Saving the RepRap Project

Hello,

@Qdeathstar: Once again, I am not in any way complaining about the commercialization of 3d printing technology, or any technology, for that matter. I wholly support the marketing of 3d printers as long as the technology does not become a single company's property. As others in this thread have brought up, illegitimate clones are a threat to the development of technology as well. Business is science's path to the masses - until business starts to harm the technology that it relies on.

@Traumflug: Not trying to mock you here, but are you suggesting that people don't care about their money when purchasing products? If this is the case, it's yet another problem with modern people that needs to be fixed if technology is to advance. I certainly do see consumers nowadays taking less and less time to research products, has it really gotten to the point that consumers no longer care about quality?

Sincerely, Andy

I think there is an inherent tension here, we want open source but we want to cover our costs (and make a profit). Possible but not easy.

I think a lot of consumers have two types of purchase they make. Small ticket items and big ticket items. Small ticket items are not often bought with quality in mind because they're made in China, they're cheap, you can buy two for half the price of what things used to cost a few years ago.

Big ticket items (like a car) get researched and quality counts. Fewer and fewer things are a big ticket items these days, stuff is cheaper, people are wealthier.

So what is it we are saving about the reprap project? Is it making self replicating machines? If so let's move on to try to find something that can self replicate. Fdm isn't the right technology, if you want higher quality Fdm prints you get rid of the printed parts, so it's not going to self replicate.

This project now seems to me to be about cheap 3d printers. There's nothing wrong with that, we have cheap 2d printers and they work well and something that was once under the control of the rich and powerful - printing on paper - is now owned by the masses and taken for granted. Cd burning, then mp3's, gave the people back control of music distribution. Reprap will have been instrumental in helping to bring the ability to make things (mainly out of incredibly versatile plastic previously the monopoly of large companies) back to the people, if it can help to make a $100 3d printer that anyone can use.

But the days of having an idea, making it and getting rich by having the law protect your idea and by monopolising the technology required to design, manufacture and distribute your idea, will be over.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2016 07:23AM by DjDemonD.

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andychang28
@Traumflug: Not trying to mock you here, but are you suggesting that people don't care about their money when purchasing products?

I'm not sure what people are thinking, I can only watch them. I see many people ordering RAMPS twice, three times and finding this to be normal. Like "WTF, it was cheap, so I simply buy another one". I do not see them asking the question "is it cheaper to get one quality controller vs. getting three cheapo ones?".

With such attitudes it doesn't make sense to improve a design. Can be well observed with this RAMPS, a design well known for its inadequate bed heater MOSFET. People still buy this stuff without looking around, just to also buy an SSR for compensating this shortcoming.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

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Traumflug

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andychang28
@Traumflug: Not trying to mock you here, but are you suggesting that people don't care about their money when purchasing products?

I'm not sure what people are thinking, I can only watch them. I see many people ordering RAMPS twice, three times and finding this to be normal. Like "WTF, it was cheap, so I simply buy another one". I do not see them asking the question "is it cheaper to get one quality controller vs. getting three cheapo ones?".

With such attitudes it doesn't make sense to improve a design. Can be well observed with this RAMPS, a design well known for its inadequate bed heater MOSFET. People still buy this stuff without looking around, just to also buy an SSR for compensating this shortcoming.

see Rambo, Smoothieboard and duet? Some people don't care, but once someone becomes more knowledegable they look for better alternatives.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2016 10:34PM by Qdeathstar.

Hello,

I completely agree with this assessment. From my experience, most people have their priorities as follows even when buying a hot-end:

1. Price
2. Price
3. Price
4. Does it really work?
5. Quality
6. Support

Designing, testing, manufacturing, and distributing a product that works every time, is of high quality, and supporting it has a cost. The majority is not willing to pay for that and will buy the $20 hot-end that doesn't work right over the $60 hot-end that works every time without any thought.

Sure, there are some exceptions. However, the number of people that will search for quality are "drowned out" by the rest.

Traumflug is also correct when stating that these attitudes do not provide an environment where it makes sense to improve a design. With the J-Head, I have better designs. Given what has happened, they remain in my shop.

Best Regards,

Brian

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Traumflug
I'm not sure what people are thinking, I can only watch them. I see many people ordering RAMPS twice, three times and finding this to be normal. Like "WTF, it was cheap, so I simply buy another one". I do not see them asking the question "is it cheaper to get one quality controller vs. getting three cheapo ones?".

With such attitudes it doesn't make sense to improve a design. Can be well observed with this RAMPS, a design well known for its inadequate bed heater MOSFET. People still buy this stuff without looking around, just to also buy an SSR for compensating this shortcoming.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2016 10:31AM by reifsnyderb.

