[USA] Average ebay prices for Reprap ABS parts kits $224.33

spanning Sep 26 Oct 07
run today, 10oct2010
search phrase: (Reprap,Mendel) (Parts,Complete) -thick -"Extruder Parts Kit" -nes
US only, completed auctions only

All valid auctions ended in a sale, none expired without a buy-it-now. All 6 this time were "Buy it Now".

(200 + 200 + 221 + 225 + 250 + 250) / 6 = $224.33


earlier thread: [forums.reprap.org]

It amazes me how strong of gravity the $200-$250 price has had. I am really thinking the $200 price point is going to be the floor, that's $50 more than I thought it would be, glad I was wrong!

At $200 that's about $4 an hour for the printing, which is not that bad really, not enough to run a good business model off of, but enough to keep people who like a self sustaining hobby going.

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repraplogphase.blogspot.com

But then again, that's $4/hr per machine.

Yes, the price has actually bounced a little since my last survey. I've also noticed the trend toward "Buy it now" instead of auctions. I guess as long as someone does buy it before you are ready to retail your next set, the price requested was accurate for the market.

spacexula Wrote:
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> It amazes me how strong of gravity the $200-$250
> price has had. I am really thinking the $200
> price point is going to be the floor, that's $50
> more than I thought it would be, glad I was
> wrong!
>
> At $200 that's about $4 an hour for the printing,
> which is not that bad really, not enough to run a
> good business model off of, but enough to keep
> people who like a self sustaining hobby going.

Buback Wrote:
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> But then again, that's $4/hr per machine.

Botfarm, much? Now that's how we should do it. Someone could make a lot of money printing like that, I believe there are two mendel kit-producing Mendel Botfarms as of now... pricing the whole deal at around 900 dollars. But the real question is: How low can it go? As more printers get out in the world, and it's an exponential growth at this point, the supply will go up. Will the demand from the growing base of people grow exponentially along with it? What do you think?

This is a very timely post, as one who is in the market for parts in order to join this hobby (although I like to find work/career justifications ;-). I think that the current cost of parts is one of the things that's holding back the printer growth by the hobbyist, and let's be honest, this stuff requires to much time (build, maintenance, learning curve) to be for the professional market. It's really hard to 'dip your toe in the water' if you don't have the skills to fab things yourself, although I'm trying to figure the best way to do that right now, but that's really a different post. I liked some of spacexula's ideas about essentially paying it forward and I hope to support that once I get my own printer up and running. Anyway, here are some drivers I think affect the price of parts:

1-Laser cut replacement pieces - $189 at Botmill. I'm not sure why people are paying $225+ for parts, unless they're a reprap purist or the quality of the lasercut peices isn't tolerable.
2-Makerbot Cupcake CNC Starter - $649 while they last. I know people like the latest and greatest everything, but if prices don't come down, I think the people who aren't willing to spend $200+ for parts would go that way. I know it's not as good as a Mendel and it's plastruder is so last year, but this is really the cheapest way to get a working 3D printer and if I love the hobby, I can use it to build a Mendel and/or theoretically could sell it and get maybe 80% of my money back. If I use it to build parts then sell it, it would be cheaper than buying parts on ebay. After all, the low end of technology usually holds its prices best (see $300 netbooks, desktops, etc) and you don't really see a lot of downward pressure below $1000 at the moment.

I know you guys have been doing this a while so am I talking crazy?

It kinda seems like makerbot is selling out their stock of basic cupcakes. From their site:

Quote

This is now available for $649 which is a SUPER low price. Buy now, because when they are gone, they are gone!

I think Mendel is cheapest IF you have the tools and know-how. Also, having scrap wood and various stuff around helps.

Actually Huxley is probably cheapest, although i don't know if anybody has various parts kits available for sale yet, so you are probably on your own for sourcing.

If I WERE to do a botmill, i'd go with one Mendel, and make 3 or 4 Huxleys from the Mendel.

Botmill's LC kits are pure crap, tha't why noone is buying it.

The Makerbot price is a limit offer till they are out of the Mk4 kits, but it is a good deal.

In the real world it takes around $600-$700 to get a Mendel together if you print your own parts, and $800-$1000 if you get printed parts from someone. It then takes the average person 1-2 months to train themselfs how to run it. Then your going to start having to replace parts.

If one ran 6 Mendels off Makerbot firmware so they could jump computers, then that would be a FULL TIME JOB just loading unloading and maintaining. So that's around $20-$25 as a self employed person. Which comes out to $15/hr after taxes.

Remember to get that "great" $15 hour wage, 1st you will need to work for free fro 2 months to buy the printers to get there.

That's a crap load of work for what is a good "I don't have a degree" wage.

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repraplogphase.blogspot.com

>...I know you guys have been doing this a while so am I talking crazy?

>...Actually Huxley is probably cheapest, although i don't know if anybody has various parts kits available for sale yet, so you are probably on your own for sourcing...

