Discussion/Proposal: Reprap Community Standards

For a while now, I thought that it would be nice to have as a community, a set of standards or specifications that would allow the commutability of parts between machines of different designs, etc. Filament diameters have already found a standard (3mm and 1.75mm), which has greatly simplified the ability to choose other parts to make use of the material.

As an example, just today there was a post about an all metal extruder body. Looking at the part, I thought how nice it looked -- but what if the hot end broke or didn't work for a material I wanted to use? What would happen if I wanted to keep the extruder body but use a different hotend? Wouldn't it be nice if there was a standard groove mount size(s) that would allow adaptability. In the open source community, lack of standards can cause designs to bifurcate rather than unify -- typically for no other reason than because there isn't a specification that exists.

I personally think that standardization is one of the most important things that this community could be doing. Having a defined set of standards I believe can be used to make small companies more competitive with larger companies, while still allowing them to retain autonomy from each other. Companies certainly can't be required to make things adhere to standards, but if a standard is useful, then it will be to their benefit because the customers will want a part that meets standards. Then, in production of their part, the company can state that it meets "Reprap Standard X.XX". Because of this, customers are better served by having a wider selection of parts to fill a given need.

Obviously, development of standards can lead to favoritism, so it is critical that a board is established where each member can prove that they have no financial interests. It is also critical that each standard would be well thought out -- i.e. Does the standard need to exist?, Will the standard interfere with innovation? Should an existing standard be revised to reflect new advancements?

I'm curious to hear what you all think about this idea. It's something that exists in industry in many shapes and forms, but can be extremely valuable. Starting to implement standards can be difficult and I think that the number of standards would have to be very minimal at first and gradually increasing as the community found necessary. If this should happen, I think Reprap should be the place to do it rather than allowing the bigger companies to set the stage.

You might want to read through the pages and pages of heated argument in this thread: Reprap Standard 2012 if you haven't already.

See also the relevant xkcd: Standards.

To be fair, there have been a few successful RepRap standards put into practice, such as the Vertical X Axis Standard.

The Reprap Standard 2012 link is very far from what I had envisioned. That's highly restrictive and doesn't support the innovation that exists in the community. I had to laugh about the xkcd link... that can definitely become the case -- but the open source 3d printing community is very centralized around Reprap, so there's reason to believe that wouldn't be the case.

The vertical x-axis standard is definitely closer to what I had in mind. I think this is more in the spirit of standardization... although I'm really interested in standards that are more platform independent. Things that allow the critical parts of an FDM printer to come together and be more plug and play without necessarily restricting the way that a printer would implement them.

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MattMoses
You might want to read through the pages and pages of heated argument in this thread: Reprap Standard 2012 if you haven't already.

See also the relevant xkcd: Standards.

To be fair, there have been a few successful RepRap standards put into practice, such as the Vertical X Axis Standard.

Sorry for being offtopic a bit, xkcd is one of my favorite sites yay <3

"Fortunately, the charging one has been solved now that we've all standardized on mini-USB. Or is it micro-USB? Shit."

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iquizzle
For a while now, I thought that it would be nice to have as a community, a set of standards or specifications that would allow the commutability of parts between machines of different designs, etc. Filament diameters have already found a standard (3mm and 1.75mm), which has greatly simplified the ability to choose other parts to make use of the material.

That's what I thought, and I think I said as much before. It's also why I objected to the "RepRap Standard 2012" being called a standard.

Interchange of parts is really the key, and would be a benefit. I can see that prohibitive standards could impede innovation, but in many cases there are variations in mature developments which are really unnecessary. For example, I have recently been trying to assemble "Gregs extruders" (I need 9 ). Lots of vendors describe their parts as "gregs" compatible, but don't fit each other. How many variations of groovemount do we need? Yeah, looking at you E3D

I thought exactly the same thing about the metal extruder, "looks great, but how do I mount it?" Especially for the price, I am not expecting to have to machine custom mounting plates.

The xkcd is relevant, there is a tendency to just create more standards. I think a better thing is to consolidate current best practice, and document it, which is sort of what ISO committees to. A standard should not be one size fits all either, e.g., NEMA specify a range of frame sizes.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of tedious, unglamorous work there which requires volunteers. You also might need to validate components against them. It really needs participation from a large chunk of users to get buy in, which tends to create a long drawn out negotiation process.

However, the main thing, is that people (developers, vendors) must want to follow standards, they can't be forced to. As far as I can see, most people don't really want to. I don't think that is due to lack of standards, e.g. G-code is well specified, but that was very loosely followed. The RepRap Gcode is now a big mess, it must be a nightmare for people trying to implement new firmware etc.

I think with a decent push by a few people sufficiently motivated and focussed some standard specifications could be created though. In the absence of any official body or regulatory requirement, we would have to just hope that people want to follow them.

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I have been thinking about this a bit more, and it seems like there are some easy first steps that could be taken that might be helpful without stifling things.

People seem to be generally positive about the Vertical X Axis Standard: it is defined by a simple line drawing on the wiki, you can follow it if you want, and there's no pressure if you don't want to follow it.

There are probably many things that could benefit by having a simple dimensioned line drawing on the wiki that could be used as an informal, optional "standard". We could use the term "voluntary common interface" if people are uneasy about "standard".

Points to reinforce:
1) Following the standard is optional
2) The standards are maintained on the wiki as a convenience to builders and vendors in order to improve the interchangeability of components.

Here's a few ideas for things that could be kept on a "common interfaces" wiki page:

• rod spacings in a Prusa Mendel
• PCB heatbed dimensions
• dimensioned line drawing of a Greg's extruder (including mount points)
• mounting holes in common PCB's (ramps, opto endstop, etc)
• connector part numbers and pinouts for common electrical interfaces

Any other ideas? I realize that most of this information is already out there (except for maybe dimensioned line drawings) but one benefit of putting it all on a single wiki page is that more people may use it if it is easier to find.

If we get really excited about this, we could open small bounties on various documentation projects - say $7 per drawing or something like that... Just enough to motivate someone to take a few minutes, draw something up, and post it.

A RepRap standard is a great idea.

Machines that can share parts would encourage consumers to purchase them.

Maybe a virtual meeting could be held between interested parties that have
an investment in standardizing components to reduce purchasing cost, etc.

Is there a hotend standard, any blueprints, popular hotend mounting brackets, etc, links?

I always was under the impression that a RepRap was such a great concept because one can create their own standards..

I have a MendelMax with a Prusa i3 kind of vertical X-axis. But it's not completely. That already makes it incredibly not-standard. Throw in the bushings I use that nobody else has ever used and voila. But thats what I like, stuff thats different.

A2, you are kidding about investments in standardizing components right? That would halt the development!

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Ohmarinus
A2, you are kidding about investments in standardizing components right? That would halt the development!

No, not necessarily. I think what he is referring to is simple things like the dimensions of a hotend groove mount, or the type of connectors used on a board. Little things that every component of a category has that interacts with another component.

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Oh yes, ofcourse, but those already exist, as you for example say groovemount, this is a variant within a group of standards. It would be cool though to know if a hotend indeed applies to that standard. Something that isn't clear most of the time.