Then we have two markets don't we: the hobby market who want cheap, cheap, cheap and the lets-call-it engineering market who want quality.

Why not partner with a chinese manufacturer and make a very basic hotend for $20 which works. Not high performance, not 300 deg C, nothing fancy.
Then make the premium hot end.

E3D's v6 and lite is a step in the right direction but the lite is still too expensive for the hobby market to consider it the no. 1 choice.

---

Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

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DjDemonD
Why not partner with a chinese manufacturer and make a very basic hotend for $20 which works.

Such a chinese manufacturer has no reason to team up with the designer ... if he can sell these hotends without him just as well.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2016 11:29AM by Traumflug.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

So no Chinese manufacturers make any top of the line name brand goods we enjoy in Europe/US? Only almost all of them.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

I think most of the top brands of consumer electronic goods are Korean or Japanese, not Chinese.

---

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].

Hello everyone,

Ideally, a product's country of origin should have no relevance to its quality or price. This may unfortunately be the case in reality, but I see no reason why "Made in China" should be as important a factor as "Made in the USA" when purchasing products. Innovative people can come from anywhere in the world, and so can corrupted business owners. Chinese cloners are a great example, and on the other side of the world, we have the extremes of capitalism embodied in Makerbot and Apple.

A simple sticker or logo will never be enough to determine a product's quality. The only way for a customer to reliably compare two products is if said customer possesses at least a general knowledge of the products in question.

Putting a logo on a product for "authenticity" actually hurts the spread of knowledge, since such a logo will inevitably result in "fanboys" again. This is the case with many tech companies nowadays, where people will buy essentially any product with a certain logo on it.

Sincerely, Andy

I'm with you on that, I don't buy into this made in Britain nonsense, Britain didnt do anything! didnt help in any way whatsoever so shouldn't get any credit for any part of the creation. The March of the Makers is Bulls#*t, the Northern PowerHouse more Bulls#*t. Patriotism....I go with what Bill Hick's & Doug Stanhope have to say on the matter. Or George Carlin

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2016 01:45AM by MechaBits.

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andychang28
Ideally, a product's country of origin should have no relevance to its quality or price. This may unfortunately be the case in reality, but I see no reason why "Made in China" should be as important a factor as "Made in the USA" when purchasing products.

I see at least two differences between these two countries. One is culture. In China there is obviously no hesiation to copy stuff designed by others. That's pretty unique for this country. While there are a lot of "emerging" cultures (Korea, India, Malaysia, perhaps Russia, etc.), none of the others copies designs in such amounts just for selling it to where the design came from. If you look at printer kits from the U.S. you see no copies, but almost only genuine designs.

Another part of this culture is apparently to manufacture and sell what the customer wants, no matter wether it actually works or fulfills the intention. Here in Germany companies simply don't do this. Customer wishes certainly influence design decisions, but flawless functioning of the end product is a lot more important. Looking at U.S. products I see similar strategies.

The other difference is something I can't really imagine. How do they manage to sell these copies at a price which barely covers the cost of the ingredients? Arduino Nanos for $2.50 with free shipping on eBay, how is this possible? Atmel sells the MCU alone for $1.70, so there is $0.80 left for making the PCB, for connectors, resistors, soldering, packaging, storage, eBay fees and nothing left for distribution, overseas(!) shipping, postage stamp and at least a few percent margin. That's plain impossible and it happens only in China, as far as I can see.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Maybe they are just trying to get too big to fail? its kinda working for them, our government doesnt want china to fail as they are just about to invest in Hinkley Point....but underwritten by the UK tax payer...to produce electricity and sell it to us for more than we can get it elsewhere...none of it makes any sense....?

Maybe its because the devices have secret swarming, eavesdropping & emf pulse capabilities?
Maybe...and it seems to be already happening,..it's because they want us to get addicted, then they will hike the price,
and it'll be a case of device cold turkey or cough up

Let's not forget how America(or is it really just a bunch of renegade englishmen?)
was bootstrapped by stealing anything they could from the UK, and the Indians /
[uncyclopedia.wikia.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/2016 08:48PM by MechaBits.

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Traumflug
How do they manage to sell these copies at a price which barely covers the cost of the ingredients? Arduino Nanos for $2.50 with free shipping on eBay, how is this possible? Atmel sells the MCU alone for $1.70, so there is $0.80 left for making the PCB, for connectors, resistors, soldering, packaging, storage, eBay fees and nothing left for distribution, overseas(!) shipping, postage stamp and at least a few percent margin. That's plain impossible and it happens only in China, as far as I can see.

