Great Migratory Loanable Reprap Box?

I was just thinking that we could start a new way of thinking about community. Maybe someone should eventually start a "Migratory Loanable Reprap Box" like The Great Internet Migratory Box Of Electronics Junk. [tgimboej.org]

My idea involves having a complete medel kit "on loan". Basically someone (maybe it will eventually be me) donates a Reprap for helping others borrow it to print their own parts for their first reprap. And when they are done, they ship it to the next person on the list.

Maybe there could be a few rules associated with the plan. Like each person agrees to pay the shipping, and to replace any parts they accidentally break. And maybe even a time limit like two weeks that they can borrow it for.

I dont know. It's just an idea i thought I'd throw out there.....

Folk are planning on doing an announce in the blog in the next few days:
[reprap.org]

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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!

Usually one should post one opinion at a time, but as I'm currently seek to get started myself, a flurry of thoughts comes along:


1. It's an excellent idea to ask the loan receiver to get electronics and stepper motors running first.


2. Regarding the price: I've seen Mendel parts being sold on eBay for the remarkable sum of $660,-. Some RepRap derivatives exist as well, being sold well over $500,- _with_ electronics. Undoubtly, such prices make some people lick their lips and dreaming of earning $10/hour for watching their machine. Fully assembled machines obviously sell quite fine.

Considering these huge numbers, wouldn't it be sensible to allow RepRappers some sort of reward for their parts as well? Something like an "officially allowed earning", somewhere at the value of the proverbial case beer? I'd happily pay GBP 60,-


3. Regarding loaning full machines I'm wondering what happens to all the RepStraps, once the first set of parts is completed. Could I get one without motors and electronics?


4. What's about the Mini-Mendel? The Mini parts obviously build in less than half the time and tweaking the design slightly to fit standard Mendel stepper motors would make it the better bootstrap machine, IMHO.


Cheers,
Markus

"...allow Reprappers..." ????

Reprappers are free to set up their own loan scheme with any pricing level they want to try out, there is no "allow" involved here.

Mini-mendel is currently less documented and less well-established than Mendel; consequently, it is reputedly (even) more of a challenge to get one built and working. But sure, if someone wants to do a Mini-mendel parts loan scheme, they can do that, too -- are you volunteering to get that going?

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Jonathan

> Reprappers are free [...]

Clearly: Yes. Nevertheless there are written rules and unwritten rules of good practice. The written ones are in the GPL v2. The GPL wasn't written with being applied to hardware in mind, though. It's likely a good idea to diverge not too much from the GPL's mindset when selling GPL'd parts anyways.

Clearly: Yes. Nevertheless there are written rules and unwritten rules of good practice. The written ones are in the GPL v2. The GPL wasn't written with being applied to hardware in mind, though. It's likely a good idea to diverge not too much from the GPL's mindset when selling GPL'd parts anyways.

Agreed, although it is very easy to turn this discussion thread into a whirling gyre of over-analysis and philosophy.

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I imagine if the fellow upstream paid money for his or her parts, he or she will charge the downstream borrower money.

And if it was a gift from upstream, then it will be a gift to downstream.

Hopefully people will print one or two extra pieces, and those extra pieces will eventually accumulate so that the RUG will have two loaner sets circulating, or established RUGs will help start new RUGs. That seems to be the spirit of RepRap and the spirit of the GPL.

That's the idea anyway. It's up to the RUGs and to people to turn the idea into more RepRaps.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/2010 09:04PM by SebastienBailard.

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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!

Whilst I like the idea in principle I can see some very real stumbling blocks with the practical aspects of a linear production process.

ie if the linear chain of loan -> loan -> loan etc is broken, for what ever reason (and their are far too many). Your scheme dies a death and many forum inches will be written about it after the fact with no real progress being made. Where the machine is passed on and on, accumulated wear and tear will eventually kill the process after so many iterations anyway. Particularly as the vitamins wear out.

Alternatively you could adopt a non linear process (Inverse of the pyramid scam). Along covenant lines.

Person A will give you a set of printed parts at materials cost on the covenant (promise) that you will do the same for 3 more people. Broker this via a forum and you have an inverse pyramid scheme.

Where someone breaks the covenant for whatever reason, they should ultimately get at least one set of parts out which just defers the combinatorial explosion a little.

All in all such a scheme has inbuilt redundancy (3 rather than 2 as being the minimum promised distribution) and places a minimum well defined requirement on each participant.

Where a covenanter fails to build their machine and therefore cascades nothing down stream there is enough combinatorial explosion to carry the rest forward irrespective.

I remember posing the question in these forums years ago as to what would the dimensions of the smallest device be that could printout a complete set of parts for Darwin (that was the hot bot of the time) now it would be mended.

A Mini Mendel could well be a best fit for this........

Thoughts for what they are worth.

Cheers

Andy Kirby (aka47)

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

I wish to do something similar to this with my 2nd Mendel (being put together now). My wife has brought up an issue I can't find a good solution for.

RepRap Mendel costs 700-800 to put together, it's worth somewhere between 1000-1500 assembled and fuctioning. Assembled as a portable kit with Pelican case, 5lb of plastic, all the cords, and a calibrated copy of RepG and Skeinforge, that's likely worth 2k to the right person.

How do a loan someone something the size of a suitcase, that's worth as much as a old car, and is in VERY high demand, and feel assured that I will be covered again a huge loss?

What collateral or insurance can I take cheaply that doesn't make it not worth my time?

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repraplogphase.blogspot.com

What collateral or insurance can I take cheaply that doesn't make it not worth my time?

