Is RepRap a link lister, a shopping mall, or should it try to support/strengthen development?

If you look into RepRap wiki's recent changes, you'll currently see quite a number of removals from the RepRap Buyer's Guide (starting here). Thejollygrimreaper did that after having a chat with me yesterday (for him it's probably earlier the same day). Likely, this continues on other pages providing links to shops. The problem we try to tackle is a bit difficult to describe, yet I this it's worthwhile.

One of the top goals of RepRap is, next to designing (a) replicatable printer(s), to make printers available to and affordable for everybody. Top strategy to achieve this goal was and is to be Open Source/Open Hardware.

While this worked fine for a while, one of the results of this strategy is, many companies appeared which put their focus solely on copying existing designs. To some extent that's good, but it also de-values development work. In some places, developers do all the hard work, just to see copycats taking away their business opportunities. Undoubtly it's much easier to just sell copies, than to develop and sell the results.

On top of that, quite some of these copycats started to change designs, while keeping the name of the design. On eBay you can find products named "J-Head" which don't even look like a genuine J-Head, much less they work as fine as a J-Head. There are RAMPS boards with too thin copper traces, Arduinos which aren't as reliable as Arduinos, and so on. Result: users can no longer trust what they get, not even when they follow links in the "How to get it" section of a wiki page.

The question now is, is this a welcome development? Undoubtly this kind of competition lowers prices and raises the number of offerings, making printers more available. However, we think this also drastically lowers the user experience, because sometimes parts no longer work the way the name of the part promises. Not to forget, these deviations don't come with design files, so they're not Open Hardware. Putting together a printer becomes sort of a gamble.

The question now is, what do we want RepRap to be? Shall we give free support to all those buying products from copycats, because these copycats are too cheap (or incapable!) to support their customers? Shall we strengthen those doing business without advancing RepRap technology? Shall we encourage people to buy from non-developers? Shall we accept that doing Open Hardware development currently means such work has close to zero value?

Thejollygrimreaper and me agree on that RepRap should at least try to support development and people doing this development. RepRap lives from its developers, not from revenues made by copycats.

One of the measures for re-gaining emphasis on developers is what I described above: remove links to not authentic offerings. A policy could look like this:

1. Add only links to shops/offerings which are either approved by the developer(s) or proven to actually match the open sourced design files.

2. Remove all other shopping links.

3. That's all already.

Good policy? What do you think?

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

It seems that human nature for many people is to shop price and not quality. We have all seen the E3D knockoffs being sold as "all metal J-heads" on certain web sites, and anyone who owns an E3D and studied the engineering details knows that a cooling fan is required but not included in the knockoff packages. Ditto for RAMPS boards that do not have MOSFET heat sinks.

I believe that the deeper philosophical question is whether RepRap wants to embrace the benefits of mass production as an aid to reducing the costs of building printers??? SainSmart and Geeetech can turn out cheap boards with minimal English-language support, but are obviously hurting the original designers and probably unofficially burdening them with providing support for their boards as well.

Maybe a tradeoff is needed, where customers can rate vendors/products like eBay and Amazon do? That way, people shopping for parts know what to expect before they drop the coin on something.....

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vreihen
SainSmart and Geeetech can turn out cheap boards

What's the advantage of this for RepRap? Especially considering it's currently a gamble wether their offerings actually match the claimed design?

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

to a degree the reprap movement already and still depends on mass production on one way or another just through things like nuts ,bolts, screw, bearings , leadscrews most of the electronic components and switches, wire , stepper motors and filament.

the behaviour we should discourage is the outright fraud and false advertising that goes on, if you produce something and give it a name that implies that it is something else then that is fraud and or false advertising. this is in essence what the copy shops are doing,

most of these copy shops can genuinely contribute to the movement with their mas manufacturing capabilities however there is a right way and a wrong way of doing it , in the past this behaviour has been written off by a lot of people with the line "it's an opensource project there is nothing we can do", there is actually plenty we can do, ebay and aliexpress have the ability on their websites to report ads which or counterfeit or fraudulent

price is always factor in anything but ultimately the success of anything in the opensource world should be based on how it performs in practical use, not how cheaply it can be produced in low quality and mass numbers, and certainly not the detriment of the developer or user.

