Are reprapped "vitamins" reliable enough?

Hi everyone,
After my first printer, a cheap Prusa i3 clone kit. I'd like to build another printer the reprap way. I read quite a bit in the old reprap blogs about how things were done back in the days. Printed linear bearings, geared extruders, printed bed springs, printed belts, printed electronics, Acorn nut nozzles.

Most of the stuff is done differently now. A lot of the printed parts are replaced by vitamins now, I suspect mostly because of reliability issues. Even extruders are mostly bought nowadays.

Unfortunately the information about the "failures" and dead ends in the reprap development process seem not to be documented anywhere properly. Also, because of the abundance of developers, each having their own go at things, there is a staggering amount of different desings.

For now I am especially interested in useable, reliable designs for printed LM8UU bearings, motor pulleys and idler pulleys?
Do printed lead screw nuts work?
How much hours of printing can I expect from a gregs wades extruder before it needs new gears?
Is a geared extruder really necessary with 1,75 mm filament?
What is your favorite printed reprap part?

Thank you very much in advance for your Informations.
All the best,
Christian

Hi Christian,

there is much more possible with printed parts, than used today ... but cheap mechanicals parts, found at amazon or alibaba (or salvaged from even cheaper chinese machines) are easier to get, than print or manufacture them as DIY.

Another possibility are cheap UV-resin printers, even cheaper than "RepRap-style" FDM printers with much higher resolution, accuracy and material options.

Pulleys and gears are the easiest parts to print - here an example:




Or here some of my parts form 10+ years ago (some tools for microtech with super-precise bearings, using ferrofluid and "forced magnetic levitation"):




Or metal casting with 3D-printed parts:

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Viktor
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