The hated question - Mendel time frame

I know developers, particularly open sources ones with jobs hates this question but I'm just wondering, how far away is Mendel? I'm obviously not expecting a super accurate release date like 9/5/2011 at 03:51:27 UTC just a rough idea like is it likely to be 2010? 2011? 2012? Or maybe even late this year?

I'm well aware of course any estimate is highly tentative and will depend on how things go and development on "Darwin" is ongoing in most aspects. Heck particularly due to the fact I think almost no parts will be reusable (since even the motors are changing) I'm sure work on Darwin will continue anyway.

Cheers

I won't speak for Dr. Bowyer or the rest of the core Reprap team, but I think that the only way that you are going to get at a release date for Mendel is to take a look at the amount of time that it took to get to where we are now with Darwin.

Adrian developed the Mk II extruder, which made everything possible, in about November 2005, iirc. Ed published the first Darwin pics in about March of 2007. The following month, Adrian put together a Darwin as you can see here.

[www.youtube.com]

Subsequent to that, Adrian distributed parts sets made on the Stratasys at Bath University of that early Darwin to those of the core Reprap team who wanted to build one.

By February of 2008 you could buy a Darwin variant made with laser-cut parts from BitsAndBytes in the UK.

Since then, the effort has been aimed at making a more and more reliable Darwin, getting the print quality up to scratch and solving the warping problem. We've made good progress.

I think that before you can get a Mendel you have to come up with a specification for Mendel that gives you an idea of where you want it to go with the design. So far I've only seen three consistent major items on the wish list for Mendel in order of priority.

1) It has to have a support material extruding capability.

2) It has to have multiple tool head capability {ideally a tool head swapper}.

3) It has to be able to print circuit boards.

When you look at that you have to ask yourself whether this is a new machine or just some add-ons to the basic Darwin design.

Recently, Ed at Bath has begun to look at what he calls a "reduced cartesian structure"

[blog.reprap.org]

The idea is to reduce the parts count and complexity of the Darwin design into something that is quite a bit simpler to both replicate and build. That's a super idea that a lot of us have been working on. Whether that represents a Mendel or just Darwin 2.0 is hard to say.

All this is by way of saying that were I you, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Mendel to suddenly jump out at you and make Darwin obsolete. I keep pretty well informed about what sorts of developments are under way and frankly, I don't see anything being developed in secret or not-so-secret labs, mine included, that is going to make that happen any time soon.

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Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison

I think we can see better and more flexible electronics and software sooner.

Go with the current darwin design and give it away as your social responsiblity when your are enticed by the Mendel mechanics later.

I've been thinking about the exact things Forest mentioned. I.e. what exactely is Mendel gonna be if not a simple--not simple as in easy--upgrade to the Darwin. Darwin 2.0 is more the term to use.

However, I suppose it doesn't take a massive change to get us a new version of Ubuntu every so often and they name it something different each time...maybe what we are thinking of as Darwin 2.0 is really just RepRap 2.0 Mendel and RepRap 1.0 Darwin is what we have now.

On the time frame thing, I think we have a while to wait. I haven't seen a successful support extruder head. I haven't seen a successful circuit board printing. I haven't seen a head swapping mechanism in anything but a lash-up demonstration. Those are some pretty big problems to overcome. Not that progress isn't being made, it is. It is just a ways out, IMO.

Demented

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[www.urbansurvivalists.com]

This is just speculation on my part...

I'd expect to see a Mendel design this year and probably even a prototype. I don't expect that to translate into a Mendel kit being available through BfB or RRRF this year.

I wouldn't be surprised, though, to see some of the features for Mendel being made available to Darwin. Something along the lines of "if we do this and this, then it'll work for both Mendel and Darwin". For example, I could see the support and metal heads, plus head swapping being back-ported for Darwin.

I would expect the main Mendel feature that won't be back-ported is the reduced part count, which, if you already have a Darwin, is probably not a big deal.

Again, just my take on things. Nothing "official" in there.

Remind me again where the granule extruder fits on this road map? Is it Darwin 1.1 or a proposed feature for the multiple tool head part of the Mendel? Is it likely that Mendel will support a subtractive tool set as well?

I kind of wonder how wise it is planning these road maps so far in advance. How many steps should there be from Darwin to von Neumann anyway?

I personally would not expect a "clean" break between Darwin and Mendal. Each "Mendal" component will have to be tested and troubleshot (troubleshooted?) and where will that happen but on existing Darwins? Some work on tool swapping has already been done as have steps on paste and metal extruders. A paste extruder allows not only support material, but also flexible (silicone rubber) and ceramic materials and is only a step away from cured resin (thermoset) plastics.
I would imagine that the "official" Mendal transition will occur as a software release that integrates the above referenced capabilities, and which might be matched with a reference machine but would probably operate with a standard Darwin or a Darwin with added capabilities equivalent to a "real" Mendal. I imagine a controller upgrade would be involved.
I would guess that the remainder of 2009 will be focused on stabilizing and bulletproofing Darwin. Work towards Mendal will be going on at the fringes and start to coalesce in 2010 into "beta-level" machines which work but require lots of knowledge, love and care. 2011 could see Mendal where Darwin is today.
I think the filament vs granule extruder will become a parallel track situation where folks will use whatever extruder matches the feedstock they can get locally.
Subtractive capabilities may appear to a limited extent in Mendal but real subtractive CNC requires a lot of new capabilities in terms of both hardware and software and probably will not appear til after Mendal.
Which brings us to the question of what comes after Mendal? Watson?, Crick?, Franklin?
What capabilities? I vote for the ability to pick, place and solder or form in place electrical components (ie the ability to make complete functional circuits) and the ability to work automatically with colored thermoplastics. Also perhaps the ability to integrate the manufacturing requirements of various materials.
None of this is based on inside knowledge, just a feel I get from watching this project for 5 years now. A lot of the hard work is behind us now, I think, we know that we can do what we want to do and have a good idea how. Now we just need to bang it all into shape. Thus the fairly optimistic timeline.

