protection from patents.

This is an untested design but I am posting it here to protect against some greedy nut patenting it.

A standard reprap with a standard Y and standard Z axis. More than one X carriage allows more than one object to be printed at once.
If the 2 objects are the same, movements will be identical, and the printer only needs to initially offset the second x carriage by an arbitrary (as long as it is more than the width of the printed item) amount.
This is an easy retrofit to an existing system and will require changes to the software. Hardware will require an extra stepper driver, a stepper, a complete X carriage and print head.
The slicer needs to include this new dimension. A optosensor can be used to initially locate each of the x carriages in relation to one another.


With this setup we can multiply the speed of the system when producing multiple pieces of the same print.

Something like this picture hack

I think it would be better to mount the extruders on the frame and then use two bowden cables down to the hotends. This is how the RepRapPro Mendel supports three print heads and I suppose could be easily adapted to your suggested arrangement.

Andy

Murray Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This is an untested design but I am posting it
> here to protect against some greedy nut patenting
> it.
> With this setup we can multiply the speed of the
> system when producing multiple pieces of the same
> print.
>
> Something like this picture hack

Good job posting the idea, but it's been discussed a number of times and I think recently Sublime was going to do something similar with adding multiple Tantillus machines in parallel.

The idea has some issues if the extruders are not exactly matched (especially the hobbed bolt/drive) and you would need to use the same filament type and size if driving from one extruder output.
The other issue is controlling the seperate hot-ends and reading thermistors, but that can be resolved in firmware easily enough.

And if they both print well it would speed up manufacture.

---

[richrap.blogspot.com]

Perhaps we need a idea protection against patents, folder in the forum root, so that all ideas can just be logged there. If there are duplicates, so what, the purpose is just to leave a paper trail as ammunition against patent trolls. The makerbot conveyer belt comes to mind. Further discussion and development can happen in the appropriate sub forum but we need to make it as easy as possible for people to log open ideas.
Forum admins out there, what do you think?

I had the same idea independently, so I guess that means it is pretty obvious

Unfortunately, publishing ideas won't stop people patenting them. The concept of prior art or obviousness is much less of a barrier than people think. The USPTO seem to take the view of grant the patent and let the courts sort it out.

If the new patent rules are implemented, a claimant need only prove they independently invented the claims, they don't have to show they invented it first.

Bobc. That's scary.
But to show they invented it independently and patented it first is surely intended for when multiple parties are trying to patent the same item. ie Multiple secret labs working on the same thing. Were not trying to patent, if the idea is public domain, then no one should be able to patent it, or else I'm off to go patent the wheel, and the nail and the button, and screws, and money and...

As I said, prior art is not such an obstacle as you think. There is a long list of frankly ridiculous patents of apparently well known or obvious ideas. People DO patent the equivalent of the wheel. Ever heard of the patent granted for "Paying with a credit card online" (U.S. Patent No. 6,289,319) ?

The point is, once USPTO (or whoever) grant the patent, it requires a lot of money to challange it, even if the patent is pretty bogus. And Patent Offices make money from granting patents, so naturally they have a vested interest in being generous. They don't get fined for granting bogus patents, they actually get more work from appeals and re-examining.

I am not a laywer but I think it gets worse in the US after March 2013.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_to_file_and_first_to_invent

Whoever files the patent frist wins, even if they didn't think of the idea first.

You would also need a much larger print bed unless you are only concerned about printing parts that are less than half the width of the existing bed. A wider bed means you would also need to look into a much more rigid X-Axis. IGUS makes a very nice line of linear slide rail that is relatively inexpensive (~$70 for 1 meter of rail and a carraige).

I would have to agree with other posters on this thread that a directory for "prior art" will mean diddly squat for protecting our IP rights. Even if someone steals your idea and you have proof that they did, are you going to shell out thousands of dollars just to make sure it stays "open"? Unless you are a filthy rich open source philanthropist then probably not.

Instead of having two X-gantries on one X-rail, it would make more sense to have two X-gantries on two X-rails, one behind the other (offset along the Y axis).
That way, when you're not printing double, the printer behaves as normal, with full range of motion and full build platform volume.