I suspect that a part of the answer is buying in bulk... if you buy a million chips, you'll get them for a lot less than $1.70 each.

Another part is cheap labour. People work for a dollar a day or whatever soldering chips to boards, putting boards into plastic bags and little cardboard boxes, with no unemployment or health insurance.

But I think the largest part of it is in "Quality Control". Atmel sells chips produced by a quality-assured process, ISO9001 and so on. They include procedures to guard against ESD during manufacture, for example. They provide some kind of a guarantee to the customer that the chip will work as expected. If you're building medical equipment you buy from Atmel. What happens to the chips that fail Atmel's QA process? They're supposed to be destroyed, but in reality they're sold as faulty to 3rd parties for a few cents each. They then sell them, maybe mixed into batches of working chips, to people who don't test them. The same happens with all the other components, the bare board, and also at the completed board level. Like Atmel, Arduinos are quality-controlled, with testing and so on. The failures get sold off, to be resuscitated if possible. And lots of *untested* boards are sold, with incorrect valued components, out of tolerance components, solder bridges, cracked tracks, stripped threads, etc.

The free shipping is due to an anomaly in the IPU international postal rules. The way it works is that China Post sells the stamps and keeps the money. The recipient country does most of the work in delivering the mail, and gets *no* money. So China Post can (and does) keep the cost of international postage low for Chinese suppliers, and it costs the vendor next to nothing for international postage out of China. The recipient country doesn't care about stamp prices in China, and it works out reasonably fairly when there's equal amounts of mail going in both directions. When there's a big imbalance, the recipient country (I think) negotiates a top-up payment from China Post, which will then up the price of postage to that country. I think that's started to happen now, and I've noticed that nowadays stuff sent to me from China first gets sent to Malaysia or Singapore or Sweden (presumably in bulk in a large parcel), and then mailed on from there.

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frankvdh
I suspect that a part of the answer is buying in bulk... if you buy a million chips, you'll get them for a lot less than $1.70 each.

Nope, $1.70 is bulk price already.

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frankvdh
What happens to the chips that fail Atmel's QA process? They're supposed to be destroyed, but in reality they're sold as faulty to 3rd parties for a few cents each.

That's quite possible.

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frankvdh
The free shipping is due to an anomaly in the IPU international postal rules. The way it works is that China Post sells the stamps and keeps the money. The recipient country does most of the work in delivering the mail, and gets *no* money. So China Post can (and does) keep the cost of international postage low for Chinese suppliers, and it costs the vendor next to nothing for international postage out of China.

Another plausible explanation, thanks.

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frankvdh
When there's a big imbalance, the recipient country (I think) negotiates a top-up payment from China Post, which will then up the price of postage to that country. I think that's started to happen now

I hope so. It's a bit ridiculous that it's cheaper to ship from Hong Kong to Frankfurt than from Berlin to the same town.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Yes, shipping is another issue. Shipping costs from the USA to anywhere outside the USA just jumped considerably.

The current costs are roughly:

A small package to Canada: $9.50
A small package to anywhere else: $13.50
(There is no tracking for either and they arrive when they arrive. It is usually 2 to 3 weeks.)

Express Mail is now almost $60 to anywhere outside the USA. There is tracking and it is usually in customs in the recipient's country in 3 to 5 days.

Shipping from China to the USA is, of course, free.

We can't compete on shipping, either.

I have a feeling that when UK gov imposes taxes(maybe heavy ones) on any imports, they maybe the only ones who benefit, plus a little to DHL or whoever, it might be the end of cheap components that we could improve upon with a little extra sanding or whatever. I do not want to start paying double for items I need, progress could be stifled. They moan about cheap steel....forgetting the fact that all the prices for these things where artificially inflated by the banks and speculators....price of everything went up for years, prhaps CHina is selling for the realistic price? had the markets not been manipulated for years to bleed us dry...Internet opens up world trade to everyone, bypasses their greedy coffers....so they act to cash in.... Like what they are doing with the sugar tax....poor people eat high sugar foods because its cheaper than healthy foods, but instead of dropping price of healthy foods they increase the price of the stuff your addicted to. Will the higher prices make us more able to compete? Perhaps not if your business is buying in cheap components and selling for a premium.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2016 08:42AM by MechaBits.

... my experience with "free chinese shipping" of small parcels was, that they were carried by (random) flight passengers to Germany and posted here by local mail

---

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

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

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VDX
... my experience with "free chinese shipping" of small parcels was, that they were carried by (random) flight passengers to Germany and posted here by local mail

!!!