I've yet to see Huxley for sale on ebay. Some people seem to express the idea that because they print in a third the time a Mendel does, the price ought to be around a third. But it's a hassle to even list something on "feebay", and along with paypal you can figure about 15% right off the top.

The biggest reason (edited to add: IMHO) why I don't see any Huxley kits for sale in the US is that there's not a "paste into website" friendly McMaster-Carr parts list. (edited to add: It's not yet a tuned design. I know of one person who posts here and has a Huxley (whosawhatsis) and his is not stock.)

I've got a beta part's list on my blog for Mendel but it's a derivative of other's work. It was incredibly fine-tuned before I even got my paws on it. Several people spend several hours comparing the width of washers, how to get all the threaded parts out of one less rod, etc.....

You can do a repstrap, but unless your plans come with an already detailed parts list, you will still spend hours and hours picking parts. I'm unaware of any full, complete 80/20 parts list, even though there looks to be several successful repstraps out in the wild.

This week, I'd recommend for US builders either a Makerbot (if available, no backorder, I haven't checked availability myself in months), minding the cost of "add-ons" that may be essential, or a self-sourced Mendel (which is always more difficult to pull together than an "all-inclusive" kit). Next week? Who knows? (And mind you, I'm not yet extruding).

I'm doing a stock Mendel build, but I'm piecing together the electronics from a Seeeduino Mega and those Pololu stepper driver boards. While that's a bit cutting edge, there is good documentation. I'm just getting a little frustrated because I thought I'd be extruding by now. I'm trying to stay under $700. I'll be releasing a tested "McMaster-Carr parts list" as well as a tested "needed assembly tools" list

Second machine will be a Mendel "semi-strap". I think I can trim a significant cost by simple hand fabrication of several parts. I'm also going to go with a RBBB or other clone board and the new "FiveD_on_Arduino" firmware. Aiming for <$500. (I'd have gone this route with the electronics on machine #1 if I'd known their progress was this fast and my progress was this slow)

Third machine may be a brand new repstrap, I'm still drawing on napkins here.

Along the way, I'll be trying to convert my free time into preventing my new hobby from becoming a crazy cash sink. But as I've said before, having an extruding Reprap must be like having a goose that lays silver eggs that are rapidly being debased. You're printing the tools for other people to rapidly undercut your own prices. Thus this ebay price study. But, again, prices rose this time, and I think advertising the affordability of homemade 3d-printers is propping up the market. I think we're still roping in new people and winning over people that are mired in a repstrap quagmire of their own making.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2010 04:21PM by pica.

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My blog's Reprap feed: [blog.markbova.com]
I'm currently working on a stock Mendel build with a Seeeduino Mega and four Pololu A4983 stepper controllers.

Quote

Actually Huxley is probably cheapest

Building a Wolfstrap costs about $300, with about $200 reusable for the Mendel. Do you think Huxley can be even cheaper?

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Traumflug Wrote:
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> Building a Wolfstrap costs about $300, with about
> $200 reusable for the Mendel. Do you think Huxley
> can be even cheaper?

You weren't responding to me, but I'll answer anyway. Here are the issues with a Wolfstrap, (you may chose to read this as "Why Mark won't be building a Wolfstrap".)

1. While documentation exists, it's only one page long, and translated from another language.

2. The bill of materials is in metric and kind of skimpy. The McWire is far better documented. Do you want to make endless trips to the hardware store for "just one more piece" or do you want to extrude? Lumber is in "nominal" inches over here.

3. No details on how realistic it is to get this thing to extrude. I see it uses threaded rods instead of belts for x/y. How fast is this? There's significant criticism of McWire for it's slowness.

4. Little community out there building Wolfstrap in the USA. The documentation has been static throughout August and September, with one minor edit this month. If there's a community, there's shared troubleshooting and problem solving, and materials adaptation.

5. Zero you-tube videos. Good pictures or vids go a long way to showing a "from scratch" builder how certain part of the machine is going to work. It should also give me an idea of the print speed.

6. The instructions themselves state that the device isn't meant to last. I don't understand why it would not last, but it seems that you'll have to build a "permanent" machine anyway. You yourself said that 200 of $300 can get transferred to the ~$600-700 Mendel that it seems you will have to build. (I'm guessing that's the electronics and steppers.)

7. If it's not a "permanent" machine, it's sole purpose is to print parts for a permanent machine. With the availability of Mendel parts (that, after all is what the thread is about), why again should I sink time and that unrecoverable $100 into this machine, when it can only print me about $200 of the ~$600-700 Mendel?

Overall, it's not a bad machine, and I don't see why it could not be adapted to belts, and "permanent" status, with just a bit more development work,

spacexula Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> At $200 that's about $4 an hour for the printing,
> which is not that bad really, not enough to run a
> good business model off of, but enough to keep
> people who like a self sustaining hobby going.

Is that counting material cost?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2010 11:58AM by JohnA.

