Prices of repraps today?

VDX Wrote:
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> ... so best way to avoid any trouble and go with
> it would be creating local 'networks' of
> individuals capable and interested in 3D-printing,
> CAD, electronics, hardware and all related areas.

Yes, this a good idea Victor! But in this forum there is no German user Group or I couldn t find it
Local networks of individuals need also virtual networks to start....

> Adrian started his RepRap-idea as a sort of 'viral
> outspread', so anyone interested in 3D-printing
> will get a real chance to do so on his own

I am trying this since some days and I am loosing money (Lehrgeld) because I am noob...Right Now, I don t know, if I better switch to this frame design [www.youtube.com] or it s derivate [hackaday.com]

But as always, where to find this parts in Germany? It s frustrating to have to import such things from USA or Asia...

Thanks for any hint!

I had been hoping to see a price breakthrough as well, but it doesn't seem to be happening. If anything, prices go up as better features are added. If people are shipping as many printers as they can make at $1500, there is no incentive to drop price.

Design wise, there appear to be few ways to shave cost. I think the Mendel design is probably already a model of bare bones design. I think the only way to get costs down significantly is through volume production, which the small companies can't achieve.

Getting reprap printers to the point where they are genuinely plug and play takes a fair amount of unglamorous and time-consuming engineering fine tuning, any company having made the investment is unwilling to share.

The ordbot is nice, but very much a CNC builders approach to Reprap.

I agree bobc.

You know I posted on a youtube video almost 6 months ago and finally received a reply today from someone.

Here is what I said (this was about a mini-lathe that was printed with a reprap)

"RepRap is so cool but it really is Skynet in the making.

The coolest part of RepRap is that it has the potential to remove all manufacturing jobs from the entire world and to remove the jobs at places like Wal-Mart, Target, etc... because we simply make what we need and are no longer being controlled like a bunch of sheeple. The problem is the loss of jobs means no money to buy the 1.75mm/3mm plastic. Sooooo, a paradigm shift is coming where money is no longer a measure of wealth."

Now, I know that was naive but I stand by the fact that the potential is there but if the "3d printing" technology will live up to that potential is another story we will know in a future time. Here is this persons response:

"No. That's not how economics work... Not only will reprap not become anything because the margins for fabrication are already thin, and 3d printing is only worth the time of people with worthless time. Even if it was"

That sentiment he espoused is rampant out there and sometimes I wonder if he will end up being right. The economics part he mentioned I disagree with though because if you can push a button and faster than you can drive to the store to pick up your item it is done for you then throw your current economics dogma out the window as all bets are off BUT it will have to be easy to use as well (the user friendly aspect, as well as the price, will play a huge role in the equation).

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2012 11:04AM by Dark Alchemist.

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I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

@zacbot look under europe/deutschprachiges forum on this site...

tprime Wrote:
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> @zacbot look under europe/deutschprachiges forum
> on this site...


oh man thank you, I didn t see it, because it is the first in the list but the list is in alphabetical order. Hmmm...I will not ask why it is like this, I must not understand everything.

... where are you located?

Look for other RepRappers in your neighbourhood: [forums.reprap.org]

Or for local meetings or fablabs in "Schwarzes Brett" ...

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Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Thank you Viktor, it is erledigt

I go learn in the local Forum and when they throw me out, I come back to the international Forum

bobc Wrote:
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> I had been hoping to see a price breakthrough as
> well, but it doesn't seem to be happening. If
> anything, prices go up as better features are
> added. If people are shipping as many printers as
> they can make at $1500, there is no incentive to
> drop price.
>

> Design wise, there appear to be few ways to shave
> cost. I think the Mendel design is probably
> already a model of bare bones design. I think the
> only way to get costs down significantly is
> through volume production, which the small
> companies can't achieve.
>
> Getting reprap printers to the point where they
> are genuinely plug and play takes a fair amount of
> unglamorous and time-consuming engineering fine
> tuning, any company having made the investment is
> unwilling to share.
>
> The ordbot is nice, but very much a CNC builders
> approach to Reprap.


