Documentation vs Replication

I am in the process of printing the last 10 pieces for a Mendel. I am now at a fork in the road of my plan. I can either sell the parts, or build what I have myself. The point of my project is to have my RepRaps constantly replicate, hopefully to a point where my office has 5+ printers all going at one time.

IF is keep the parts, I am going to put together a video like the Makerbot video set I made [www.youtube.com]. I will then some time in the next 3 weeks will have a 2nd functioning printer, still ONLY printing Mendel parts.

IF I sell the parts, all proceeds go to plastic, bolt, rod, and bearings for the next 2 printers. Will likely start a small online store selling precut rod, and hardware kits within the next few weeks, but the NEXT printer would be for replication only.

I really don't know what to do. Which would be better for the community?

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repraplogphase.blogspot.com

I'd say selling the parts would benefit the community more than building a set. There are lots of people experimenting, but only a few people have parts to sell. Selling your new set will provide for one more person to start working. I would say alternate between a set for you, and a set for the community.

I disagree, he stated that he intends to start producing Mendel parts with the machine that he produces. That would be two machines producing parts instead of one. There is no guarantee that the person he sells the parts to will create any Mendel parts to sell!

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Bob Morrison
Wörth am Rhein, Germany
"Luke, use the source!"
BLOG - PHOTOS - Thingiverse

Sounds like a good idea. My plan currently is to put a google checkout button on my blog, considering I can sell on there for 3% commission + .75 cent. That works out to be about the same as a Paypal sell, but with a better interface, and more protection.

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repraplogphase.blogspot.com

Mathamaticly, if I want to run a Mendel Facotry, with Zero additional money, I have to follow the following pattern.

Sell the 1st, build a second, from that point forward it's sell 2 build 1. This is assuming the average $300 for a printed set. If they go for $200 I have to sell 3 to build 1.

I can build the 1st 1 off 1 sold because I already have to hardware and rod.

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repraplogphase.blogspot.com

spacexula Wrote:
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> Sell the 1st, build a second, from that point
> forward it's sell 2 build 1. This is assuming the
> average $300 for a printed set. If they go for
> $200 I have to sell 3 to build 1.

You seem to be getting the electronics, power,
TIME, extruders, SPACE, nuts, bolts, threaded rods
and replacement parts very cheap to get this cut.

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If my sole goal would be to produce Mendel-parts.
Then my aproach would be to
a) get a printer that is known for it´s reliability like the RepMan.
and
b) produce molds with it and cast the parts from epoxy resin with
no maintenance, little effort and maximum output.

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MarcusWolschon Wrote:
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> If my sole goal would be to produce Mendel-parts.
> Then my aproach would be to
> a) get a printer that is known for it´s
> reliability like the RepMan.
> and
> b) produce molds with it and cast the parts from
> epoxy resin with
> no maintenance, little effort and maximum output.

As already discussed in a number of threads some of the RP parts are very difficult (if not impossible) to do in resin due to the number of rods that would be required. In addition epoxy resin is supposedly very expensive.

Obviously some of the parts could be done very easily using this method.

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Bob Morrison
Wörth am Rhein, Germany
"Luke, use the source!"
BLOG - PHOTOS - Thingiverse

rhmorrison Wrote:
> As already discussed in a number of threads some
> of the RP parts are very difficult (if not
> impossible) to do in resin due to the number of
> rods that would be required.

That is 20 seconds on a drill compared to 7 hours to
print 2 frame vertex (to name the most prominent part).


> In addition epoxy
> resin is supposedly very expensive.

It´s cheap compared to the work-time required to
babysit a printer for 100+ hours and compated to
the selling price of the parts.

Every car-shop has epoxy by the liter for maybe
20eur.

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I only use open source. Linux, Blender, AOI, etc. I refuse to use BfB products until they are open source.

None the less Makerbot prints quicker, and is slightly less reliable.

By the number I have run it takes between 600-700 hundred to build a Mendel if you don't use precision rods. I purchased a bundle of 8mm rods (10 rods) for $5 a rod.

Smooth rod (non precision) rod can be had for $4-5 a rod.

Will be using newer minimum bearing versions of Mendel that are coming out right now for my printers.

As far as babysitting, I just tell my bot to heat, Zero, and print, takes 5-6 minutes to get it warmed up, and I don't have to touch it till it's about done (I set a timer so I am right there), I use a serial production g-code, so it stays at temp and zero, so all I have to do is select another s3g and print again.

At present I have 13 hours of printing left, and have printed for 56 hours. Not bad considering most the time I am doing school work, or playing with my daughter.

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repraplogphase.blogspot.com

I no longer have to babysit my machine. I just tell it to print a bed full of objects, leave it running, peel them off and they are ready to use and the machine ready to print again. That has got to be less labour than moulding and drilling and the material cost is probably similar as I only use 25% fill.

I don't see any reason why Mendel can't be the same. Nothing on the mechanical side looks like it will wear out quickly or work loose. I think with a geared stepper extruder and a heated Kapton bed (or un-heated bed with blue tape for PLA) it will be the same print and peel cycle. That will really boost the self replication rate.

I will aim to get my Darwin and Mendel running in the next month to prove this.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2010 04:19AM by nophead.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

spacexula Wrote:
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> I only use open source. Linux, Blender, AOI, etc.
> I refuse to use BfB products until they are open
> source.

The firmware is open source since quite a while.


> None the less Makerbot prints quicker, and is
> slightly less reliable.

Interesting.
How many mm/s feed-rate at what layer-height and flow-rate
do you get?
I`d like to compare when I tune some settings on mine for speed.

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Spacexula,

I think the answer to your question comes down to how reliable your system is. I printed a set of parts to build a Mendel on my Darwin and tried to build up the Mendel myself while printing over stuff off on my Darwin. Unfortunately the Darwin wasn't quite as reliable as I needed it to be and I didn't spend much time on the Mendel. For me, it made more sense to give the parts to someone else so we could work in parallel.

If my Darwin were more reliable, I could have built the Mendel up quickly since I've gained a lot of experience building the Darwin. I'd likely get the second generation Mendel parts finished faster than a new builder could get the Mendel built up and running reliably.

Note: My big issue with the Darwin was that I switched from ABS to PLA and had lots of troubles with the PLA. That is mostly resolved now.

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Darwin clone, Gen 2 electronics, Arduino Duemilanove w/ AtMega328, 5D Firmware, Pinchwheel extruder
[www.codeerrors.com]

I no longer have to babysit my machine. I just tell it to print a bed full of objects, leave it running, peel them off and they are ready to use and the machine ready to print again. That has got to be less labour than moulding and drilling and the material cost is probably similar as I only use 25% fill.

Labour yes.

Regarding material cost, polymer concrete is 2eur/L or 5eur/L assuming a fill fraction of 90% or 75% sand and rock. (I have not tried it yet, and so I'm fuzzy about the numbers.)

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I imagine that once people have done up good molds for Mendel and post-mendels, replication might involve one machine frantically printing molds, and a user pouring molds for n sets of parts at a time.

n might become a very large number.

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All this really depends on what tooling people have and what processes people are comfortable with. I agree that Mendel is not optimized for mold-making.