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I agree that we should have some sort of criteria for sellers and shops to meet if they seek to get listed in the wiki, by guiding newcomers to better products, even though they may cost a little more, we will save users a lot of frustration in the long run. (As I learned the hard way!)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2014 08:14PM by 3D-ME.

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Thingiverse Profile

I think that if the copy-shops that don't produce properly made products and still put their links in the wiki we should move their link/label their link as a shopper not to go to. Then, for trying to assert their false advertising, if they are found by other means after someone had checked that page, they can be avoided. Just an idea, but my ideas are often malicious , so cup of salt to be taken.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/2014 11:24AM by MrDoctorDIV.

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Realizer- One who realizes dreams by making them a reality either by possibility or by completion. Also creating or renewing hopes of dreams.
"keep in mind, even the best printer can not print with the best filament if the user is the problem." -Ohmarinus

From a PM:

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Hey ,

I'm working on something which I believe can help bring RepRap and the open source community as a whole the attention it needs , and make us all work together towards post-scarcity using decentralised manufacturing
I believe we can offer our society a whole new meaning of user experience and quality control
My documents are still scattered and unedited so I can't make it public yet , but if your'e interested I can share it with you

Basically I think the copycats issue can be dealt with better approachability and interoperability of projects
Let me know if you're interested

Have a great weekend ,
XXX

Sounds like there's a hidden, private agenda to enhance a public community.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

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Traumflug

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vreihen
SainSmart and Geeetech can turn out cheap boards

What's the advantage of this for RepRap? Especially considering it's currently a gamble wether their offerings actually match the claimed design?

I think that you answered your own question in your opening post:

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Traumflug
One of the top goals of RepRap is, next to designing (a) replicatable printer(s), to make printers available to and affordable for everybody.

While I appreciate the simplicity and ease of assembly of a Generation 7 board even by people with no soldering skills using nails they heated in a fire as soldering tools, I have been down that road a few times and realize that having the option to buy an assembled board for a few dollars more is worth the savings in aggravation and grief...and the best way to make DIY printers available to the largest audience.....

Hehe certainly not hidden or private , there is just a lot more work needed to be done to explain it in a clear way so everyone can relate and I have many more ideas which aren't written yet - so till now I've been contacting people one by one ( even from this community )
I welcome anyone who wants to browse through the sparse materials and provide feedback to pm me , just don't judge cuz it's messy , chaotic and not linear
Basically what I'm trying to do is to create a framework to allow us to live a mindfully open source life

To the subject , Do you think people would buy from copycats if there was an easy , transparent and reliable way to get open source projects as quick as possible ? if we could agree on as a community how much profit a maker should make by making this object/service?
Do we have as a community a way to help evaluating quality control of manufacturing? What incentives do we offer people who choose open source? Can we provide better help to people in achieving goals and desires?
Can copycats really compete with us if they don't offer any advantage besides , maybe in some cases , price?
The problem is we don't even design the systems to allow us to make decisions together or to offer the public a coherent view on different topics - hell we don't even know what projects are in active development right now or if 2 people are working on the same thing ( and if so why aren't they're aware of each other? ) - to an outsider it would seem as if there isn't much development

In my opinion one of the biggest obstacles of public awareness and understanding of reprap is the lack of organization and interactivity of data and sourcing of parts
Wikis are horrible from an UX pov , the data is the main part and we should expose this data in a variety of manners to help people from every background connect and learn

I believe it's up to us to design this future if we want to live in it
I imagine a world where every action you do create wealth for you automatically so you can pursue your passions while our society systems take care of you
where there are no social hierarchies and we each get acknowledged by our real value as we unfold our lives
where there are no barriers for education and creation , and content is the only thing that's judged
where we don't have to prove that we are worth living , but accept the innate greatness of life itself and try to get the most out of everyone however we can
where we don't compete for attention but work together to give everything the attention it needs
where there isn't a need for politics,bureaucracy and other ill fits of this world

fwiw , I know this post probably didn't made a lot of sense

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/2014 09:13PM by Gutz.

A designer without an entrepreneur is a waste of talent. An entrepreneur without a designer is a waste of money. Have both without work ethic and it's a waste of time. Have all three and your 10% there!

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vreihen
I think that you answered your own question in your opening post:

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Traumflug
One of the top goals of RepRap is, next to designing (a) replicatable printer(s), to make printers available to and affordable for everybody.

