Making the case for the RepRap Industrial Revolution.

Listening to the resent sourceforge.net video cast, I realized that the insect/plant metaphor could also be extended to another analogy, which is agriculture.
RepRap at its core is about turning mechanical automation into a sustainable model which can better society.

I propose there is an economic model that can allow individuals to profit from this open source model that is both good for the project and for society as a whole.


I would like to invite discussion on this topic, as RepRap seems to be on the verge of truly maturing.
Thank you.

Here's a recent discussion to look at: [forums.reprap.org]

I think you'll be able to draw a lot of parallels between Reprap and software/music/movies. Blank CDs/DVDs cost little. The money is not in the materials, but what's on them. Likewise, the money won't be in printing parts, but providing the details on how to print the parts (g-code?). And of course, they'll be freeware and pirating.

Currently, Makerbot & Bits from Bytes seem to be making money from Reprap, or at least not losing it.

Thanks for the link, I wasn't thinking in those terms but they did answer some questions I didn't know to ask.

Let me just lay it out there.

RepRap is like a compiler. It takes a dirty and thankless task and makes it easier because its automated. The software compiler didn't spark the computer revolution by giving everyone at home the chance to write whatever code they wanted, it allowed more complex software to be written that wasn't possible before.

Agriculture has a lot of lessons in how to take a renewable resource and exploit its properties while allowing it to propagate in a controlled fashion.

And finally open source software that is profitable shows us that the money being made is by enabling others to do what they want more cheaply than anyone else. Software isn't a product, but a tool. The design of the tool itself isn't nearly as important as how it is used. That is what people pay for in the end.

RepRap holds the promise of bringing diversity into the material world while reducing waist. Instead of a five identical tea cup society, we might see one meaningful and beautiful one.

You'll notice a bit of cloud gazing in my thoughts, but I'm considering chasing that cloud since the economy is bad, I'm young, and no one is really doing anything interesting with all that supposed Venture Capital millions except web 2.0 crap.

Good luck on figuring out how to monetise reprap well enough to interest a venture capitalist.

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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

Well, I think that the idea is partially the opposite of that. I mean, not needing a previous facility of any kind. This is: a factory or any kind of big amount of money. Simply your skills if you are good enough to design and print something.

A venture capitalist only will get into it if he has a guarantee that he will be the only one (at least for some time) to have or use this printers. But the idea of these printers is exactly the opposite one, trying to eliminate the entry barriers in the form of needed amount of money (or facility or factory or anything) to start the business (or simply to print one item that you need).

Reading those interesting ideas, 3-questions pop up in my head:

- You will still need a largescale (industrial style) supply-chain for the material you are printing with?
- How do you make sure the material and it's production is sustainable?
- If really many bigscale industries will die as a result of the new printing technology - what will happen to all the people earning their living out of these industries (sustainable or not...)?

Any thoughts on those?

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Good luck on figuring out how to monetise reprap well enough to interest a venture capitalist.

Well, I can imagine you can make money on the CAD-designs... Set up a webshop for CAD-designs you can print with a reprap (or any other 3D printer). I would pay 3€ for a design of a replacement part of my WII-controller for example

It is my understanding that one of the reasons that PLA is so popular with the RepRap crowd is that it is a plastic that can be made from natural ingredients. Also, not all RepRap designs require a lot of metal. Delta robots and some of the scara robot designs are especially good at this.

With the addition of ceramics, I think we might even be able to completely replace metals all together, but this remains to be seen.

Large scale industry will always be more effective at niche productions that benefit from specialized machinery. RepRap is unlikely to go down that route, while instead it will favor flexibility and economy over speed and volume. But I could be wrong.

On the topic of the gradual shift from manual/skilled labor to automated labor, this problem is already an issue and will be one of the greatest challenges society will face. Simply because the economic paradigm doesn't work particularly well in a world where the need for labor industries is minimal.

It is likely that there will be an even larger shift towards service industries. This is already happening in the US and parts of Europe, and I don't see the trend reversing ever. This means, more coffee shop workers,more support technicians, more web 2.0 programmers, and more business managers. Not to mention more musicians. It also poses the potential for huge sums of capital to congregate into the hands of a few legacy corporation entities. This is partly because the barrier of entry in specialized markets can be horrendous, not to mention the erection of legal barriers to protect these industries.

The most interesting shift will be in the sectors where there isn't already a dominate market leader. We'll probably see some interesting developments in 3D printing, space flight, unmanned cars/planes, and robotics. Also, I think we'll see a huge explosion in the DIY field where people turn this into full time jobs (more than those who already have) and R&D shops.

