Saving the RepRap Project

Hello,

I have noticed that you seem to "cherry pick" which parts of my post to read and to respond to so as to support your argument. I have no doubts that you will not go back to read and try to understand what I am saying.

The only "sour grapes" that I have is that people, such as yourself, see no problem with somebody doing free research and development for the benefit of chinese "cloners". There is no reasoning with your kind. When there are no longer any options, other than china, you will complain about it without the understanding of what has really happened. I feel sorry for you.

I have a box of full of hot-end designs that were related to research and development. A lot of money (and time) was spent producing these designs in order to determine what designs would work as well as how to use these materials in such a hostile environment as a hot-end. You have no concept of what is required, what has been spent, and what is yet to do in the field of hot-end design. Any statements, on your part, regarding "producing uneconomical products" are completely without merit.

Regards,

Brian

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rmlrn

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reifsnyderb
The fact that many people seem to have the expectation that I will continue to develop new products for china and to be manufactured for next-to-nothing by china is why only pictures of the J-Head Mk 9 are available.

It's totally understandable that you don't want to lose money producing uneconomical products. And of course it's your decision whether to continue working on a project or not.

But maybe someone else (outside china even?) would like to take a gamble on manufacturing your design. This just seems like sour grapes.

I hope you are right.

Best Regards,

Brian

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MechaBits
Maybe as China starts to up prices, it will fall in your favor, many people are trying to bring manufacturing back onshore, you already have the tools, keep exploring maybe try to disguise solution, maybe throw out a few red herrings for others to imitate.

Hello,

I do not need to "farm out production" as I have this machinery. Yes, this machinery does have a cost and these "mom and pops" have already purchased the machinery as have I. You completely missed my point.

I have learned to manufacture. Without learning to manufacture, there is no way I would have possibly been able to make the number of J-Head hot-ends I have made.

Regards,

Brian

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Koko76
"Reducing the "copying" time down to around 15 minutes requires at least $30,000 worth of machinery and a considerable amount of time. (Some of this machinery is bought used to get to that price point.)"

Nonsense. Farm out production to a shop that can do the work. None of the parts to anything you've shown is difficult to make for a reasonable shop. You might have a few dollars in fixtures but it isn't 30k. In the US there are tons of mom and pops with a horizontal in the garage making gun parts. Find one of them with a few open hours that they'd like to get paid for.
If you want to manufacture, learn to manufacture. If you want to develop let someone who knows what they are doing do the manufacturing.

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reifsnyderb
Hello,

I do not need to "farm out production" as I have this machinery. Yes, this machinery does have a cost and these "mom and pops" have already purchased the machinery as have I. You completely missed my point.

I have learned to manufacture. Without learning to manufacture, there is no way I would have possibly been able to make the number of J-Head hot-ends I have made.

Regards,

Brian

Quote
Koko76
"Reducing the "copying" time down to around 15 minutes requires at least $30,000 worth of machinery and a considerable amount of time. (Some of this machinery is bought used to get to that price point.)"

Nonsense. Farm out production to a shop that can do the work. None of the parts to anything you've shown is difficult to make for a reasonable shop. You might have a few dollars in fixtures but it isn't 30k. In the US there are tons of mom and pops with a horizontal in the garage making gun parts. Find one of them with a few open hours that they'd like to get paid for.
If you want to manufacture, learn to manufacture. If you want to develop let someone who knows what they are doing do the manufacturing.

You do if it takes you that long, time has a cost and there are people who can do it better and cheaper. If you can't accept that, it is no surprise your business failed. I don't have your issues, I work in a profitable shop that knows what we can make money on and what makes sense to farm out. I could make your heater blocks cheaper and better than you can, no question. I have no desire to do so, but from a professional perspective your parts can be made cheaper than you claim. So can any shop who is better equipped than you are.
You have a lot of "feels" about this, somewhat understandable, but it isn't about feels. This is how you make money. If you want the money, then pay someone who makes money at it. You clearly don't. Nothing wrong with that, perhaps you are a better developer than a machinist. There are people who are better at making things. If you want to support your development through selling a product it can be done better allowing you more time to do what you think you are good at.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2016 01:04PM by Koko76.

Hello,

You are making statements without having any knowledge of what machinery I have, how many hot-ends I can make in a week, how much time it takes per hot-end, etc. You have no idea if I am profitable or not profitable. Yet you make statements that sound like I have no idea what I am doing.

I know how long it takes to make a J-head. I know what can be outsourced (to a USA shop), and where that shop is. I know how much it costs and can figure out the profit margins. None of this information is a mystery.