Perhaps I missed a few bits in my opening post. I consider this goal to be achieved. If you prefer buying over making, the best approach is to buy a readily made printer. Before too long, they'll be even cheaper than DIY'd ones. That's why I think focus should shift from being cheap to being advanced, simple, makeable, reliable technology. Buying is a burden, not an achievement.

The problem with these cheap offerings is, they're unreliable as hell. For example, right now I have three USB-TTL converters on my desk, all of them claiming to be the same thing and looking identical on photos. But they're all different. Different feature set, different pinouts. A huge mess and big source of frustration for makers. That's typical for these cheapo offerings (you named a few such vendors) and, IMHO, has to stop. At least within what RepRap supports.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

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Traumflug
The problem with these cheap offerings is, they're unreliable as hell. For example, right now I have three USB-TTL converters on my desk, all of them claiming to be the same thing and looking identical on photos. But they're all different. Different feature set, different pinouts. A huge mess and big source of frustration for makers. That's typical for these cheapo offerings (you named a few such vendors) and, IMHO, has to stop. At least within what RepRap supports.

This is why I suggested that a feedback system for vendors and their products would be useful, so that people would know that SainSmart appears to use pirated FTDI chips that won't work with OS-X, Geeetech's RAMPS-FD board is an old design that has flaws, that QU-BD's shipping times are quoted in years and not days, and my personal pet peeve that J-heads melt down because they are engineered using materials being pushed to the edge of their usable temperature range with no room for error.....

I can see this turning in to a lesson in ethics and philosophy. It certainly set my mind on a journey this morning. And is a great topic to discuss.

I am neither a developer nor seller, though I aspire to be both. My first simple thought was, make the person that posts a seller link reference link back to the developer with a hyperlink, much like in a written report has to reference its material. That way, at least the developer is recognized, and for those that choose, they can buy from them. I state it that way, because you are never going to stop the counterfeiters from producing the products, but you can make the public aware and with links back to the developer and buyers can make an informed choice.

I will admit that my electronics and hot end are knock offs, but it was also the only way I could afford to build a printer and at the time I don’t know that I fully understood the differences. I will admit to issues I had, burned/melted parts, releasing magic smoke, and have learned my lesson.

There could (and should) also be 2 different seller pages; developer and aftermarket sellers, again making it easier for consumers to make an informed choice.
You must also police those pages, but I think the community would do that if a “report this seller” button is added. Or a comment section for each seller is added. (Though I see that as a nightmare)

A shopping link, to be valid has to match the item being described --- if it doesn't match, then it should be moved to a page which does describe (and provide plans for) the object in question.

I believe that there should also be disclosure as to whether or no royalties are paid to the original designer. My suggestion would be:

- original designer's link
- vendors who pay royalties / have improved (and documented) variations
- clones which match in terms of design and specification

Lastly, a link of alternatives --- alternatives which do not have published plans are not eligible for listing.

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vreihen
This is why I suggested that a feedback system for vendors and their products would be useful

How would you do that if these vendors ...

- don't tell which design exactly they facricated,

- don't mark their products to find out which design it wants to be and

- change their design without notice, keeping the name?

I've seen all of the above.

The only reasonable way I see is to insist on Open Source designs and strict compliance with it. Might be a bit heavy lifting in some places, because Open Source designs tend to have flaws, too, which nobody fixes. Think of Sanguinololus MOSFETs or RAMPS traces towards the heated bed connector, both are well known to be undersized.

People can still buy this gambling stuff, of course, but recommending it by linking it in the wiki would IMHO be misplaced.

How to get people to fix Open Source designs? Well, I currently have no idea. Right now commercial designs are so much in fashion that you almost have to excuse yourself if you put work into the community.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

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Traumflug

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vreihen
This is why I suggested that a feedback system for vendors and their products would be useful

How would you do that if these vendors ...

- don't tell which design exactly they facricated,

- don't mark their products to find out which design it wants to be and

- change their design without notice, keeping the name?

I've seen all of the above.

- why not exposing the ones that do have data integrity and you get exactly what you needed?
are all cases doomed? can we circumvent some using our shared knowledge?

- what more methods exist to figure out which design is it exactly? ( this of course should take into consideration both electronics , tools and consumer products together or in modules )

- for that one I don't have an answer yet , can you provide a specific case so I can see how it's possible to help distinguish between them?

