit.(Other issues aside)

Of course, distancing the users from the technology has a significant disadvantage; they don't contribute as much back. On first glance that might be a reason not to do it, and i think more people should be interested in it. But both of those are just facts about the state of things. Most people don't contribute back about the cars they buy either. However, trying to make tinkering with the machine doable should be a goal aswel..

And in (relatively)the far future, maybe kids want to tinker, but their parents say "no, you might break it." That is what happened to desktop PCs, and is one of the reasons the Raspberry Pi exists. According to them it resulted in a significant drop of skills in students as they initially came in.

But going back to the original topic. I am not sure the costs of feeder material, PLA, ABS isnt that expensive, is it? They are just regular plastics. I see 4k$/tonne=4$/kg, pretty damn cheap, but that potentially doesn't deal with variability of the stuff and turning it into filament, but it does suggest to me that prices of filament can still go down quite a bit.

Or do you mean the costs of vitamins? I dunno. Has anyone tried stuff like other electric motors and optical position measurement? The electronics for optical encoding is pretty cheap and otherwise it is translucent sheets with thin lines on it. (So it isn't bad vitamin-wise)

Jasper, kit buyers and out of the box buyers are two different segments but they overlap greatly in this market. On top of that the people who are buying 3d printers currently and for the next 2-5 years are going to be the early adopters. Early adopters are generally willing to deal with extra problems in return for being the first to use technology. In addition to that, people who buy machines that build things are much more willing to build things like kits. Many toys and products are technically kits, the problem is that a makerbot is an engineering challenge currently, not a kit. If open source designs want to compete with out of the box designs we need to make them much easier to assemble. If a kit's joints could snap together and it use color coded pre wired plugs, it could be assembled in a very short amount of time. If you make it easy and fun you can use it as a selling point. We also have a HUGE way to grow before anyone is even close to the "household brand". 99% of people I talk to about 3d printing have never even heard of it, it is still that new. We are where computer printers were in 1980.

Bre Pettis may attribute that to their products not being a kit, it could also be because they are charging for support now. The replicator was an ok design but far from ideal, all you had to do was look at one printing to see that it was not built solid enough. I have not seen a replicator 2.

Plastic is cheap but it isn't nearly as structurable sound as metal. By adding in CNC we open the door to using much more aluminum in our designs. Yes aluminum is more expensive then plastic but if it is used correctly it can build in a much larger value to our printers. With the exception of a few designs, I see way to much movement in the structure of printers, this translates to reduced print quality.

We could use 2 24"X24" plates of 1/4" to 1/2" aluminum plate to make the sides of our machines. If we can machine this AL for a reasonable price (ie a cnc router) we would be able to make a nested flat pack printer that has a huge amount of stability, for a relatively low price. You could make the cross pieces with standard extrusions and use regularly available hardware to connect everything together.

Vitamin pieces may have some cost savings hidden in them but I think the real savings will be in using the available tools and materials more creatively. Hell if someone found a sturdy square metal frame that was mass produced for some other purposes (ie. warehouse racking) you could build larger machines faster and cheaper without reinventing the wheel. I know because I have looked into using warehouse racking to make a large CNC for cheap, IMO it's doable but I don't have the time or money for one just yet.

Simba when you say robotic arm are you talking about something like this?

[vimeo.com]

Holy crap o.o

Yeah got to think bigger, what a cool machine.

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