Fact: A proper J-Head can be made in about 15 minutes in my shop.
Fact: It costs about $8.00 in materials to make a real J-Head.
Fact: Shipping to the EU now costs $13.50 without any tracking information. (China ships for free.)
Fact: Scaling up production increases the material cost per J-Head to about $16.00 each due to outsourcing costs. (Other machine shops do not work for free either.)
Fact: QC is important and this takes time. It is not uncommon to have to assemble a J-Head twice if there is an issue.
Fact: Utilities have to be paid for.
Fact: Taxes have to be paid.
Fact: Tooling and fixtures need to be replaced as they wear out.
Fact: Machines need repaired.
Fact: Machines need lubricants.

All of these factor into the cost. Realistically, the profit margin is about 40% of the price.

This thread is about "saving the RepRap Project". I am pointing out why developers are leaving and you have shown no sign of being a developer. Myself, I am a developer and have been with this project for at least 7 years now. I think I know what I am talking about.

Also, my business has not failed. I am my business and I have not failed. You do not have a clue what you are talking about.

Best Regards,

Brian

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Koko76

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reifsnyderb
Hello,

I do not need to "farm out production" as I have this machinery. Yes, this machinery does have a cost and these "mom and pops" have already purchased the machinery as have I. You completely missed my point.

I have learned to manufacture. Without learning to manufacture, there is no way I would have possibly been able to make the number of J-Head hot-ends I have made.

Regards,

Brian

Quote
Koko76
"Reducing the "copying" time down to around 15 minutes requires at least $30,000 worth of machinery and a considerable amount of time. (Some of this machinery is bought used to get to that price point.)"

Nonsense. Farm out production to a shop that can do the work. None of the parts to anything you've shown is difficult to make for a reasonable shop. You might have a few dollars in fixtures but it isn't 30k. In the US there are tons of mom and pops with a horizontal in the garage making gun parts. Find one of them with a few open hours that they'd like to get paid for.
If you want to manufacture, learn to manufacture. If you want to develop let someone who knows what they are doing do the manufacturing.

You do if it takes you that long, time has a cost and there are people who can do it better and cheaper. If you can't accept that, it is no surprise your business failed. I don't have your issues, I work in a profitable shop that knows what we can make money on and what makes sense to farm out. I could make your heater blocks cheaper and better than you can, no question. I have no desire to do so, but from a professional perspective your parts can be made cheaper than you claim. So can any shop who is better equipped than you are.
You have a lot of "feels" about this, somewhat understandable, but it isn't about feels. This is how you make money. If you want the money, then pay someone who makes money at it. You clearly don't. Nothing wrong with that, perhaps you are a better developer than a machinist. There are people who are better at making things. If you want to support your development through selling a product it can be done better allowing you more time to do what you think you are good at.

I just thought more about this and will make it simple:

Don't expect people to want to develop anything if what they develop is destroyed by china.

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reifsnyderb
Hello,

You are making statements without having any knowledge of what machinery I have, how many hot-ends I can make in a week, how much time it takes per hot-end, etc. You have no idea if I am profitable or not profitable. Yet you make statements that sound like I have no idea what I am doing.

I know how long it takes to make a J-head. I know what can be outsourced (to a USA shop), and where that shop is. I know how much it costs and can figure out the profit margins. None of this information is a mystery.

Fact: A proper J-Head can be made in about 15 minutes in my shop.
Fact: It costs about $8.00 in materials to make a real J-Head.
Fact: Shipping to the EU now costs $13.50 without any tracking information. (China ships for free.)
Fact: Scaling up production increases the material cost per J-Head to about $16.00 each due to outsourcing costs. (Other machine shops do not work for free either.)
Fact: QC is important and this takes time. It is not uncommon to have to assemble a J-Head twice if there is an issue.
Fact: Utilities have to be paid for.
Fact: Taxes have to be paid.
Fact: Tooling and fixtures need to be replaced as they wear out.
Fact: Machines need repaired.
Fact: Machines need lubricants.

All of these factor into the cost. Realistically, the profit margin is about 40% of the price.

This thread is about "saving the RepRap Project". I am pointing out why developers are leaving and you have shown no sign of being a developer. Myself, I am a developer and have been with this project for at least 7 years now. I think I know what I am talking about.

Also, my business has not failed. I am my business and I have not failed. You do not have a clue what you are talking about.

Best Regards,

Brian

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Koko76

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reifsnyderb
Hello,

I do not need to "farm out production" as I have this machinery. Yes, this machinery does have a cost and these "mom and pops" have already purchased the machinery as have I. You completely missed my point.