Never experienced that with the parcels I've had coming from China to Canada. Shipping is frequently slow but as far as I can tell everything goes into the system in China and makes it's way through normal channels. Perhaps it's because I mostly buy through Aliexpress where the vendors probably have to have proof of postage in the event of a claim of non-delivery (it being an escrow service).

... this was some years ago with USB-converters and other small modules - first ordered a single item to check it ... arrived mostly after 2-3(!) days with only German stamps.

Then ordered 10 units, what obviously was too big for hand-luggage ... after 5 days I was called by customs to check/identify the parts and to pay the 19% german VAT (the single units were below 23€, so VAT-free) ...

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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]

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Traumflug

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frankvdh
I suspect that a part of the answer is buying in bulk... if you buy a million chips, you'll get them for a lot less than $1.70 each.

Nope, $1.70 is bulk price already.

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frankvdh
What happens to the chips that fail Atmel's QA process? They're supposed to be destroyed, but in reality they're sold as faulty to 3rd parties for a few cents each.

That's quite possible.

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frankvdh
The free shipping is due to an anomaly in the IPU international postal rules. The way it works is that China Post sells the stamps and keeps the money. The recipient country does most of the work in delivering the mail, and gets *no* money. So China Post can (and does) keep the cost of international postage low for Chinese suppliers, and it costs the vendor next to nothing for international postage out of China.

Another plausible explanation, thanks.

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frankvdh
When there's a big imbalance, the recipient country (I think) negotiates a top-up payment from China Post, which will then up the price of postage to that country. I think that's started to happen now

I hope so. It's a bit ridiculous that it's cheaper to ship from Hong Kong to Frankfurt than from Berlin to the same town.

Yes. This is annoying. It costs me a minimum of 2.54 USD to send something other than a letter in the US. You can buy connectors out of China for 80 cents free shipping. They need to correct this imbalance. I am for free trade, but this is the USPS bearing the cost of a Chinese vendor.

This makes me wonder if the recent USPS increase in international shipping prices is to subsidize what USPS is paying to ship china crap for free...




Yes. This is annoying. It costs me a minimum of 2.54 USD to send something other than a letter in the US. You can buy connectors out of China for 80 cents free shipping. They need to correct this imbalance. I am for free trade, but this is the USPS bearing the cost of a Chinese vendor.[/quote]

Yeah but pity USPS cant reduce their price to compete rather than the other way round, but the new levies are on the horizon, there are dark forces that will make sure you get screwed whichever way it goes...I ordered a second arduino ramps(even if it doesnt get used for 3d printer it'll come in handy(especially if i end up frying the first)), before the price makes 32bit the first choice.

Here in the UK if I want to leave the house and go shopping you could spend £5 just on transport, and god knows where I would find flanged bearings or many other items, So cheaper to order a few things from China.

So if anyone can tell me, what's like to go out?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2016 02:19AM by MechaBits.

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reifsnyderb
This makes me wonder if the recent USPS increase in international shipping prices is to subsidize what USPS is paying to ship china crap for free...




Yes. This is annoying. It costs me a minimum of 2.54 USD to send something other than a letter in the US. You can buy connectors out of China for 80 cents free shipping. They need to correct this imbalance. I am for free trade, but this is the USPS bearing the cost of a Chinese vendor.

The Chinese government subsidizes China -> US shipping, not USPS.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2016 01:34AM by greenman100.

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greenman100

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reifsnyderb
This makes me wonder if the recent USPS increase in international shipping prices is to subsidize what USPS is paying to ship china crap for free...




Yes. This is annoying. It costs me a minimum of 2.54 USD to send something other than a letter in the US. You can buy connectors out of China for 80 cents free shipping. They need to correct this imbalance. I am for free trade, but this is the USPS bearing the cost of a Chinese vendor.

The Chinese government subsidizes China -> US shipping, not USPS.

True but local distribution costs are incurred by the local Post office due to international agreements. Let's put it frankly, the way China uses all these loopholes, abuses by stealing designs, cheating on quality, lying in the description etc... is may be unfair but it is the customer who is in the end, is responsible for !

Hello,

You are correct. It is the customer who is ultimately responsible as they are purchasing and supporting this. The customer then pays even more when they get an inferior product that does not work correctly.

Best Regards,

Brian

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MKSA

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greenman100

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reifsnyderb
This makes me wonder if the recent USPS increase in international shipping prices is to subsidize what USPS is paying to ship china crap for free...




Yes. This is annoying. It costs me a minimum of 2.54 USD to send something other than a letter in the US. You can buy connectors out of China for 80 cents free shipping. They need to correct this imbalance. I am for free trade, but this is the USPS bearing the cost of a Chinese vendor.