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The only reasonable way I see is to insist on Open Source designs and strict compliance with it. Might be a bit heavy lifting in some places, because Open Source designs tend to have flaws, too, which nobody fixes. Think of Sanguinololus MOSFETs or RAMPS traces towards the heated bed connector, both are well known to be undersized.

Insisting on Open Source designs isn't realistic for the stuff we can't produce good enough yet , we should get the best of both worlds
But we can emphasise in what state we are in our open source projects and set milestones and goals , and push toward development
And we can create a whole ecosystem ( I hate this word ) for open source products which the mass manufacturing ones couldn't compete

I don't know this specific issue , can you explain the barrier? how come no one updated the design? it doesn't seem like a major task for an engineer , does it lack exposure? ( and with that comes the question what are the incentives for someone to fix this issue? )
Can we spread this issue to every engineer in our community so they can look into it and decide if changes need to be done?

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People can still buy this gambling stuff, of course, but recommending it by linking it in the wiki would IMHO be misplaced.

How to get people to fix Open Source designs? Well, I currently have no idea. Right now commercial designs are so much in fashion that you almost have to excuse yourself if you put work into the community.

I have some ideas , lets say we take your example from above and someone fixes the traces - from that point on IMO he should be considered a contributor and part of the developers communities for both the Sanguinololus and Ramps or whatever project it influences ( we can be as specific or as general as we want , I just want to give you the general direction )
Now that we know that he's a contributor , it means he gets paid for every transaction that happens with his contribution - that means that any maker that prints something for a consumer using a ramps or whatever with his fix -> an x% amount of the transaction will be paid to him
This can happen in any level even when a maker-consumer buys the updated board from our community/vendors
The percentage paid can be decided using human-machine collaboration in the related communities

Let's proceed with this example and see how wealth is created but with fairness using human decisions
Let's say a a few transactions like above happened and each community has decided how to treat their wealth differently
The Sanguinololus developers community decided to divide their created wealth equally between members
The Ramps developers community decided that they want to vote on each commit based on different aspecs , or see how much the makers or the consumers appreciate the change
And that a third related community , X , has decided to use an algorithm which estimates the influence of the fix and then they vote or just auto approve

What you get in the end are multiple ways for wealth to build passively for the brave developer who fixed that damn thing
He can then decide whether to build wealth or to cap his wealth per month/year since he has a job and don't need so much money and believe in our cause
The money remaining after the cap is filled can be purposed for r&d , again by what the developer has decided

I personally think that even when a product costs 10% more in our community than traditional manufacturing , a consumer will pay those extra bucks if he knew that those 10% goes to the development team
btw I don't think there is reason that a product would cost more through open source - there is a lot of fog about the price of making something ( this is another thing we'll need to discuss )

edit :
Take a look at this study , there are benefits to copycats - we just need to let the good qualities shine
[medicalxpress.com]

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2014 09:36PM by Gutz.

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Traumflug
How would you do that if these vendors ...

- don't tell which design exactly they facricated,

- don't mark their products to find out which design it wants to be and

- change their design without notice, keeping the name?

Take a step backwards and look at the bigger picture when answering the following question: Does the part that they are selling work? Most people do not care whether their chicken nuggets were fed premium corn when growing, whether their Tessco hamburger has whip marks from the jockey on the side, or that their Wal-Mart ice cream sandwich does not melt in a hot automobile at 45C for 12 hours. They are only concerned about the price, and that the item performs its intended function. As someone with a vested interest in the open-source community and engineering, I understand why the genealogy of the design matters to you and you take this matter personally. I also understand why you (and I) dislike seeing someone taking an open-source design, making unknown changes, and marketing their revision without releasing the revised engineering specs back to the community.

Is there an open-source hardware certification program that verifies licenses and provides a standard logo for items that 100% comply with the requirements and spirit of OSH? Could we even agree on the criteria to use that logo, considering the debate a few months ago about spool standards?????

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vreihen

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Traumflug
How would you do that if these vendors ...

- don't tell which design exactly they facricated,

- don't mark their products to find out which design it wants to be and

- change their design without notice, keeping the name?