I have learned to manufacture. Without learning to manufacture, there is no way I would have possibly been able to make the number of J-Head hot-ends I have made.

Regards,

Brian

Quote
Koko76
"Reducing the "copying" time down to around 15 minutes requires at least $30,000 worth of machinery and a considerable amount of time. (Some of this machinery is bought used to get to that price point.)"

Nonsense. Farm out production to a shop that can do the work. None of the parts to anything you've shown is difficult to make for a reasonable shop. You might have a few dollars in fixtures but it isn't 30k. In the US there are tons of mom and pops with a horizontal in the garage making gun parts. Find one of them with a few open hours that they'd like to get paid for.
If you want to manufacture, learn to manufacture. If you want to develop let someone who knows what they are doing do the manufacturing.

You do if it takes you that long, time has a cost and there are people who can do it better and cheaper. If you can't accept that, it is no surprise your business failed. I don't have your issues, I work in a profitable shop that knows what we can make money on and what makes sense to farm out. I could make your heater blocks cheaper and better than you can, no question. I have no desire to do so, but from a professional perspective your parts can be made cheaper than you claim. So can any shop who is better equipped than you are.
You have a lot of "feels" about this, somewhat understandable, but it isn't about feels. This is how you make money. If you want the money, then pay someone who makes money at it. You clearly don't. Nothing wrong with that, perhaps you are a better developer than a machinist. There are people who are better at making things. If you want to support your development through selling a product it can be done better allowing you more time to do what you think you are good at.

I never suggested I was a developer. I'm a machinist. And speaking in that capacity I can tell you that I can make the parts I saw in your drawings (I looked at them a while ago before your tantrum) in less than the time you say you can. Part of that is that is the tooling I have available. Part is that I have experience setting up such things. There are people that can do it faster and cheaper than I can. That doesn't bother me in the slightest, I can always do better too.
You are getting emotional about something that is simple cold economics. If you are that insistent about being a developer then be one, and leave manufacturing to those that can do it better and cheaper.
I'm not a doctor, I don't begrudge them this fact when I have to pay them money for health care. But when that doctor needs parts made for his "doctor machine" to tight tolerance from difficult to machine materials they don't begrudge me the fact that I can do it better than them.
If the economic conditions of manufacturing (and you do keep suggesting this) are the reason for your exit as a developer there ARE solutions. You don't have to pursue them, but they are available. For whatever you care, I bought an E3Dv6 from them directly when I started, and in the next hotend I built I used their heater block, throat and nozzle. I could make those in a few minutes, my time is worth more to me than the cost of the finished part (which E3D farms out BTW) . I'm not against giving people money for work they have done, or for good execution of a design.

The failure isn't really with the hardware developer in a lot of these cases it's with the community more than anything that chooses to knowingly support the people who do the wrong thing buy buying the counterfeit versions, they not only do it with hotends but also with most of the electronics

Ultimately the of production for a quality item which comes with a legally backed warranty Subject to decent quality control and carries with it some degree of liability insurance,
it costs money to produce and the price is the price, get over it and cough up the cash, your only other option is to produce it your self or buy an inferior counterfeit but you aren't buying the same thing.

the other part of the failure of course is government policy on counterfeit goods entering the country for example here in Australia our government lives under the delusion that the consumer will take responsibility for ensuring that what they import is not a counterfeit item and if required also gets it certified for use in their own home...

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2016 08:19PM by thejollygrimreaper.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2016 11:10AM by rmlrn.

It seems to me that if you don't include the means by which you're going to defeat the cheap competition from China in your business plan, your plan is incomplete. If you achieve design success, the Chinese will surely copy it and you have to be prepared to deal with it.

Dealing with it may be as simple as educating people about the differences between your product and the cheap competition. Does your web site explain the differences between your parts and those produced in China? Do the web sites of your distributors? The vast majority of 3D printer buyers/users are not very discriminating. If two things look the same they must be the same and they will buy the cheaper one every time. That's how so many junky $300 printer kits get sold.

Many/most people live in denial of the sad fact that quality costs. Your not going to sell many $50 hot-ends to the $300 printer crowd. If those are the people you're targeting, you either have to get the cost down or find a different, much smaller, market that recognizes the values of your designs and is willing to pay a premium price for them.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2016 09:31PM by the_digital_dentist.

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

... beside all this fuzz - I'm following all this "free" development (OS) vs. comercial disputes some ten years now -- and there is no "simple" solution in sight

The "free as in beer" OS-community is one thing ... and the "comercial" aspect is a totally different world, not compatible or re-supporting the community in any form, except someone of the "comercial" guys gets his "OS"-hat on and starts something like Adrian did with the RepRap project.