I think the biggest reason PLA is popular is that it is printable without a raft or a heated bead :-)
That's the reason I use it anyways. Made from natural ingredients is nice too.

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At the moment I see two primary impacts the reprap could have.

The first is continuing with the reprap philosophy so that future generations of machines are literally self reproducing. If not entirely, at least to the point where the parts they can't make themselves are stock commodities or raw materials. (for example, the extrusion nozzle will probably be the hardest part to make self-reproducing, not counting electronics). Once the technology matures to that point the reprap could become a new paradigm: mechanical agriculture. Because the "plant" can make new copies of itself, in addition to arbitrary useful things, you wouldn't so much have a factory as you'd have a field. A person in charge of a field of repraps wouldn't be a foreman so much as a farmer. It would make the phrase "industrial agriculture" mean something totally different.

The second is continuing with the makerbot philosophy so that future generations of machines become increasingly capable, without becoming self-reproducing. I think there's a natural dichotomy there. The machines have to be inherently simple to be able to make themselves. Increasing their arbitrary utility will require numerous exotic materials and mechanisms that just won't be self-reproducible for reasons of basic physics and chemistry. (for example, the ABP greatly increases the utility, but how do you get the robot to print out a conveyor belt that's resistant to the same temperatures it was made at).

I think that there will be two primary markets: people who "farm" repraps by basically putting a lot of them in a "field", having them make things, and harvesting the results. The things such a farm could produce will be limited, but the quick turnaround will make up for it. The other primary market will be for people who want a Star Trek replicator. They'll gradually combine more and more processes into one machine until eventually the machine can make nearly anything...except for itself. This market will be just like standard industries if for no other reason then that many of the materials it will use and methods it will use for processing them will be too dangerous to avoid regulation.

So, basically, I see two parallel tracks of development:
1) designs that aim to be able to make absolutely anything at all, and don't worry about self-replication
2) designs that aim to self-replicate, and don't worry about making absolutely anything at all

I'm interested in
3) designs that aim to self-replicate, and try to also make everything else
myself.

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-Sebastien, RepRap.org library gnome.

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Remember, you're all RepRap developers (once you've joined the super-secret developer mailing list), and the wiki, RepRap.org, [reprap.org] is for everyone and everything!

Good luck on figuring out how to monetise reprap well enough to interest a venture capitalist.

Hmm... You do realize it's perfectly doable. The only problem is that only one person will be able to pull it off successfully... the first one to think of how to do it and have the charisma to make it happen. If only all the charismatic guys I know didn't want to split it 70/30...

The most amazing thing about the reprap is that it puts the means of production into the hands of antyone with a 3d printer (which, in time capn by everyone seeing how as the goal is self replication). Now imagine combining this technology with technologies like the artifical ribosome capable of produncing graphene or super recycleable plastics from virtually any organic material. We wouldnt need to mine raw materials anymore, virtually killing off state capitalism. Asking how to monetize this kind of technology is the wrong question, its how do we transition to a world without scarcity, where agriculture is the only industry not directly impacted, where every factory could be retooled to grow food. The reprap is a social revolution machine, trying to capitalize on it in any long term way ignores the impavts it is going to have on society.

I dont think it is that near to maturing, it seems pretty young to me. No-one is using reprapped vacuum cleaners yet.

Repraps could not be the producers, but also enablers for another style of development of stuff. Maybe one that is more flexible/responsive than existing ones. So then it doesnt need to actually make the items, just be a quicker way of prototyping. (Edit: for instance open source collaboration produces the first users aswel as the thing itself; that decreases the cost of education and awareness)

People are thinking how to make a living off it. 'Which is good, but it does presume the context of the society and economic system they're making money in. But i dont think that context should be above criticism/discussion, even though it is hard to see how things should work otherwise.(edit: especially if it is an 'industrial revolution') Personally i think open source and technologies/communities should be used to make more of peoples' time under their own control. Less work and less self-image based on work.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2013 03:52PM by Jasper1984.

I recently took some reprap machines to a hobby shop and did demonstrations on the technology for a few weekends. At first it was a jaw dropping experience as people did not believe that this was possible and could be done affordably, but some people had read about the technology.

But there were issues. It took too long to initiate prints because of heat up time for some people to remain around to see a print start, and also it took too long in general for items of interest for people to stay around to see how they printed, such as a yoda figure, or a set of bearings.

I had one person walk by it time and time again, and did not realize it was printing something until he walked by it an hour later and noticed it was printing higher. I was doing 150 micron print layers.

I had one person state to me it was not a printer because he had seen one that placed powder down and printed entire layers at once. this is what zcorp printers do.