$1500 is probably a little high for a fully assembled printer, mine is going to be $999 assembled and out of the box "plug and play" i've had to go away from the ramps and sanguinololu boards in favour of somthing a little more industrial just for the reliability and sofar for quite a few months of solid testing of these components i've had more problems with the up! , a lot of people don't realise what it actually takes to source and develop a reliable system like this,

getting the price down through volume would take considerble volume, and being realistic some of us get pretty much the cheapest any company is going to get without sacrificing quality, the only real way to get the price down now is simplifying the design,

Yes, simplifying the design and to be honest I see one part that could be simplified but in the end it would only shave off 10 us dollars. Beyond that I am just not sure how until I get mine up and running.

So far (minus my mod I want to play with) I am in the 500 dollar range for everything self sourced but not including shipping. Tack on another 50-75 dollars for shipping (the metal rods and the motors will be the most costly to ship).

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_______
I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

One thing i really see as a potential 'good thing to happen' with 3d printing is deinstitutionalization of knowledge.(term i noticed skipping through this presentation) Even if 'in the real economy' it doesnt happen, at least hobbyists, if they work in a smart way can extend on each others' work. Or some kind of hobbyist-company mix. There would be openly available designs of many real world appliances.

On the cost side, do realize 'cost' as in labor, well how you count that is how you choose to live. What is having the designs in the community worth to you, and the corresponding power manifacture gives. What is not using the shit you see starry-eyed tools you despise on tv advertise.(i suppose it might me bad from me seeing them that way, but sometimes i do) Maybe in the future appliances will spy on you too,(web of things) foss things make that rather much less likely.

Of course, i want it to succeed 'in the real economy'. It is nice to have jobs that have a guarantee of being useful, rather than ones that exist because it makes money somehow. To be honest, maybe people will gladly shell out what the repraps(and other designs) cost now, of course that depends on the market segment.

Perhaps there should be more focus on that sort of thing. There are different groups, some will gladly shell out more than many of the repraps cost now, but want more ease of use, or want it (mostly) preassembled. Also, some groups may need to be 'reached out to more'. Really you have to figure out what sort of people are in different fora, for instance r/reprap, and this forum you can expose to technical stuff.(so probably relatively early too) I expect r/3dprinting to require a little more intuitive level or 'fun' of approach. For instance 'what did you print this year' was a bit of a theme.(Maybe it still is) Of course, people eventually tire of themes, they grow less patient with submissions. An early submission of that theme may involve a video of someone walking around showing what he printed.(involving time where he is just walking) Something like this( is more informative, but doesnt waste any time, people can choose to everything read or just look.(they may not realize that they can choose though) At the end it might be better to stick to imgur.(unfortunate phenomenom, that)

Quote

I think the only way to get costs down significantly is through volume production, which the small companies can't achieve.

Hmm, are many companies at the top range of rate of production? That could be a reason people reframe from 'reaching out'.(shit the ghost of PR has me) I suppose they could increase volume, but getting external investors probably sucks because they might well break all the ideals.. What are production rate constraints then? Packaging or printing? Has anyones have plans of using multiple(different size) heads just for speed? Might it be worth trying to design packaging machines like stuffing things into ziplocks pockets for instance?

Edit: a lot of this(but not all) is relevant.

I see it as a logical progression. We are at the first stages of the progression to be honest. The next step is to make it simpler to run and bringing the cost down. The next step after that is to detach the human from the machine so the machine will sit there without you ever needing to fiddle with it.

Think of the processes of personal computing printing. We first started out with thermal printers that were costly and the paper was on rolls but didn't last very long either on the roll or after being printed.

Next came along IBM selectric styled printers where it really was a typewriter but had a brain inside it (however simple it was) that allowed the computer to control it. It was costly and bulky and really only caught on with the business crowd.

The next stage was a complete overhaul that removed the print head ball (with its static set font) and replacing it with 9pin print heads. Everything else pretty much remained the same but you could now print various fonts and even do images but we still had spools of ink laden ribbon that always dyed your fingers as you had to spool around the ribbon like you did with the old typewriters. Cost had come down because excess parts were no longer necessary.