I'm in the situation to do both - filling in/support ideas into the community pond, and developing comercial products loosely related to the RepRap-world (mechanics, software, printing heads, laser modules).

But it's not that easy either ...

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Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

To me, this statement of yours says it all: "I don't know your whole story, nor do I particularly care to."

If you don't care about what is going on, please don't bother replying. This is not about anybody owing me anything nor about holding a design hostage. My gripe is about products being destroyed by chinese "cloners".

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rmlrn
I don't know your whole story, nor do I particularly care to.

Answer me this: why did you invest so much of your time and money in development?
If it was to make a profit, why should the "community" owe you a damn thing? If it was for love of printing, why are you holding your design hostage?

It seems pretty clear that you're not interested in open source development, instead you tried to turn a hobby into a business, with predictable results.

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reifsnyderb
Hello,

I have noticed that you seem to "cherry pick" which parts of my post to read and to respond to so as to support your argument. I have no doubts that you will not go back to read and try to understand what I am saying.

The only "sour grapes" that I have is that people, such as yourself, see no problem with somebody doing free research and development for the benefit of chinese "cloners". There is no reasoning with your kind. When there are no longer any options, other than china, you will complain about it without the understanding of what has really happened. I feel sorry for you.

I have a box of full of hot-end designs that were related to research and development. A lot of money (and time) was spent producing these designs in order to determine what designs would work as well as how to use these materials in such a hostile environment as a hot-end. You have no concept of what is required, what has been spent, and what is yet to do in the field of hot-end design. Any statements, on your part, regarding "producing uneconomical products" are completely without merit.

Regards,

Brian

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rmlrn

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reifsnyderb
The fact that many people seem to have the expectation that I will continue to develop new products for china and to be manufactured for next-to-nothing by china is why only pictures of the J-Head Mk 9 are available.

It's totally understandable that you don't want to lose money producing uneconomical products. And of course it's your decision whether to continue working on a project or not.

But maybe someone else (outside china even?) would like to take a gamble on manufacturing your design. This just seems like sour grapes.

Hello,

I have no idea how to deal with the china problem. Sadly, that is why I stopped releasing new designs as I refuse to help china.

With the chinese apparent subsidization of shipping, almost zero labor costs, along with a lot of other factors, it is clear that the proverbial "deck" is seriously stacked against manufacturers elsewhere. I have seen the same problem with other non RepRap-related small businesses and chinese "clones" as well. They don't have a solution either.

Best Regards,

Brian

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the_digital_dentist
It seems to me that if you don't include the means by which you're going to defeat the cheap competition from China in your business plan, your plan is incomplete. If you achieve design success, the Chinese will surely copy it and you have to be prepared to deal with it.

Dealing with it may be as simple as educating people about the differences between your product and the cheap competition. Does your web site explain the differences between your parts and those produced in China? Do the web sites of your distributors? The vast majority of 3D printer buyers/users are not very discriminating. If two things look the same they must be the same and they will buy the cheaper one every time. That's how so many junky $300 printer kits get sold.

Many/most people live in denial of the sad fact that quality costs. Your not going to sell many $50 hot-ends to the $300 printer crowd. If those are the people you're targeting, you either have to get the cost down or find a different, much smaller, market that recognizes the values of your designs and is willing to pay a premium price for them.

Back to the original issue:

Let's say that I was a developer only and not a developer/small manufacturer.

Let's say that I were to designed a widget for RepRaps and the widget worked very well. People made many copies and/or many copies were made somehow. This widget really helped and worked great.

Then, china takes my widget design, cheapens it, and makes the cheap "clone" available for 25% of what the real thing costs to sell. Then, people buy the chinese "clone" of this widget and it fails. So, people blame my widget because it is the same name as the chinese "clone". After that, my widget gets a bad reputation even though the "clones" had a fatal flaw and my widget did not have such a flaw.

If my widget gets blamed for failures it stands to reason that I get a bad reputation for what is not my fault at all.

So, what would be my incentive to make a new widget if it will only be "cloned" by china in such a way that it fails and I get an even worse reputation on what is not my fault at all?

When I was developing open-source software, a big part of the joy was to produce something that was useful and get some recognition and satisfaction for doing a good job. There is no such satisfaction when you see something that you developed that worked turned into a steaming pile of crap.

So, what is the incentive to develop something if the developer's "widget" gets a bad reputation under these circumstances????

Best Regards,

Brian

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2016 10:02AM by reifsnyderb.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2016 11:10AM by rmlrn.

here's a question... who are you? i'm very curious now as to why you seem so hell bent on this particular argument of yours , what exactly is your contribution to the reprap project? why is your email address a disposable address? why have you not provided a name when you registered? as an admin my suspicious hat is on here...

