Cost of printing a mendel?

Well if the prices keep falling at the rate they are, undercutting and offloading might be a good idea after all. Get "money" while you still can.

If you sell more sets than someone who isn't selling as many for a few dollars less, no real harm done, right? It's not like people are selling sets with prices between extremes or anything. Lowest I've seen in $99.95 on eBay, next lowest price was $107 or so. Think that seller has reposted the same set 3 times, each time docking value.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2011 02:59PM by ata0921.

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- Andy
digifabindustries.blogspot.com

I have ordered my kit and planning on selling the Mendel parts cheap. I understand the supply and demand side of this and I think I will allow the bidders to set their own price. It's just like any other tech, if you want it first you usually pay more. So after a couple of auctions I'll know my base price and set a "Buy it now price" a little lower than that base. I imagine that the market will eventually level off and buying the parts won't be the price of admission to this project.

There are other ways to make money on the machine without gouging other builders. I don't even have mine finished and startup companies are already asking me if I could print out prototypes for their projects.

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-John, San Diego, CA

www.youtube.com/user/GeoDroidJohn

MrJohnEcker on Twitter, Gmail

As someone who has just ordered his first Mendel kit, I will add I'm my thoughts here as to my motivations on the decision to spend the money.

1. I am an engineer, but the practical kind. So the mechanical build really looks tedious rather then difficult. Aligning it is the same from my point of view as I am experienced on setting up old fashioned machines very accurately and have all the tools to do so. So the mechanics don't daunt me.
So that's a +, for me only though.

2. Having played with the software for a few weeks I can get it to work. So it gives me hope it won't completely drive me insane. It could be a lot simpler and easier to use though and I think it might put a lot of people off.
This is more a -. The softwhere needs to evolve a lot.

3. It is really really cool. The idea of printing the parts I have designed is fantastic. And having done CAD for years it just looks like irresistible fun. (I bet i wont be saying that in six months.)
Another + for me.

4. I have the opportunity to make some money back even if it is not as much as I spent. This does sweeten the whole deal a lot. And given the biology metaphor of symbiosis used it does seem fitting that it has the opportunity to make money. That is just another kind of nectar enticing you to build it.
Anoter +.

I think it would be best to let the market progress naturally. It is a good thing that the parts don't seem practical to have injection moulded. That they are pricey but not unaffordable. It gives that extra incentive to get one. And as an evolving symbiotic machine it has to survive by any means. Which mans it has to convince us to procreate it. If capatalisum helps, than like all in opportunities in nature it will be exploited regardless of our high principals.

When I make a set of parts I think I will just sell mine (If i ever get it to make them.) straight off the machine. I also have a few ideas I want to try to improve accuracy and other aspects of the machine. Which would hopefully make my parts better. And evolve the machine.

This is also clearly not for the kind of person who doesn't like to learn new things and is not technically minded. It is not that useful if you can't do CAD. And is not practical if you can't build it and set it up well. It also is not currently for individuals who have a lack of spare cash.

But considering the cool technology, it is still cheep.

Hey Madkite

I have to agree with you on the software bigtime. (assuming you are talking about Reprap host).

It works, kind-of, but is so buggy it drives me crazy. I have moved on to Skeinforge for generating my gcode but still use Reprap host for jogging my axis around, testing the extruder and also the loading and printing the one object I ave printed so far. It looks like the type of thing one churns out to get a job done but not for public consumption.

I am sure there must be something better out there already, and it might even be easier to use a terminal type program where one can just send gcode. I have seen reference to send.py

I have been at it 7 months or so already and am still having a whale of a time - learning loads

enjoy the ride

Have you guys given RepSnapper a try? Seems like a lot of people have started to catch on with them, using skeinforge to generate g-code and printing with RepSnapper.