The next stage was a simple one to introduce a higher quality print with the advent of the 24 pin print head. The cost went up, by a lot, when it first came out but eventually it was the same as the 9 pin until the 9 pin ceased to be outside of the Okidata work horses.

(I am leaving out laser printers that came way down in costs in this time frame as they still weren't really made for home use.)

Now we had that 24 pin dot matrix technology for some time to come when suddenly arriving on the scene was the bubble jet printer. WOW, a resistor that would heat up and a blob of ink would explode outward onto your paper. That was revolutionary at the time but it brought the parts count down and did one thing to change it all...it removed the user from having to clean heads with "Q-Tips, etc..." or touch anything that would dye their fingers. It was that detachment that we need to strive for.

Now look at the ink jet printer market the actual machine is made for nothing. I know if you take a parts count you could probably build one yourself for peanuts though the corporations let greed come into play and the ink is hideously priced now and they even went so far as to implement timers that even if they sit there never being used when the timer says 0 it will not print though the tanks are full.

So, I see this technology having to go through a similar process and at some distant point Rosie the robot from The Jetsons will be in all of our homes who will have the "3d printer" in side her where she will make you what you need when asked. That keeps the tech out of the dummy's hands (less jamming, fire potential, etc... which means less lawsuit potential) and makes it a commodity not just a techno geek's toy.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/27/2012 11:25AM by Dark Alchemist.

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I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

Hi Dark Alchemist!

I would like to continue participating in this discussion. But please don t get emotional. I am on your side. Ok ?

Quote
The next step is to make it simpler to run...

As a beginner, I still don t understand, why Reprap machines looks this way... I mean, if we had the year 1985, as I was playing with ZX81 (it was my first computer), I could understand, but I don t know, why they are like this after all what we saw in the printing industry. It is like we went back....in time

Quote
...and bringing the cost down.

Who is we ? we as a community? With weach means? The only language that manufacturer understand is the quantity. It means we should stop buying parts alone and create an internal shop that works like kickstarter, you see what I mean? When the quantity is Ok, the shop-manager can place an order.

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Next came along IBM selectric styled printers where....

Do you think, if we had at that point an open source community and network communication like the internet, we would start to build printers? I don t think so, I had and will have no motivation to build a printer. At that time people had typewriter, some had something better like a electronic typewriter, but no one was motivated to build a typewriter. Simply because printing even at that time was nothing new or revolutionary. Printing is something very old and well established.

Comparing a manufacturing machine with a printer, will drives us to ilogical previsions and worse to false strategies to support the new technology.

Zac
I am a beginner, I say a lot of bullshit

Well, yes, people were honestly building their own printers as there were articles telling you how to hack an IBM selectric printer to work on your Commodore 64 computer. So, had there been the Internet you bet it would have been even more of that.

Bringing the cost down is something that needs to happen because I do not look at any of us as the heart of the future of the 3d printer but the mom and pops (the mass consumer) is what will embrace this or not and cost is a huge factor. If they do all sorts of changes will happen but if they don't then it will be relegated to the back of the technological bus.

Simpler to run is a hard one to get right because most people in the world are not techno. They want the ability to press a button on a picture of something they want then in 15 seconds it spits it out someplace. Trying to achieve either of those is a HUGE milestone I am unsure if we even can.

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I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

... Wall-street analysts compare the actual status in DIY-3D-printing with the computer development around 1980, so some similarities should be allowed too

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Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

VDX Wrote:
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> ... Wall-street analysts compare the actual status
> in DIY-3D-printing with the computer development
> around 1980, so some similarities should be
> allowed too
Great, I have lived long enough to be a witness to both and this is why I do see a similarity only back then we didn't have this thing called an internet. Sure, we had Bulletin Board Systems but nothing on a large grand scheme like the internet today. The best you would have had was a blue boxer who was calling into your system from somewhere else in the world to circumvent the toll charges just to participate. Some carry that mark with them today while others never got caught but it was never ever about the breaking of the law it was always about learning and branching out. Strike a pose in 2012 and you have the world at your fingertips with no real scare of the Feds coming to your door.