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rmlrn
Why do you care so much about your reputation? Knowledgeable people will understand and appreciate your work, why worry about those who don't?
They don't matter, if you're not trying to run a business.

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reifsnyderb
Back to the original issue:

Let's say that I was a developer only and not a developer/small manufacturer.

Let's say that I were to designed a widget for RepRaps and the widget worked very well. People made many copies and/or many copies were made somehow. This widget really helped and worked great.

Then, china takes my widget design, cheapens it, and makes the cheap "clone" available for 25% of what the real thing costs to sell. Then, people buy the chinese "clone" of this widget and it fails. So, people blame my widget because it is the same name as the chinese "clone". After that, my widget gets a bad reputation even though the "clones" had a fatal flaw and my widget did not have such a flaw.

If my widget gets blamed for failures it stands to reason that I get a bad reputation for what is not my fault at all.

So, what would be my incentive to make a new widget if it will only be "cloned" by china in such a way that it fails and I get an even worse reputation on what is not my fault at all?

When I was developing open-source software, a big part of the joy was to produce something that was useful and get some recognition and satisfaction for doing a good job. There is no such satisfaction when you see something that you developed that worked turned into a steaming pile of crap.

So, what is the incentive to develop something if the developer's "widget" gets a bad reputation under these circumstances????

Best Regards,

Brian

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-=( blog )=- -=( thingiverse )=- -=( 3Dindustries )=- -=( Aluhotend - mostly metal hotend)=--=( Facebook )=-

I have potentially the same problem with the 3D printer electronic assemblies that I make.

Here is an idea. Publish the designs for what you develop, but trademark the name. Make it clear in the published documents that although the design may be copied under the GPL, OHL or whatever, the trademark may not. So other people can clone and sell your design but they must sell it under a different name.

You would still need to enforce the trademark. However, most of these clones are sold through eBay, Amazon etc. and I believe those companies have procedures for de-listing products that violate trademarks. Not sure about Alibaba/AliExpress.

If enough people adopted this approach, there could be a blacklist maintained on these forums of companies that had violated such trademarks.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2016 11:09AM by rmlrn.

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dc42
I have potentially the same problem with the 3D printer electronic assemblies that I make.

Here is an idea. Publish the designs for what you develop, but trademark the name. Make it clear in the published documents that although the design may be copied under the GPL, OHL or whatever, the trademark may not. So other people can clone and sell your design but they must sell it under a different name.

You would still need to enforce the trademark. However, most of these clones are sold through eBay, Amazon etc. and I believe those companies have procedures for de-listing products that violate trademarks. Not sure about Alibaba/AliExpress.

If enough people adopted this approach, there could be a blacklist maintained on these forums of companies that had violated such trademarks.

ebay and amazon have systems in place that semi work, aliexpress has a system thats ... well it exists however it doesn't actually work and is so full of bugs it unusable, if by some miracle you get your complaint through they take the sellers side quite heavily and don't actually do any serious investigation, yet they seem to be quite good when someone disputes and order

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-=( blog )=- -=( thingiverse )=- -=( 3Dindustries )=- -=( Aluhotend - mostly metal hotend)=--=( Facebook )=-

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rmlrn
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that just makes me even more suspicious given what you said in the text you've hidden vs where the ipaddress is pointing to

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-=( blog )=- -=( thingiverse )=- -=( 3Dindustries )=- -=( Aluhotend - mostly metal hotend)=--=( Facebook )=-

Do tell which continent east or west.

Take E3D. They have open-source designs, and the clone market is awash with $10 "E3D" hotends. And yet E3D is still a viable company, innovating and introducing new products.

How? I'm not totally sure, but they seem to have maintained a few things.

One is that people are aware that clone hotends just don't work as well as the originals. There are countless examples of people buying the cheap ones, re-finishing the internals, and using them. But it's pretty uncommon for people to blame the counterfeits for their problems if they haven't gone through that. I think this is becoming more common in general, as people realize that Chinese clones just aren't as good. (At least, it's common anywhere the digital dentist frequents!)

Another is that they have a website. I can't seem to find Reifsnyder's -- AFAIK they only have one on Amazon. Not that Amazon's a bad place to sell -- I bought my J-head there -- but it makes the official ones feel less legitimate, and the clones feel closer to the original.

A third is that E3D outsources their production. It makes official hotends cheaper. If they didn't, I am sure they would cost >$100 USD, which I for one would never pay.

