Let's reconsider...

I've just come back from the mwrrf (midwest reprap festival) in Elkhart IN. And I met some wonderful people. 99% of the people there had great insight and attitude towards the future of 3d printing. I met alot of cool people and discovered more about 3d printing than I had in the last couple years that I have been following the reprap movement.

But there was one thing that bothered me. I was there almost exclusively to meet Joseph Prusa. He has been a great source of inspiration for me to build my own reprap. I was even reconsidering my own designs; to incorporate the I3 in my builds.

When I met him, it I felt like I was meeting a celebrity. I've been following his blog and his occupy thingiverse movement and was swayed towards his side initially. However, there is a slight problem. You see, I am a capitalist. I believe in making money.

My first build ever was a cupcake cnc from makerbot, for which I paid $800. I only had 2 Prusa Airs built and I heard we were trying to break the Guinness world record, which I later found out was zero, for the most 3d printers working at once. So I brought my cupcake with me, since it's "technically" a reprap.

Well, Mr. Prusa saw this and was instantly disgusted with me. I was very courteous... and let's just say, he was very short.

So I got to thinking; What's so evil about makerbot? There just another company trying to turn a profit in hard times. They do what they have to do for there investors. Don't get me wrong. I am a big believer in the open source movement. But for Mr. Prusa to call them "fakerbot," what's his problem?

Somewhere tonight there is a plane leaving out of Chicago with a very mean hearted heckler of American enterprise. With all due respect to Mr. Prusa, where ever he's flying to, he should stay there and keep his BS to himself.

I'm with Prusa on the Makerbot thing. Money only ever corrupts and ruins good things.

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I too must say I am with prusa. Not to say its okay to be rude but makerbot to me is a marketing campaign, not a true reprap company. Its is what you get when you only care about money funded by people who only care about money. Companies that make money by putting out a good product and helping to further the industry with innovations and sharing those innovations are the companies I believe that will make it in this industry. Just one mans opinions.

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I'm not a makerbot fanboy. Their prices are obscenely high. But that comes with reputation. I challenge anyone to put out quality products in the US anymore. Go to best buy and find a piece of open source hardware, let alone anything made in America.

ohioplastics Wrote:
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> Go to best buy and find a piece of
> open source hardware

But the point of open hardware is to never need to go to a place like Best Buy. If they start selling open hardware we have failed.

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I seem to remember a time when makerbot was a pretty large part of the reprap supply chain, and did a lot to further the goals of the group. Many makerbots were purchased for the purpose of printing a mendel. Their gen3 electronics were for a time one of the only commercially assembled electronics platforms available.

I have a cupcake, a prusa(V1) and I'm working on a few designs of my own, so I understand the design limitations and shortcomings of the cupcake, but I'm still using it and happy to have the bot.

That said I also understand the idealogical war going on. I just choose not to participate. I think the hobby as a whole is better off with inexpensive (<$20,000) commercial bots out there, even if they are closed source. The more people there are doing 3d printing stuff the more likely it will be that the rest of the world will hear about and want in on the home manufacturing revolution. The more people there are in the ecosystem the stronger it will be.

Also if you truly believe in open source hardware then you have no reason to be worried about makerbot's recent change in philosophy, or any of their other "betrayals" for that matter. The open nature of the reprap and ability to replicate should make commercial manufacturers obsolete in the long run. Just look at how far the price of printed parts has fallen since reprap began.

I think we can coexist quite happily and even benefit from the money grubbing capitalists because they expand the pool of future designers for the generation 9,10,11... reprap.

You put people on a pedestal you'll be disappointed.
You're not going to agree with everyone, and your not going to get along with everyone.
Just because people don't agree with your ideals doesn't make them or for that matter you bad.

But a European coming to my neck of the woods and bashing an American company is a red line. I like the guy, I think Prusa's badass. I like people who say what they think and mean what they say. I guess I'm the same way.

Quote

But a European coming to my neck of the woods and bashing an American company is a red line.

To play off of an internet meme... If this is how you think about the world, you're gonna have a bad time.

Why should anyone's nationality matter? Plenty of Americans hate MBI too, for the same reasons JPrusa does.

I'm kind of curious what you hoped to accomplish with this thread. If your goal was to change peoples' minds about MBI you chose a funny way to go about it.