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_______
I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

> ... Wall-street analysts compare the actual status
> in DIY-3D-printing with the computer development
> around 1980, so some similarities should be
> allowed too winking smiley

yes sure, there are many similarities...It s new...it looks like a revolution...but it is a also a prophet of hard times for many people and for the first time for the mass industry itself. This is the "fine" difference between the printer and this machines we are building.

The normal printer created thousands, maybe millions of jobs, that s why the industry was motivated to make it right, support it, sell it. This is not the case for this machine, if it arrives at homes.

I noticed this some years ago, as I had to build voice over ip Networks for the first time. Suddenly, I was the "telco guy", but I had nothing to do with telecoms...The Computer makes people useless, on the other hands, it makes people which control the computer, useful.

If this continue with the same logic (observe, now we are making things), computer people will be the manufacturer of tomorrow. A lot of people will be jobless.

Yes sure, there are many similarities but it is incomparable, at least for me.

I am a beginner, I say a lot of bullshit

Not as incomparable as you might think because both technologies removed jobs. The old print shops (there is a reason the first major success of a printing program was called Printshop) were removed because you could print it right at home and the 3d printer threatens a lot of manufacturing jobs.

Lets face it if people can make an object faster than they can drive to the shop/store and take the time to get back (this doesn't include the wear and tear on the automobile nor the price of petrol) China is sunk.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/27/2012 03:07PM by Dark Alchemist.

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_______
I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

A big physical difference between 3d and 2d printers is that 2d printers can do with miniscule amounts of material.(glueing fine material together is probably closest 2d printing gets to 3d, but the material must still be consistently laid out) I also have doubts with comparisons with computers in the 1980's. From what i see, I expect spread of 3d printers to take shorter than 15-20 years?

We should really try leverage the internet, i mean, put stuff in the wiki. This is a bbs; we can condense ideals better than a bulletin board. For instance sometimes an article refers to specific research GranuleExtruder, but that can miss things, the goal is filament production, having a page that way allows for more overview.(But i didnt really know enough to compare different methods)

About wikifying, could make a press and internet forum list, with characterization, as i talked about before. But the intention is that open source people use it, and there is no guarantee that that is actually what would happen?

Dark Alchemist Wrote:
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> Not as incomparable as you might think because
> both technologies removed jobs. The old print
> shops (there is a reason the first major success
> of a printing program was called Printshop) were
> removed because you could print it right at home
> and the 3d printer threatens a lot of
> manufacturing jobs.

Yes this is also true, but it is not the same scale. The normal printer removed jobs in the print business. These machines will remove a lot of jobs in different business. That s why I think it is is not comparable.

Please take in consideration, I am not talking only about the "3D Printer". You can change it to a laser or Mill or Water... the tool attached is not the point, but the one who is contronling the tool, and how good it is in the doing the job...and it is good, because it is a computer.

Yes, Skynet is comming and we can t stop it.

I am a beginner, I say a lot of bullshit

A physical difference yes but the change to the economical system is the same only with a 3d printer it has the possibility to be on a grander/larger scale and as far as your doubts about the comparison to computers taking off in the early 1980's there should not be any simply because today we have the internet and back then we didn't. Fact is the people behind FOSS have very rose colored glasses on and the real world doesn't work around FOSS no matter how much you wish it would.

Capitalism is king and a huge motivator to the human race is to get dirty rotten filthy rich whereas FOSS expects you to do something for the betterment of mankind. That is all nice and fuzzy feeling it doesn't feed your family whereas the first prospect does.

So, there are driving forces even beyond that which any of us could dream of but I don't think FOSS is the ultimate answer to getting this to take off. We have some severely stupid people in this world and a whole lot of self centered people and you mix those two together you will never see a 3d printer centered around the FOSS ideal ever really taking off.

Don't get me wrong because I feel this world will ultimately end up with a FOSS mentality but not until the demise of all forms of currency.

KISS is part of the equation. Keep it low cost (reason WalMart is the world's largest retailer for good or bad). Keep it where the dummies can use it without fear of burning themselves or their house down. Make it where it is visually appealing to the decor of the home and not something stuck in the garage. Get the print speed up 10 fold and the print quality up 2 fold. You do all of that and you will have not only a success but a phenomenal success.

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_______
I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.