Last, E3Ds are new and shiny and so cool they can print at 400C duuude! That, not reliability or cost, is what many people think about. J-heads have become so standard that they're kinda seen as outdated, especially because every hotend is imperfect, so people can always find an excuse to upgrade.

So, I guess my recommendation would be to make a design that looks and feels as new as the V6 did when it hit the market, outsource the production, and then sell it through an official Reifsnyder Store. Perhaps a "real vs. clone" comparison would be in order, either as an essay or some print-comparison pictures. If you can sell it as better than an E3D, I guarantee that people will buy it.

Good luck!

Also, who exactly is rmlrn and what are they doing here?


EDIT: I just noticed that if you search "J-head" on eBay, you only get E3D clones. To me, this means two things: that Chinese factories can clone E3Ds more easily than J-heads, and that people like the all-metal design better. The first, I am sure, is because the PEEK barrel is an integral part of the J-head, and probably can't be had for less than $6 or so. The second, though, indicates that a good, new J-head -- perhaps mostly-metal, like the E3D-lite6 -- could take back the market.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2016 07:18PM by epicepee.

Hello,

I have a suspicion that the clone market is badly impacting E3D, as well. A lot of re-sellers are only selling those E3D clones and are usually marketed as "All-metal J-heads" or something similar. Only time will tell.

While you bring hot-ends back up, and understandably so, I still feel that the whole cloning issue has badly affected developers. While most of the early RepRap developers have left, I don't honestly know all of the reasons why they left. I can only hope that they see this thread and chime in.

From what I have seen, I am not confident in saying that people are aware that the "clones" don't work well. My experience has been that a lot of people buy on price alone.

I just tried a Google search on the term "Jhead". The second, third, fourth, and sixth results either pointed to my web shop or to a page that links to my web shop. If I searched for "J-Head", the first, second, and third results either are to the wiki page or my web shop. I really think the issue is that finding a real J-Head, on ebay for example, results in a really poor signal to noise ratio. In other words, the "clone" returns have overwhelmed the real returns.

I get what you are saying about perception and that is a fact. The perception that printing at 300c is possible overwhelms the fact that most people print at or under 240 degrees. (Well within the range of a J-Head.) The shininess (or bling) of an E3D is also a huge factor.

I've already done a comparison of real J-Heads v.s. clone J-Heads. Interestingly enough, a quick Google search on the term "J-Head" also returns pictures of such a comparison. Maybe people no longer use Google to find out information about J-Heads?

I think E3D's can be cloned more easily than J-Heads. I am going to venture a guess that this is for two reasons. The first is that PEEK is more expensive so a J-Head "clone" is more expensive than an E3D "clone". The second guess is because PEEK is time consuming to deburr after it has been machined.

Outsourcing production would actually cost me more as I am completely setup to produce J-Heads from raw materials to finished product in-house.

I suspect that rmlrn is a troll.

Also, while J-Head innovation is finished, somebody contacted me regarding creating a hot-end that is designed to print at over 200 or 250 mm/sec. (J-Heads regularly do 150 mm/sec.) I will be working on a prototype of such a thing this week. If it works and I bring it to market, I will use another name for it. Maybe something like the "hotends.com _____________ hot-end".

As far as printing speed is concerned, I have noticed that most people now are fine with 50 mm/sec. When the J-Head was developed, people were pushing 200 mm/sec. The demand for bling has gone up and actual ability seems to have gone down.

Best Regards,

Brian

Quote
epicepee
Take E3D. They have open-source designs, and the clone market is awash with $10 "E3D" hotends. And yet E3D is still a viable company, innovating and introducing new products.

...

SNIP

...

EDIT: I just noticed that if you search "J-head" on eBay, you only get E3D clones. To me, this means two things: that Chinese factories can clone E3Ds more easily than J-heads, and that people like the all-metal design better. The first, I am sure, is because the PEEK barrel is an integral part of the J-head, and probably can't be had for less than $6 or so. The second, though, indicates that a good, new J-head -- perhaps mostly-metal, like the E3D-lite6 -- could take back the market.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2016 08:15PM by reifsnyderb.

Hello,

reifsnyderb, thank you for bringing up an excellent point in that people shouldn't buy products based on price alone.

When I opened this thread, I intended to bring attention to the ring of consumers who support Makerbot products based on nothing but marketing, regardless of exorbitant costs. As you've shown, the other end of the pricing scale is home to yet another threat to developers: Chinese clones.

This thread has attracted a fair few innovators, and we need to stop both overpriced monopoly-oriented products and low-end "clones" for our own sake.

Seeing as I've fallen very ill in the past few days, this will be all from me for today.

