RepRap Sales

I love the RepRap project, it is a great way to learn about manufacturing and engineering. What I am wondering is can I make RepRap systems and sell them to local highschools for their engineering programs, making a bit of profit for my time and effort of course. If I were to do this do I need permission from the creators or anything like that?

Thanks,

~Ryan

There is nothing to stop you from doing that. Keep in mind, though, that if you make and sell something you take responsibility for whether or not it works properly.

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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

First of all, if you're in Europe, there's all those issues with the CE designation, including mandatory (well, not that you must test it, but the device must be within specs, so either you test, or take the chances) laboratory testing for EMI, or fines up to 100k EUR, should the device catch fire or kill someone. If you're in the US, there's the FCC with their designations and certificates which I don't know, but I guess they're pretty similar.

I mean, schools might not be willing to buy something that doesn't have necessary certificates, because when something goes wrong, they're without insurance, they can only sue some random guy who wouldn't be able to pay the damages anyway, and they face negligence charges themselves, for buying things from that random guy and letting students work with an uncertified device.

And something you should take in consideration: The project is open-source for a reason. Unless you got a radical new design and patented it then it would be very hard to sell to schools, because they just ask for 1 printer and make thousands out of it to give to the students as a kit.

I would say: You can do it, but take into consideration that you wont earn enough to cover all of your expenses.

Mr. Seeker Wrote:
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>
> I would say: You can do it, but take into
> consideration that you wont earn enough to cover
> all of your expenses.
>

I don't think that that necessarily follows at all.

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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

Just because something is open source does not mean there is no cost involved, especially for a hardware product like a RepRap. As we are all aware, a full kit of parts for a reprap cost a reasonable about in both time and money to organise; and as bits from bytes and makerbot show, there is a thriving market for 'pre-built' kits.

Licencing wise, there's no problem with doing this, you just need to ensure you include the source to anything you have added or modified and include a copy of the GPL. You can't stop them printing more of course, but the value-add is in the time involved in providing a turn-key solution.

I have no idea about certification requirements, so I will bow to Enleth's knowledge, but assuming you can sort it somehow, the real issue is going to be; why would a school buy from you rather than somewhere like makerbot or bits from bytes? If you are local and can provide personal support etc, I'd say it sounds like a reasonable idea, and not only helps you fund your build but spreads the RepRap meme to boot.