The Chinese government subsidizes China -> US shipping, not USPS.

True but local distribution costs are incurred by the local Post office due to international agreements. Let's put it frankly, the way China uses all these loopholes, abuses by stealing designs, cheating on quality, lying in the description etc... is may be unfair but it is the customer who is in the end, is responsible for !

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MKSA
it is the customer who is in the end, is responsible for !

While this might be true from the legal point of view, it's not really applicable to the real world. How would a newbie distinguish a $20 E3D on eBay from an equally looking $40 E3D in some dedicated RepRap shop, assuming the same description each time? He simply can't. There's also no way to educate newbies, because the counterfeiter can write "highest quality, extremely reliable hotend" just as well.

That's why there are patents, trade marks, licenses, all this stuff. Sellers have to play by the rules because customers can't all be experts. And because one can't try a product before ordering it.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Hello,

There are patents, trade marks, etc. Those are mostly a game for larger companies. The smaller company really doesn't have a legal department to handle this.

The chinese have no problems violating trademarks, patents, etc. They know that it is very difficult to pursue them. I feel that the customer does have a responsibility to him or herself to educate themself and be sure of what they are purchasing. (Why would anyone would want to spend hard-earned money on junk?) It is also no secret that china has a tendency to make cheap, inferior, products and sell them anywhere they can. For me, personally, when I see something is made in china I always look around to see if I have any other options.

My experience has been that it always comes down to price. Some customers have no problem buying several items at $20.00 each to find a "good" chinese copy as opposed to just buying the real thing from the developer and saving money in the long run. I wish it were otherwise.

The future, of course, will be that all products will be of inferior quality and made in china. The developers will eventually give up and exit the market as there will be no point in making quality products for a public that does not want them.

Best Regards,

Brian

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Traumflug

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MKSA
it is the customer who is in the end, is responsible for !

While this might be true from the legal point of view, it's not really applicable to the real world. How would a newbie distinguish a $20 E3D on eBay from an equally looking $40 E3D in some dedicated RepRap shop, assuming the same description each time? He simply can't. There's also no way to educate newbies, because the counterfeiter can write "highest quality, extremely reliable hotend" just as well.

That's why there are patents, trade marks, licenses, all this stuff. Sellers have to play by the rules because customers can't all be experts. And because one can't try a product before ordering it.

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Traumflug

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MKSA
it is the customer who is in the end, is responsible for !

While this might be true from the legal point of view, it's not really applicable to the real world. How would a newbie distinguish a $20 E3D on eBay from an equally looking $40 E3D in some dedicated RepRap shop, assuming the same description each time? He simply can't. There's also no way to educate newbies, because the counterfeiter can write "highest quality, extremely reliable hotend" just as well.

That's why there are patents, trade marks, licenses, all this stuff. Sellers have to play by the rules because customers can't all be experts. And because one can't try a product before ordering it.

This is not true. Take a look at how this company handles counterfeiters: [www.amazon.com]
They put holographic tags with hidden serial numbers on each unit, which can be verified on their website. Clones still exist, but it's well advertised that there is a quality difference to the genuine article, and the information on how to find a genuine unit is easy to find.

That's the sort of thing you have to do if you hope to do more than play at being a business.

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Traumflug

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MKSA
it is the customer who is in the end, is responsible for !

While this might be true from the legal point of view, it's not really applicable to the real world. How would a newbie distinguish a $20 E3D on eBay from an equally looking $40 E3D in some dedicated RepRap shop, assuming the same description each time? He simply can't. There's also no way to educate newbies, because the counterfeiter can write "highest quality, extremely reliable hotend" just as well.

That's why there are patents, trade marks, licenses, all this stuff. Sellers have to play by the rules because customers can't all be experts. And because one can't try a product before ordering it.

I am a "newbie" in this 3D printer field.
It is not a question of being a newbie but a question of common sense, of knowing the value of things, of hard work, respect for expertise, intelligence and ability to say "please" and "thank you".
Today people have grown accustomed to cheap stuff and free hand out often under the false pretense of "sharing" which often means "gime that" while offering nothing in return.

Just see how many people come here with what they think is a brilliant "design" asking you what you think which often boils down to doing the whole study for them because they are too lazy to search, learn and even get frustrated when you don't answer immediately.

OK, I buy cheap Chinese parts too because the loss is minimal in case it is not what I need but I avoid blatant copies and I don't buy Chinese tools for example. Sadly, nowadays, most of what you find in chain store is junk. Even noticed how it smells bad in these stores ? This is because all the oils, solvents they use.