Cheers!

P.S: Your claims of hotends reaching over 200mm/s are nothing short of amazing; I myself have never seen any hotend go faster than 140mm/s!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2016 09:22PM by andychang28.

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epicepee
I just noticed that if you search "J-head" on eBay, you only get E3D clones. To me, this means two things: that Chinese factories can clone E3Ds more easily than J-heads, and that people like the all-metal design better. The first, I am sure, is because the PEEK barrel is an integral part of the J-head, and probably can't be had for less than $6 or so. The second, though, indicates that a good, new J-head -- perhaps mostly-metal, like the E3D-lite6 -- could take back the market.

I heard from the Hong Kong company that produces my Merlin hotend that the PEEK had to be sourced in europe and had a huge impact on the price. Since the J-Head uses a lot more PEEK than the Merlin i would expect it to be even less interesting for copycats. It is no surprise that the E3D is such a welcome target, it only uses easily available and cheap materials.

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[www.bonkers.de]
[merlin-hotend.de]
[www.hackerspace-ffm.de]

I think the china involvement reprap been both positive and negative, from a builders view they brought down the cost of an entry reprap, preventing it from becoming a elitist hobby which only the wealthy can enjoy while those kits maybe substandard, I have/had no issue encouraging others to upgrade to better parts once they're bitten by the bug. I believe there's new opportunities for the opensource reprap development working with china manufacturing to produce the next generation of hardware. or will reprap turn a blind eye to what the rest of the world "big corps" is doing!!!. and eventually fade out of existence due to overpricing.

One negative mindset that's crept in is "CHEAP" REPRAP was never meant to be cheap but an introduction to mass 3D printing by self replication which that term has been trashed by developers attempts to single themselves apart from others by creating custom parts knowing full well only about 2% may have the tooling to follow. circuit boards are being produced via SMD parts how many reprapers got reflow ovens to reproduce those boards never mind repairing. again personally I think reprap sliding towards the throw away culture with board design. how many times do we have to see a rebranded I3 that cost double of what it cost to source/make yourself then theirs china bargain printers that are so under priced!!! that half turn out to be an inviting scam or a faulty kit " genarally crappy parts that need replacing sooner rather than later " maybe that is the price without taxes but it surely aint just the Chinese that abused the term opensource.
and the notion "here's my design, so tool up and have fun making it" has been battered from all sides attempting to license new things even before R&D is complete. newbies coming in with the attitude want one now, without the basic understanding/history/build experience, to complete a bad kit so then run off slating reprap!.

"Educational side of reprap seems to be faulting how many schools in the UK have a printer? my kids school got a fishtank where the reprap should be "cant tell you all how much that annoys me" but talk of demonising users and blacklisting companies that don't care is futile. we should be positively proactive informing others of the risks of badly produced kits and offer guidance to those users to build the printer they dreamed, starting with 4 mths of reading the reprap forums!!!.

For those developers affected by cloners dont give up, your recourse is 18 mths away in the form of TIPP providing you can prove ownership of the design and loss of income and have a good lawyer you'll be able to sue every nation under the western hemisphere that knowingly allowed those imports. those 3D lifers amongst us will always gravitate towards quality for better prints, So hang in on there.
we in a new era of manufacturing and those that cant keep the cost down will crash out, pretty soon the cloners will stop copying As there come straight to us and ask what we want to see/need from a reprap and most of us don't need the bells and whistles. I got no bones about joining a working group that out source to china they not only making cheap kits there's real enthusiasm from china to be at the forefront on 3D printers and I for one want tarnish them all with the same brush.

Tuesday rant over thank you for reading jinx

who mentioned china co-op end of solidoodle

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2016 12:08PM by jinx.

Well, I'm apparently late to this discussion, so let me join a number of quotes I want to answer.

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andychang28
3D Printers are used to help the disabled

Not more than hammers and screwdrivers are used to make prosthetics.

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andychang28
3D printing is a technological revolution which has great potential to change the world for the better.

This revolution happened in 1985 already, when 3D Systems made their SLA-1 available. Dropping prices were just a matter of time. RepRap certainly accelerated this drop, but it had happened sooner or later anyways.

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andychang28
3D printing communities like the Reprap Forum are sources of creativity in the field, and engineers like us drive the innovation behind every 3D printer in the world.

Uhm, excuse me? All I see here is marketing and support for customers of companies which refuse to help. Innovative people have left already and reappear only occasionally for discussions like this one.

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andychang28
Take Makerbot, for example.