People were interested in having parts, made but this was the clincher, they wanted parts copied, and designed, very specific and custom. And of the 4-5 people I talked to about custom parts, they wanted to wait around for them to be designed and printed (not likely something that would happen today)

There also was down time from bad pla feedstock, and other issues, such as the wire mess and accidently unpluging usb data cable (demos should be done with Bluetooth) and the time it took to compile custom prints in the slicer. IF anything don't try that new pla spool vendor supply on a demonstration! (switched from yellow to black. extruder nozzle ened up needing replaced. it was clogged with sand like material.)

Also using a netbook is not going to do you any favors. Use a Mac book air, or pro. Use a Mac so it will do what you ask it too and compile in a reasonable time. Microsoft products don't work well in time crunch situations when you really need things to work flawlessly.

I had several kids interested in the free print outs I was giving away, and one group of kids said there grand dad had a printer that looked similar.


There are several issues with 3d printing currently. Time to print is one of them, also ease of cad file generation such as direct copying of items and also compilation of prints for example time it takes to render g code for an object.

There was a part I was trying to compile for someone, and an hour later it was still slicing in slic3r. There are issues with thingiverse and corrupt stl files. always run downloaded files thru with netfab slicer and repair them.


People really believe that the tech is as advanced as what they see in star trek, and media has them thinking items will be ready within minutes!


What could I have done better? well perhaps do more pre compilations at home, and speed up heat up times to 2 minutes or less. also just bring one pc, and keep a clean space around demo, use wifi or bluetooth and run as much as possible thru sd card.

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I recently took some reprap machines to a hobby shop

Excellent idea!

Perhaps it wasn't so good to offer to print custom parts. Better to show each step of preparation of known parts, then pull the readily compiled parts off the hard disk. Also, let the printer print while you show preparation and print hollow parts to show quicker results.

Also not to forget: for many people, complaining is a way to show recognition.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

"Also using a netbook is not going to do you any favors. Use a Mac book air, or pro. Use a Mac so it will do what you ask it too and compile in a reasonable time. Microsoft products don't work well in time crunch situations when you really need things to work flawlessly. "

Now that is just complete misinformation. You took a shovel to dig a pool, and you are complaining that it was taking too long to do the job.

There is not much difference between Apple and Microsoft (was there ever?), except that at this point Apple is way more evil. DRM and proprietary on everything (from the app store to the power cord), patents on everything to divert profits and kill competition (we hate makerbot for patents, right?), goes to the landfill as not upgradable (my i7 desktop is still in the same case, using the same power supply, some hdds that I had for years), and look what Apple is doing to great software like FCP and Shake used to be. Oh, don't remember Shake, the most amazing editing software ever? That's because Apple bought it and killed it.

And sorry, but a Macbook Air (which unfortunately I'm typing on, as my wife is using my non Apple laptop for performance reasons for work (word processing)) is not the tool for 3d design. It's just a fancy, super expensive netbook for browsing the internet at Starbucks. Underclocked CPU and incapable graphics. Don't try to run blender on it.

I don't see how we can promote open source and Apple in the same sentence. If it was up to Apple, it would only work on proprietary Apple power grid, Apple network, while the user breathing proprietary Apple air.

Linux and open source software. Otherwise it's all the same evil, so let's not pick sides.

"Also using a netbook is not going to do you any favors. Use a Mac book air, or pro. Use a Mac so it will do what you ask it too and compile in a reasonable time. Microsoft products don't work well in time crunch situations when you really need things to work flawlessly. "

i take it you sell these awful things?

the term "netbook" was just another clever marketing term to sell low spec'd notebook pcs, a bit like the word "laptop" as

most of the netbooks out there are quite capable little machines with more than enough "guts" to run things like blender, openscad, freecad ,cambam openoffice and slic3r, what slows these machines down is not so much the graphics capability but all the rubbish running in the background in windows

macos is quickly going the same way, but they are good for anything graphically intensive, just a pity the os is locked down as hard as it is, i'm suprised they don't limit you to running only applicatons that are on the app store - like on the ipad,

i run everything i use for development on linux, with most of the ever increasing bloatware removed, and swap turned off (sudo swapoff -a) , on an acer aspire i can get away with slic3r running in the background openscad a browser irc and vlc playing a movie on a second screen before i start to get things slowing down,


the reprap project as far as i can see is now running a few parallel roads as far as development and the initial idea behind it and there seems to be a trend away from self replication, and heading into more and more building materials like "T-slot" - this stuff is great but simply not available for a reasonable price everywhere (not referring to the USA)
between

at the moment with the right combination of extruder+hotend+electronics we can now put together a printer that within the first 2 to 3 prints can produce very satisfying prints which easily beat the quality of prints like the up!, with a much higher degree of reliability
the bigger problem is that everyone wants a $200-$300 3d printer, in the same way they can go a buy a $45 inkjet printer in their local "international chinese shopfront" eg walmart/bigw the developers of these printers don't really do the reprap community any favours and really shouldn't be supported as they don't tend to publish any developments they have made while at the same time use all the open-source software and hardware for their own capitalistic ends (if they actually come through with the goods)