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- Andy
digifabindustries.blogspot.com

I've been using either the reprap host or repsnapper to send Gcodes to the Mendel (gen 3 techzone remix) after generating it with ReplicatorG 023 and Skeinforge 34. Repsnapper seems to be more stable but it can take a long time to load a big part since it allows you to display the tool path. It would be nice if it can be made to just read the gcode file for printing so it can read it as fast as the reprap host.

Hmm... I will take a look at repsnapper although I think I should also put send.py into my set of tools.

Anyone have any idea what might be the best 3G firmware for Skeinforge?

Repsnapper looks the most user friendly but I can't find any nice options for gear ratio mod like in the reprap host program. In that I can just change the steps per mm.

Don't know how or if it can be easily done in repsnapper.

This is for a mod idea I have to do in the future where I have greater X Y accuracy at the expense of speed. It might not work but I like the idea of the program accommodating experiments and playings with the workings of Mendel. I think that is important a program to allow people to easily change things to accommodate mods while trying to improve the design.

Reprap host does this clearly and well. I think it just needs a very good overhaul, debugging and a better interface.

you can make some adjustments in repsnapper under the printer settings, but i think all this really does is alter the gcode generation. So if using skeinforge to generate gcode you either have to make the changes in firmware or skeinforge.

there are lots of little bugs with the current windows version, too. even so, i like it and am eagerly awaiting a new windows build.

Not sure (I hate Java, and refuse to use the reprap host software) but I think the steps/mm stuff in the reprap host is a holdover from the previous non-gcode generation of electronics.

In current (g-code based) electronics, the steps/mm can only be modified by recompiling the firmware.

I think. (I don't use the official firmware either, there may be a M-code or something to write a new steps/mm value into eeprom? If so, the reprap host may indeed use it. But I doubt it and haven't heard about anything like that.)

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I'm building it with Baling Wire

jgilmore Wrote:
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> Not sure (I hate Java, and refuse to use the
> reprap host software) but I think the steps/mm
> stuff in the reprap host is a holdover from the
> previous non-gcode generation of electronics.
>
> In current (g-code based) electronics, the
> steps/mm can only be modified by recompiling the
> firmware.
>

You can only change the steps/mm by modifying the Arduino code and reloading the firmware. This cannot be changed in the reprap host as far as I know.

Ok. I misunderstood jgilmore's post. After reading it again, I realized that he was stating the same thing. Never mind.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2011 08:32PM by brnrd.

Well for the far flung future when I get to this mod, does anyone know how hard it would be to do that. Programing is something I know nothing about. Would it just be a case of simply changing a few relevant parameters in the existing program?

I would basically want to exactly double the steps on the X and Y.

Your right, you would just change some parameters in the header file. There are instructions on the reprap wiki on how to use Arduino to modify and load the firmware. There's also a topic on this forum on firmware where you can ask for help.

It's quite easy. There's a config file, and even though it's technically a C program file, it's easy to modify and there's plenty of comments to help you along. And of course you can ask here if you run into problems.

The hard part is getting the "arduino" software installed correctly. I think you'll have fewer problems if you go for a version that's one or two versions out-of-date. You also have to unzip/install the sanguino mod to the arduino software before you can compile things for the reprap (which uses a atmel 644p, also known as "sanguino").

Even that's not too tough though. I'd start on the sanguino site.

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I'm building it with Baling Wire

Thanks for the reassurance.

Well when I get there I will look all that up. I have to get the kit (And I'm expecting to have to wait two months.) and get it all working to print the parts first. Really simple mod if evrything goes correctly. (Fatal words.)

Will post it all in the relevant place once I start. May make some videos too. I'm sure people here will be happy to give advice.

Hi,

I am building a Prusa Mendel with heat bed and have been playing around with Teacup firmware.

I try running some gcode like this in ReplicatorG and send.py

G21
G90
M105
G1 X50 F500
G1 X0 F500

In ReplicatorG, I get no temperature reading for the heat bed, but the motor moves.

In send.py, I get temperature reading for heat bed, but the motor doesn't move.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions on how figure this one out.

sorry sent to wrong topic, will create a new topic