Take a step backwards and look at the bigger picture when answering the following question: Does the part that they are selling work? Most people do not care whether their chicken nuggets were fed premium corn when growing, whether their Tessco hamburger has whip marks from the jockey on the side, or that their Wal-Mart ice cream sandwich does not melt in a hot automobile at 45C for 12 hours. They are only concerned about the price, and that the item performs its intended function. As someone with a vested interest in the open-source community and engineering, I understand why the genealogy of the design matters to you and you take this matter personally. I also understand why you (and I) dislike seeing someone taking an open-source design, making unknown changes, and marketing their revision without releasing the revised engineering specs back to the community.

Is there an open-source hardware certification program that verifies licenses and provides a standard logo for items that 100% comply with the requirements and spirit of OSH? Could we even agree on the criteria to use that logo, considering the debate a few months ago about spool standards?????

the questions of how functional these parts may or may not be is not the problem , they are variants of an opensource design and they are free to make and sell as many of them as they like, however the problem is the marketing method they are using which amounts to fraud/false advertising,

by removing all links to them in the wiki for those reasons and through reporting them on Aliexpress and Ebay they have incentive to play a little fairer and stop marketing what they are selling as if it were the genuine article, we are not trying to stop them from selling this stuff just how they sell it, to qualify to stay and be re-added on the wiki it's a case of properly naming what they sell at the very least (ideally and conforming the original licenses they should release sources as well) , the functionality debate will resolved eventually as the variant they are selling has to stand on it's own and develop it's own reputation.

a feedback system would be nice and i'm sure we can construct a wiki page in such a way to act like this, getting people to contribute to it in a positive and negative way is another matter entirely which is why we have a lot of pages on the wiki which are outdated and in some cases very biased towards very specific products and or suppliers, when they should be very general in nature and refer to one of the supplier lists

at some point the supplier lists are going to have to be sorted out and consolidated into something more manageable currently the only contributors to supplier pages are those who are cleaning them up every now and then and those who have something to sell and usually thats the only contribution to the wiki on that account (aside from of course the many links to their website some of them in the past have spammed multiple pages with)

at the end of the day developers don't keep developing unless they see something in return for their efforts, something to note as well is that most of these clone shops have never made the effort to contact the original developers about wholesale pricing instead just going straight to into making their variants

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vreihen
Is there an open-source hardware certification program that verifies licenses and provides a standard logo for items that 100% comply with the requirements and spirit of OSH? Could we even agree on the criteria to use that logo, considering the debate a few months ago about spool standards?????

Open Source Hardware Association. [www.oshwa.org] There is a set of guidelines that must be followed and a logo as well. There is no compliance agency to insure anything about the designs. That's not realistic for a variety of reasons. Another issue is the licensing of open hardware the org supports is counter to what is being discussed on this thread, specifically points that Traumflug makes with regards to who should be able to manufacture a given device. OSHWA is pretty clear, anyone that licenses under OSHWA agrees to allow anyone to manufacture, use or distribute. No barriers. Limor Fried who has done as much or more for open hardware than most also has a take on this subject. [p2pfoundation.net]

Popular designs like the Prusa i3 and RAMPS and others have respective developers that encourage others to build and sell the designs with no barriers or restrictions.. Calling those that actively market those designs pejorative terms like a "copycat' is disrespectful not only the vendors, but to the users and creators of those projects that encourage others to build and/or use their designs. It's fine if a dev doesn't want to participate in that manner, such as Traumflug and his designs. However, trying to impart that on others that wish to do something different by casting aspersions on them is wrong and the antithesis of what Reprap was started to be. It's not about the hardware, per se. it's about empowering people to create using tools that are accessible and relatively low cost.

As for the Wiki, I don't think it should be used as a marketplace. I think the utility of it is in technical documentation. But it's not realistic to keep the commerce out even with a defined policy. I see the best way to choose vendors, or even designs is by word of mouth. It's something people do everyday in meat space and have done for centuries, There are bad parts and bad vendors no doubt. Communicating our experiences will go a long way toward helping others get the right parts.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2014 01:37AM by vegasloki.