It's nearly $300 for just steppers and electronics (pre-made), regardless of which machine you build.

I doubt it could be built cheaper than a wolfstrap. Wood is just cheaper than steel, period. but that's a 'Strap, not a 'Rap. Also, for this same botfarm example, if you are eventually going to sell huxleys, you might as well build them and work out the kinks in your production line.

pica,

I'm picking out just a few of your points.

Quote

3. No details on how realistic it is to get this thing to extrude. I see it uses threaded rods instead of belts for x/y. How fast is this? There's significant criticism of McWire for it's slowness.

Extruding is just as realistic as with any other machine, as it uses the same electronics and the same extruder. A Wolfstrap is faster than a McWire, because it uses M10 rods (1.5 mm pitch) instead of M6 (1 mm pitch) and acceleration strategies in firmware have been improved a lot, allowing 1000 rpm or more on ordinary stepper motors. You can achieve about 20 mm/s.

On the german version of the Wiki page, there are pictures of a Wolfstrap equipped with a Mendel-like belt drive, giving more speed than any current extruder can follow.

Quote

4. Little community out there building Wolfstrap in the USA.

There's nothing stopping anyone to improve on this. Wolfgang, the originator, is done with his Wolfstrap already, so his interest naturally fades away over time. However, he and a few Wolfstrap builders read this forum, so you should always get help.

Quote

6. The instructions themselves state that the device isn't meant to last.

Cheap drawer sliders are made from unhardened steel, so these wear out. Especially, as earlier firmwares neither did RepRap-type acceleration nor start-stop-ramping.

Quote

why again should I sink time and that unrecoverable $100 into this machine

Because if you build starting with raw materials, you learn a lot more than when just assembling a pre-fabricated set. For learning, a Wolfstrap might be even better than a Mendel, because you can vary a lot of details and dimensions easily. For example, mine "accidently" got almost double as wide.

Please don't feel enforced to build such a thing, it's only one of many options. I mentioned it because it shows nicely how low on budget an extruding machine can be. And yes, $300 includes material and the $200 part is for steppers and electronics.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Thanks for the feedback!

Traumflug Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> Extruding is just as realistic as with any other
> machine, as it uses the same electronics and the
> same extruder. A Wolfstrap is faster than a
> McWire, because it uses M10 rods (1.5 mm pitch)
> instead of M6 (1 mm pitch) and acceleration
> strategies in firmware have been improved a lot,
> allowing 1000 rpm or more on ordinary stepper
> motors. You can achieve about 20 mm/s.

Here's I'm using "..to extrude" as "..to the point where you can print stuff" I'm trying to recover my $700 of sunk costs before the bottom falls out of the market. While I don't expect a $19.99 injection molded set of reprap Mendel parts to show up at your local wal-mart anytime soon, the 3d printer revolution is moving along very quickly and I'm not extruding yet.

If I save $100, but it takes me an extra month to start extruding, it's not worth it to me.

I've since found profounddevices's Channel on youtube, and he has a pretty fast screw drive too.

How long do you think it would take a Wolfstrap to print a Mendel? That's a critical point missing from the english wiki page.

>
> 4. Little community out there building Wolfstrap
> in the USA.
>
> There's nothing stopping anyone to improve on
> this. Wolfgang, the originator, is done with his
> Wolfstrap already, so his interest naturally fades
> away over time. However, he and a few Wolfstrap
> builders read this forum, so you should always get
> help.

Impatience is a virtue. I want to be extruding yesterday.

> Because if you build starting with raw materials,
> you learn a lot more than when just assembling a
> pre-fabricated set. For learning, a Wolfstrap
> might be even better than a Mendel, because you
> can vary a lot of details and dimensions easily.
> For example, mine "accidently" got almost double
> as wide.

100% agree. In fact, I have my own repstrap that borrows a few ideas in the works. But that's machine #3, and I want to build my "semi-strap" next.


> Please don't feel enforced to build such a thing,
> it's only one of many options.

+1 - Hurray for choices.

Well, back to work. I believe I'll have mine assembled and with steppers and 80% of the electronics installed by tonight. I need to start on the extruder hot bit and figure out the parts list for the heated bed, the thermistors, and the endstops. (I'm shooting for only one Digikey parts order.)

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My blog's Reprap feed: [blog.markbova.com]
I'm currently working on a stock Mendel build with a Seeeduino Mega and four Pololu A4983 stepper controllers.

Quote

Impatience is a virtue. I want to be extruding yesterday.

If "extruding something" is your only goal, buying a finished machine is the only choice making sense. There's no point in discussing options, as this wastes time

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Traumflug Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> If "extruding something" is your only goal, buying
> a finished machine is the only choice making
> sense. There's no point in discussing options, as
> this wastes time

None were readily available without an unreasonable price tag or a long lead time.

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--
My blog's Reprap feed: [blog.markbova.com]
I'm currently working on a stock Mendel build with a Seeeduino Mega and four Pololu A4983 stepper controllers.