They could give their word?

Or you can affiliate with a congenial institution. Donate the set to the Central Library or that science museum near you, sciworks.org, and have users check out a set of parts/reprap for a few weeks. Then the librarian/curator does the bookkeeping for you.

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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!

As fragile as Mendel is (yes you can stand on the frame, but we *are* talking about a 'precision' machine here), and considering how steep the learning curve is in troubleshooting issues, I don't see a mail-along scheme being very practical. That's completely notwithstanding trust issues, et cetera. It's not even that people would be dishonest; sometimes folks have good intentions but just don't get things done for whatever reason.

I do like the fact that people are working through their local hackspaces (if they exist near them) and things like that. That sort of thing gets locals together working toward common goals, which is great. Other ideas along these lines are more practical, IMHO.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/2010 09:49PM by plasmator.

And frankly, if the borrower is planning on building a RepRap and has all the electronics working, along the metal bits and the other vitamins, it is functionally equivalent to just pass along a set of plastic bits.

But passing along an entire machine will be more fun.

We'll see how it goes.

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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!

It seems perhaps the real point has been lost here. I would have though the most practical thing would be to just loan the plastic Reprapped parts. That is the bottle neck at the moment.

Sending a fully assembled machine around a country or the world seems incredibly problematic.

If you are just loaning the plastic parts.

I think the best way to do this would be rather than borrow them, you replace them when you have the Reprap machine up and running. i.e you don't pull your Reprap apart after spending so much time calibrating the thing to print, you just print a new set of parts and send the new set of parts to the next person on the list.

Perhaps as an incentive (if peoples word, is not enough) the borrower pays a deposit to Paypal (someone would need to setup an account and be trustworthy to administer, not necessarily Paypal but something easy) for the parts $300 US or something.

This deposit would be refunded back into the borrowers Paypal account when the parts have been received by the next person on the list (signature on reciept of parts required?). If the parts don't get sent within 2-4 weeks, the money is used to pay someone else to print the parts and send them on.

That way there is both an incentive to print and send, but in the worst case scenario (which would happen) there is a cash incentive for someone to reprint the parts to keep the ball rolling.

And yes, I think I will try setting this up in Australia when I have my Mendel set up mid to late July.

J

Looks like others are thinking along the same lines

I really like the idea of a plastic parts loan with a deposit to ensure that the recipient prints a replacement set. $300 'escrow' money is probably a reasonable amount for now (considering what Mendel parts go for) but realistically I think you'd want for this to be down around $100 if at all possible.

I think it all depends on ensuring there is an incentive for someone to step in and print a new set for when someone doesn't honour their side of the bargain. This person need to pay for materials, spend the time doing all of the separate prints, send the parts and maybe buy themselves a case of beer for being a nice guy (or gal).
J

Given current demand levels. With the question of who should get the first parts sets.

I would be inclined to offer a plastic parts set for a mini mendel at cost on a lottery basis.

IE take a ticket and there is a draw for each parts set that becomes available. When/if you get a set at cost your number is withdrawn from the pool.

I guess it's a shame that there is no mini mendel ply frame (sort of makerbot style) on ponoko etc.

Cheers

Andy Kirby (aka47)

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

> I guess it's a shame that there is no mini mendel ply frame (sort of makerbot style) on ponoko etc.

If the demand is really that high, it'd be a snap to get injection molded parts manufactured. Is it? Like 1000 (thousand) sets or more?

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Injection molded parts would be a real gamble for who ever did it. Laser cut parts at this point are a better bet. Imagine if someone had made an injection mold version of Darwin. At this point they would likely still be selling sets, but the rod costs on Darwin where enough to make it much more expensive than Mendel with lower reliability.

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repraplogphase.blogspot.com

> Injection molded parts would be a real gamble

Fully agreed. I wouldn't do that without 500 paid preorders.

Also, there's no chance to beat the GBP 40,- price at such (for injection moulding) tiny numbers. Unless one would redesign Mendel to get away with two or three distinct parts, which is becoming off topic for this thread ...

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

A pay it forward chain letter type thing would be interesting. A page on the wiki where people form a chronological line of edits based on the ammount they are willing to pay for a set of plastic parts. The person who has been on the list longest gets bumped to the top of the list, but ultimately: the person who is selling the plastic will be the person who decides who gets the plastic.

Pretty simple system would be $700 deposit for a one month loan. The $700 is deliberately higher than the market price so only people who intend to return the plastic use the service.

Now you just sort users based on the interest they're willing to pay, and weight it chronologically.

I went ahead and made a wiki page for people to use for such a program if there is in fact an interest. I would become a vendor, however I don't have a set of plastic to rent out.

[reprap.org]

I went ahead and made a wiki page for people to use for such a program if there is in fact an interest. I would become a vendor, however I don't have a set of plastic to rent out.

JohnnyCooper, sounds like an interesting idea, and certainly in line with RepRap's celebrated "we have no rules and no official policy" tendencies; I think we'll keep that siloed from the loaner program.

Jonathan, I'd like to give the wiki page for the loaner program a complete going-over tomorrow before Adrian announces the program. Could you relay that "please wait a minute" message to him? I'll have a go at the wiki page tomorrow, after which point you can revise my revision.

(I'm currently traveling and the hotel I'm at doesn't have hot and cold running data. )

-Sebastien Bailard (using a borrowed laptop.)

Quote
Sebastien B
Could you relay that "please wait a minute" message ...

Emailed. I hope you get back to civilization the internetworked world soon

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Jonathan