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I'd hate to comment and start a flame war, but there are start up times, and compile times, as well as keyboard size. it is much easier to type on a full size keyboard. is it fair? its hard to say. linux is great and i use that as well, in fact one of the netbooks i brought for the demos was a dual boot to ubuntu, but there are issues with the time it takes to find comm ports.

if you do a demonstration my personal recommendation is to use an apple product. take it for its worth, your not going to change my mind. there are just too many small issues that creep up.

and no i don't sell apple products, i just use them.


now lets focus this forum section for what it is for, that is progress of reprap.

the good news is people are aware that reprap exists. and 3d printing is getting a lot of news (albeit some is about guns)

but in general people don't really want to design things, they just want to print very specific and customized items.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2013 04:32PM by jamesdanielv.

It is very hard to tell how disruptive technologies will pan out, or even if they will really be disruptive. I really have no crystal ball to predict how 3d printing will turn out.

But I think it is interesting to look at how other technologies have panned out. Information technology puts a huge amount of capability in front of ordinary people. We could all be artists, musicians, artists, software writers etc, at very little cost and also have access to a potentially global market.

There were predictions that everyone would have lots of leisure time and a well-off lifestyle because machines would do all the work.

I think what actually happened is that big business used the new technology to get bigger, and the majority of people stayed as passive consumers. Technology has some niche effects, for example high street branches closed down to be replaced with ATMs, now those ATMs are superseded by contactless payment cards. The people and methods employed change, but ultimately out lifestyle didn't really change much.

I think that is the thing about society in general. There are really few creators, and many consumers. The consumers just aren't really that interested in creating. Fads come along like bread machines, but it seems more the novelty of actually making things that is the draw, after a while people find it easier and cheaper just to buy bread from the local supermarket.

The trend really is towards increasing specialisation, and less localised production.

I don't really see a reason why 3d printing will be much different. People have been given the opportunity before to own the means of production, but the vast majority seem happy to consume product made by faceless corporate giants. Perhaps it is partly due to the success of marketing, but I think it is also down to the fundamental nature of people, and societies.

well said bobc . what i think the 3d market needs is a purpose, some group project that simplifies designing complex items, where users own a part in the design, and need to print it out and fine tweak it. the motivations needs to be there to design, and a group will ease the burden on complex projects. Credit is a high motivator for the 3d groups and also this community. in the next year or so the average cost of 3d machines will be about 600$ built, and about the same cost from the big players.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2013 05:08PM by jamesdanielv.

Yes, the big outlier I didn't mention is Linux. A product largely created by volunteer enthusiasts has become technically and commercially challenging to companies with $billion revenues. So most users of Linux are basically still consumers, rather than creators, they are having a big effect, as Linux goes back into commercial space through things like Linux.

Perhaps there is a third wave yet to come, where big companies essentially collaborate with open source developers to create IP, because open IP can be a big advantage to business, even though it can be a hard job adjusting business models from closed to open.

If that could translate into hardware domain, it would be equally disruptive. Clearly there is some commercial niche for open hardware, perhaps Reprap will be the hardware equivalent of Linux. Really, all Linus did was sow the seed by writing a kernel and put it out there, which is quite similar to what Adrian Bowyer has done.

It is interesting to see so many small companies selling repraps, that must surely be a thorn in the side of larger companies hoping to sell into the innovator/early adopter segments. The usability of Reprap may lag behind what is required for mainstream adoption, but the same was true of Linux for many years. Like Linux, Reprap could continue to improve to the point where it is commercially viable in the mainstream segment versus closed IP products, or even preferable depending on how DRM goes.

jamesdanielv Wrote:
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> but in general people don't really want to design
> things, they just want to print very specific and
> customized items.


very true, and it's quite sad that so many people lack the drive to learn how to do it too, on the other hand customization will most likely go the direction of things like gear generators used by the cnc crowd,

a real reprap industrial revolution i think will come when we have an material we can print with that offers favourable properties that we can make ourselves and for a very cheap/free price at the moment the biggest limiting factor is the print size, and the print-size is limited by raw material cost, hence why there are so few large scale printers (large scale as in go kart to house sizes)

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