Nothing wrong with hating MBI. I hate Microsoft, but without it I'd have no job. My way of thinking about he world is to make money. Anything else is gravy. And I promise you, you think about the world that way, you'll have a good time Crispy1.

Just here me out on this. I'm not saying I'm right or wrong. Just be open to the possibility that the future needs private companies. I wish we lived in a utopian society where everything is free and everyone has puppies. And open source hardware wasn't being knocked off by the Chinese for pennies on the dollar. But I live in the real world.

I am disappointed to see so many closed minds here. Smells a little elitist. I think RepRap is great and open source is also great. But I would rather have choices in the world to make it myself or to buy one. I don't own a MBI product but I don't hate them in the least for what they are doing. They are not attacking do it yourself machines (at least not that I can see). Choices are always good. Just have to have an open mind.

Ohio,

Sad to hear you felt that way? There was another mbi cupcake there, which prusa was working on with sgraber for another variant of i3. Good thing is, it's 'Murica and I can respect your right to your opinion. Buuuut,

"I challenge anyone to put out quality products in the US anymore. Go to best buy and find a piece of open source hardware, let alone anything made in America."

FYI, all those big huge tall deltabots? The Rostock MAX's there at the event? Ummmm, they were ALL made 25 miles from mrrf.



BTW, Prusa's on his way, but it's gonna take him a while. He picked up a new ride this mornin' on the way to mrrf, but it's a bit slower than the plane he came on

[youtu.be]

Nope, It's America. You did great putting on the festival. I never did give you the fifty bucks you asked me for but I'd be happy to write you a check. We both have the same agenda. You made a pretty penny of the event. And hopefully, I will too.

BTW... occupy seemecnc.com

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2013 01:15AM by ohioplastics.

The video was pretty funny, but the pic is epic!

I'm gonna have to break down next year and make the 11hr trip...

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... with MBI ist' a bit more problematic

In the beginning of RepRap Zachariah 'Zach Smith' Hoeken was memeber of the coreteam and run the RRF (RepRap Foundation) ... and developed most of the electronics until Gen3.

Then he started MBI with two friends (Bre one of them) ... and was 'dropped' last year

So they essentialli were offsprings of RepRap, but cut their roots and started a 'one-man' show around Bre Pettis 'reinventing' 3D-printing

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

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

Let's reconsider..., what needs to be reconsidered, he has his opinion and you have yours.

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Random Precision

I feel you need both. There are some people who don't want to put together their own machine, they want support, and a warranty. Those support features do cost money as does building a machine.

In my opinion Makerbot isn't as bad as some of the other companies making printers. As long ad they allow parts to be bought at a cheap amount, they can charge for building & testing the machine. What does bother is companies like 3d systems who makes the cube line of printers that use a cartridge based filament that you can only get from them and its more money.

Those are the things I was looking for when I was looking for a printer.and I didn't feel comfortable building my own. I picked a Lulzbot after another company gave me some many run arounds with shipping. I liked that it was built, calibrated,tested, & comes with a 30 return, 90 warrantee, and 1 year support. It wasn't the cheapest, but those features made it worth while to me. They also give money back to the community, they have sponsored the Slic3r development. They also tie you the BOM so you can make your own if you want, excluding all the STLs for the printed parts.

So charging money for something is the American way. There are tons of people printing out the plastic parts (vitamins) and selling them online so people can build their own printers. There are also people charging money to print things for people.

IMHO, charging money is simply a neccessity, in the U.S. and everywhere. At least until you can pay your electricity bill with printed parts.

If you start looking into how Prusa pays his plane ticket to get to this event you might quickly find the differences between him and MakerBot aren't as big as it looks at the first glance. For both, being open source (in various degrees) is a business model. Both are enabled to continue their work because they get paid for the results. Both enhance their work substantially by accepting and refining user contributions. And all this is typical for the whole RepRap community, including me.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

my problem with makerbot is not that they cost to much, or are slow or are not open hardware.
my problem is they are trying to make makerbot a eponym and replace "3D printer" with "makerbot"
also the fact that Bre is trying to become like the next steve jobs. (now thats a guy i really hate)
zach leaving/getting fired is like steve wozniak stopping at apple. the beginning of the end.

anyway, i too look up to prusa but i try not to forget that he is in fact still a young kid who's job it is to have fun.
never grow up, it's a trap.

pieter

Well guys, to sum it up. Ohio, I dont get where you get that idea about me, maybe we just didn't understand each other. I like to joke, a lot.
If you took something personally, I am sorry but you just should say something and not stab me here in the back.