Hi Guys,
Personally i would like to see a preferred seller section in this forum where i know that the components i buy would work as intended and that any support given would apply to that particular component and not a slightly diferent version of that part.
But one concern that does come to mind is cost, for example, i wanted a budaschnozzle but i didnt have 100 bucks to spend with Lulzbot. The same or very similar hotend was available for 60 bucks online so i bought it there. I have seen a few comments from others on this forum who also bought the buda end on ebay because 100 bucks was too expensive so i know i am not alone in this view.
In that case I would have preferred to do business with Lulzbot as he/it was the creator of the nozzle but the difference in price was too much in my opinion. I think that if he/it was more cost competetive then less people would buy from the ebay vendors and he would be more well known in the community as the creator of the budaschnozzle and could own the market to some extent.
I understand that the developers deserve payback and would prefer to shop within the sphere of this community but in a world where access to the technology is supposed to be for everyone that sphere needs to be low cost.
Anyway, as stated earlier i would like to see a list of preferred sellers.
Regards
Mike

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2014 06:00AM by mikefiatx19.

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vreihen
answering the following question: Does the part that they are selling work?

The simple answer to this is, and I'm sure you knew this already: one can't know. And it's pointless to evaluate one instance of a thing when the next instance is different.

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vreihen
Is there an open-source hardware certification program

No. You can craft one. @vegasloki showed at least one. You can craft one fitting better to RepRap demands, of course.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2014 05:41AM by Traumflug.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

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vegasloki
Popular designs like the Prusa i3 and RAMPS and others have respective developers that encourage others to build and sell the designs with no barriers or restrictions.. Calling those that actively market those designs pejorative terms like a "copycat' is disrespectful not only the vendors, but to the users and creators of those projects that encourage others to build and/or use their designs.

I don't think that's the issue discussed here. The issue is, these vendors

- sell something as RAMPS/i3/whatever, which actually isn't a RAMPS/i3/whatever and

- they don't respect non-commercial licenses either.

Wether NC is good or not is undoubtly debateable, but also a choice of the designer. RepRap community as well as these vendors should respect that.^[1]

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mikefiatx19
In that case I would have preferred to do business with Lulzbot as he/it was the creator of the nozzle but the difference in price was too much in my opinion.

Budaschnozzle is GPL (without NC), so it's entirely fine to sell and buy (cheaper) copies. If you have such a copy, please compare to the given design files and tell us wether it matches. If it does match, you can add this vendor on the wiki page.


^[1] With some googling you'll undoubtly find claims along the line "GPL isn't Open Source" or "GPL isn't free".

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

I understand and agree with most of the opening post, but one thing: Listing shops that sell PARTS and not just copy machines, are very much in demand.

Getting parts is difficult enough as is, and I think removing the shops completely makes it the hardest quest.. But I agree completely with the rest.

With parts I mean vitamins, from smooth rods to thermistor cables, from bearings to bushings, extrusions to leadscrews....

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2014 07:51AM by Ohmarinus.

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http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

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Ohmarinus
Listing shops that sell PARTS and not just copy machines, are very much in demand.

Yes, undoubtly. Even when taming some of these shops isn't exactly easy. Some tend to put every single variant with a link into the wiki, for example: [reprap.org]

Perhaps more like a table with one link per shop, removing the distinction between pulley vendors and belt vendors. About every shop has, if anything at all, both.

Vendor     Orientation      Types
RRD        RepRap           GT2, T2.5
Misumi     General          MXL, GT2, T2.5, T5
Gates      General ....

That simple. Would that give a better overview? AFAIK, developers tend to have only a vague idea of what they want before they start looking around, so they likely want to see lists instead of single items.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

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Traumflug

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Ohmarinus
Listing shops that sell PARTS and not just copy machines, are very much in demand.

Yes, undoubtly. Even when taming some of these shops isn't exactly easy. Some tend to put every single variant with a link into the wiki, for example: [reprap.org]

Perhaps more like a table with one link per shop, removing the distinction between pulley vendors and belt vendors. About every shop has, if anything at all, both.

Vendor     Orientation      Types
RRD        RepRap           GT2, T2.5
Misumi     General          MXL, GT2, T2.5, T5
Gates      General ....

That simple. Would that give a better overview? AFAIK, developers tend to have only a vague idea of what they want before they start looking around, so they likely want to see lists instead of single items.

that page is crazy, one seller there has 30 links nearly all of them linking to an individual product on their website, its like they have linked their entire catalog in there.. i seriously wonder how valid some of those links still are, I've added that page to my cleanup todo list ,that one is nuts

here's another one the kapton tape page

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2014 02:50PM by thejollygrimreaper.

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