BDolge Wrote:
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>
> I would guess that the remainder of 2009 will be
> focused on stabilizing and bulletproofing Darwin.
>
Yup, I would expect that will be the plan.
>
> Work towards Mendal{sic} will be going on at the
> fringes and start to coalesce in 2010 into
> "beta-level" machines which work but require lots
> of knowledge, love and care.
>

More or less, yes. It is already obvious that the Reprap concept had already speciated even before the Darwin standard machine was widely available.

>
> Subtractive capabilities may appear to a limited extent in Mendal but real
> subtractive CNC requires a lot of new capabilities in terms of both hardware
> and software and probably will not appear til after Mendal.
>
I wouldn't bet on that. Dr. Bowyer, who pretty much controls what goes into an "official" specification for a Reprap machine, isn't all that excited about milling. Mind, his objections come from a career of having done the sort of controls programming that makes machine tools work. Being pigheaded, I got stuck into doing milling with Tommelise 2.0 and I can tell you that the object processing software needed to do milling has only a superficial resemblance to that needed to print objects.

There are going to be Reprap machines out there, mine being one of them, than can do milling. In fact, there is nothing substantive to keep Darwin from doing some light milling aside from a rather massive amount of process software programming.

I don't know if it is going to be Mendel or some other Reprap machine like the Sampo that I am currently trying to write a specification for, but the big challenge for me, at least, is to crank up the percentage of mass printable. Right now with Darwin printed parts make up about 23% of the overall weight of the machine. With the Sampo, I'm shooting for 80-85%.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2009 11:52PM by Forrest Higgs.

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Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison

Thanks for the responses, been interesting to read.

BTW it's not so much that I'm scared of building a Darwin because it will be obsoleted by Mendel so much as although I find the idea rather interesting, the Darwin is more then I can currently afford (being unemployed plus living in NZ means it's probably likely to be more expensive to build*) so I was wondering whether Mendel is likely to be out by the time I may be able to afford something. As interesting as Darwin is, Mendel is of course more so particularly with support material and to a lesser extent multiple heads (to be honest I don't really care about the PCB bit although I understand why it's important to the project).

Cheers

*Yes I know Vik lives in NZ, actually thats how I became aware of the RepRap I saw a discussion on an NZ group. But we're still an isolated country where most non everyday items (and even some everyday ones) cost quite a bit more, if you can even find them, and of course shipping to here is often not cheap. Of course living in NZ does have many benefits but sourcing odd bits and ends cheaply is not one of them.

I think I read this post from 22th December 2008 [blog.reprap.org] before but somehow missed a key point "In addition, it has the components that will allow us to move to the Generation 3 Electronics, which will be needed for RepRap Version II *"Mendel" somtime next year*."

So we have it from the horse's mouth Mendel is supposed to be sometime next year (i.e. now this year). Okay this probably means the initial design work but it's something :-P

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2009 10:18AM by Nil Einne.

Nil Einne Wrote:
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>
> So we have it from the horse's mouth Mendel is
> supposed to be sometime next year (i.e. now this
> year). Okay this probably means the initial design
> work but it's something :-P
>
I suspect that if you put that question to Zach directly he'd be a bit more reticent about the time frame. I think that the core team would very much like for there to be some sort of prototype for Mendel next year. Whether or not a prototype of Mendel, as opposed to some kaizen of Darwin emerges this year is still pretty moot, I think.

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Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison

Forrest Higgs Wrote:
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> I suspect that if you put that question to Zach
> directly he'd be a bit more reticent about the
> time frame. I think that the core team would very
> much like for there to be some sort of prototype
> for Mendel next year. Whether or not a prototype
> of Mendel, as opposed to some kaizen of Darwin
> emerges this year is still pretty moot, I think.

Actually it was Adrian not Zach but I suspect you're otherwise right

Nil Einne Wrote:
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>
> Actually it was Adrian not Zach but I suspect
> you're otherwise right
>
Ah! I beg your pardon. I saw "Sanguino" and read "Zach". My mistake. We may well have a Mendel specification by then, in that case. Adrian's the man who decides such things after listening to the rest of us squawk.

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Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison

Forrest Higgs Wrote:
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> Ah! I beg your pardon. I saw "Sanguino" and read
> "Zach". My mistake. We may well have a Mendel
> specification by then, in that case. Adrian's the
> man who decides such things after listening to the
> rest of us squawk.

Zach isn't the horse's mouth :-P