I know about Makerbot more then anyone except employees. I chatted with lot of them and they shared with me even tho they are under heavy NDA and stuff.
You probably don't know that one day we laughed together with Bre about Fakerbot name, do you? The used the word themselves even ;-) Now it is bit different, what makerbot done isn't cool. You can argue about business and shit, but the truth always will be that you can do honest business and make a lot of money. I just dont like hypocrites like Bre, talking open but planning to go closed ;-)

I also have no idea why you are trying to make me look like some fucking communist, I come from family with deep capitalist roots. We had business even during the communism and my parents were strongly repressed thanks to it (not allowed to study, can you imagine that?). I have my own company and I make money, good amout of money. That is why I can fly over and talk to nice folks at other side of planet. It is true, that I cant afford buy huge cars as you do in USA, but I can at least afford some small european ones flickr.com/prusajr ;-)

So get your shit together, you had closest thing to commercial stand there, promoting your company, so send SeeMeeCNC some donation for that opportunity ;-) And realize, what you write here is what ppl find where they put your company name into google ;-)

BTW. I fly back home on Wednesday ;-)

Why not pop in to New Zealand JP?

lotw Wrote:
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> I feel you need both. There are some people who
> don't want to put together their own machine, they
> want support, and a warranty. Those support
> features do cost money as does building a
> machine.

Support and a warranty are not dependent on the product being closed-source.

I think the Linux operating system is a very good example of this. Companies like RedHat and Canonical are good examples of companies that take an open-source package, modify as they see fit and offer support and guarantees as a value-added package to the open-sourced product. If you don't want or need this level of care, you can simply obtain the product without it.

Open-source printers can follow a similar business model, offering pre-built open-source units, possibly with some customization to make their mass-production and end-user support easier and/or more consistent, and offer them with a warranty and customer support packages for an extra charge. For those so inclined, they could build the same printer from scratch without support, or even purchase it as a kit from the company.

One also need not look too far to find many closed-source products all over the world that have terrible customer support.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2013 04:58PM by novakane.

Is it really necessary to get personal?
I'm not American but I've lived in the States for over 20years, trust me there are plenty of assholes and for that matter nice people on either side of the pond.
If you really don't like someone or feel slighted I'm not sure what the value is in turning it into a public pissing match.

bigot: (Noun) One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

Someone pass the popcorn.

I'm very glad Josef took the time to come. He spent more time in airports to get to MRRF than most of us spend packing and driving. His plane ticket cost more than your first Makerbot, and the ticket stub won't print anything. The "Prusa" version of the Mendel simplified RepRap printers and saved tens of thousands of dollars and put more printers in the reach of thousands more people, it was/is a great thing. I hope he comes back, he's more than welcome. Most of us would give him a lift from the airport to the event, and a couch to surf on.

I am not into the "us versus them" mentality, very few of us are. I like the "more the merrier" mentality, out of unique views come great leaps. Most of us don't care where or what kind of machine you have, we just like 3d printing. We like to show, tell, gawk, and drool. MRRF was great.

When Makerbot openly anounced they were going closed source, they offended a lot of people with their actions. It's not an "American" thing, it was a ethics thing. For years they claimed one thing, only to finally proved they believed none of their own assertions. Makerbot did benefit RepRap though, as thousands of RepRaps came to life from being printed from Makerbots (my first came from eBay and the parts were printed on a Thing-O-Matic). But, Makerbot did come out of RepRap though, and that is where the strong feelings both ways come from.

I get that you felt slighted, it happens, but try to resist the urge to flame war and call names. They don't benefit anyone. Try not to piss in the water supply you drink from.

Can I be Eurotrash if I was born in the USA? Is there a HOWTO? Cuz I'd rather be like Prusa than OhioPlastics.

i'll take some popcorn and put 10$ on prusa...

Yay! Internet fight! This place needs some action!