Makerbot is certainly one of the smaller problems, if a problem at all. They do their own development, even their taking from the Open Hardware community was developed by Makebot founders before. They found their market niche and play rather fair. So, please stop seeing this company as an evil, there's a lot more doom out there.

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andychang28
Technology should never be a marketing tool

Only marketing sells and only sales make something worth to expanded beyond the hobby level.

The Open Hardware strategy was once seen as a successful marketing strategy ("everybody will see and evaluate the design, most will buy the original"). This strategy, as successful as it is in the Open Source software field, has pretty much failed on hardware. Because making a hardware copy comes at a cost, as many others here mentioned.

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Srek
My personal solution is that i made a clear decision that i am not in it for the money

Then, how do you pay your bills? Did you convince your electricity company and your local grocery to give away their products for free, too?

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dc42
Publish the designs for what you develop, but trademark the name.

Has been done by Arduino. If you look up arduino.cc these days, they even moved the original to China now, naming in "Genduino". Cheap ( = most) people don't care about a name. When did you see a recommendation for original Arduinos in this forum last time? With some luck you'll find one on every 100 recommendations for cheapo clones ("just $15 and mine works just as well").

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reifsnyderb
While most of the early RepRap developers have left, I don't honestly know all of the reasons why they left.

My reason is the simple observation that people don't care about ideals, not about quality, not about originals and as such, the value of engineering is below zero. For some time I tried to keep up the ideals in the wiki, but one simply can't keep up with cleaning all the advertisement; not to mention that there is no time left for development, then. "RepRap Buyers Guide" is by far the most visited wiki page. I think this pretty much says it: no care about knowledge, the only question is "where can i buy ... ?".

Gen7 is now at a point where people do make their personal copies, but put all means into not buying at the developer. They prefer to spend $40 at Mouser or Digikey or for a wild collection of eBay items over sending $25 to the original developer for getting everything readily packaged.

Seeing such an environment it's pretty hard to make a case for putting more work in.

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reifsnyderb
My experience has been that a lot of people buy on price alone.

I just tried a Google search on the term "Jhead".

Google likely no longer matters. People go straight to eBay or even Alibaba. Recently seen: "My goal is to buy everything from Ali". People apparently feel good with this, because they feel safe to be always on the cheap side, which is their most outstanding goal. A marketing slogan of a german electronic discounter describes the 2010 decade mindset well: "Geiz ist geil" (something like "parsimony makes horny").

Also seen: "I bought 4 different sets of endstops, none of them works". How would one make a case for producing quality if people feel better with spending $10 four times over spending $15 once? If they prefer to buy another and another set without even looking why the first one doesn't work (it turned out the guy didn't look at the schematics and wired by best guess, that is, wrongly). This "buy cheap" and "cheaper printer is the goal" has been engraved so heftily into peoples brains that they can't think of anything else.

Still they refuse to build an actually low cost ($250) quality design like the Mantis ("Eeek! Wood!") and go for $500 to $1000 shiny stuff instead.

Quote
jinx
circuit boards are being produced via SMD parts how many reprapers got reflow ovens to reproduce those boards never mind repairing.

There are perfectly usable designs which can be done with a simple soldering iron, too. Interest is, well, low. Likely because the cheapo SMD clones are cheaper than just the parts to make a DIY'd one.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2016 01:19PM by Traumflug.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Quote
Traumflug

Quote
Srek
My personal solution is that i made a clear decision that i am not in it for the money

Then, how do you pay your bills? Did you convince your electricity company and your local grocery to give away their products for free, too?

No, i convinced my employer to pay me money for the things i do for them
Imo developing open hardware in the context of RepRap has no viable commercial base, thus i only do it as a hobby and explicitly don't see it as a potential side job.
It might work out though if i could bill everyone that tells me i should try to make money from this

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2016 01:41PM by Srek.

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[www.bonkers.de]
[merlin-hotend.de]
[www.hackerspace-ffm.de]

Quote
Srek
Imo developing open hardware in the context of RepRap has no viable commercial base, thus i only do it as a hobby and explicitly don't see it as a potential side job.

Ah, OK, so you work actively on RepRap businesses going south by taking the value of engineering work away. Not sure if your employer would still pay you if you'd start to the same in his business field.

Anyways, such behaviour is one of the reasons why "Saving the RepRap project" (topic) can't work. Cheapo-chinese taking the value of manufacturing away, hobbyists taking the value of engnieering away, both together leaving a lot of frustration behind because nobody takes on the unpleasant parts (documentation, making something reliable, making it idiot-proof, such stuff).

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

The consensus seems to be that we should sit idly by and watch more than fifteen years of work be eaten by businessmen and Chinese cheap labor... This is honestly saddening to see.