[ Project ] 30$ reprap plastic parts kit

.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2011 08:36PM by snoopy.

I have a BS in Mechanical Engineering, graduated in 2009 from Penn State.

I have not personally cast any significant number of parts myself. I was involved with a group who did plastic castings for wind turbine blades, though. The cast parts were every bit as strong as identical parts printed on a Statasys FDM 2000. We sanded, filled, and painted the printed parts and used it as a master for the blade molds. You could just about see fingerprints on the finished parts left on the master. If it is done well, plastic casting is an amazing low volume production method. Of course, you CAN make bad parts. Just like every other process. There are a lot of different casting resins, with different mechanical properties. Some are more heat resistant than others.

I'm simply stating my opinions, from my experiences. Your mileage may vary.

The real barrier to IM parts is mold cost. I've partnered with someone in the community who has the machinery to make the molds for and manufacture parts. This brings the cost of the molds down by 2/3 (interchanging money for labor, of course.) Designing the parts takes a lot of time but isn't terribly difficult. With any luck we'll have some out in 2011.

I feel there will always be the potential for profit. There is always someone who is willing to to make it smarter/faster/cheaper around the corner.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2011 04:19PM by Andrew Diehl.

Quote

With out profits there would be no need to improve on anything.

You're from the U.S., aren't you?

Quite a bit of innovation is done without profit in mind. Just think about the origins of the Free Software Foundation or Linux, for example.

---

Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Hi !

Project is in a pause now due to the manufacturer being too busy for such small ( ) quantities. There's an opening to have samples made in two months.
I think that's good because by then there will maybe be passionate people selling non-industrial 30$ cast parts all around ... So the little observation time this gives is a good thing to not make parts that won't sell.

Also, I'm not a reprap expert at all, and thus I'm expecting a lot of help from the manufacturer, so this will give time to finish my huxley and learn more things, so that if the parts are ever made, I don't do mistakes.

After reading the various messages here, a few precisions : the project is to have the parts made by injection molding, in neat metal molds, and then get the parts drilled and finished and all, so we would be selling ready-to-use parts.

Also, "With out profits there would be no need to improve on anything." is what drives the whole patent thing, and that sucks, because it's so not true. Assuming people won't make awesome things just because they can't get candy for it, is pretty much reducing them to animals. Please read more about free software ( or open hardware for that matter ... ).

I know a lot of people around have this strange idea they'll make a business out of reprap parts, I think they are missing the point that the whole reprap thing is exactly about that being less and less feasible with time ... ( If I ever get molded parts made, I certainly don't expect to make a living out of it )
The more reprap parts you sell, the more repraps there are, the more reprap parts makers there are, the lower the prices, ??? , PROFIT !
Also, the more repraps there are, the more people looking for ways to make it cheaper there are, ??? , PROFIT !

I'll update here on how it goes with the manufacturer.
Cheers !

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2011 03:49PM by arthurwolf.

.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2011 08:35PM by snoopy.

.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2011 08:35PM by snoopy.

snoopy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A can of soda back in the 80's costs 35 cents. Now
> the same can of soda costs $1.00, more expensive
> than gas. Do you think a can of soda will go back
> down to 35 cents? I don't think so. As the cost of
> living goes up, the cost of doing business goes up
> that means the parts required to build a 3d
> printer will go up. Prices will only keep going
> up.
> SNIP ...
>
> Final thoughts: You can't injection mold hardware,
> electronics or the skill set required to build and
> maintain a Mendel or the desire to get one. By the
> way, if one really want a 3d printer, one can use
> wood and cut it out using hand tools to build one.
> They don't need any plastic parts to do so.

I don't really see the point you are trying to make ... I'm not even sure who you are answering to.
You advance arguments, but I don't get what idea they support. Maybe you forgot your conclusion ?
I'll be assuming your point is "what you are doing is not usefull because it does not improve the reprap design".

Making a stepper motor may be possible some day with a reprap, but today it's less expensive to just buy one. ( same thing for the electronics ).
The same thing goes for the plastic parts ... if cast/injected parts are cheaper than printed, I don't really see a problem. It does not defeat the purpose of the reprap project, on the contrary, it makes it more accessible.

If cast/injected parts end up costing 10$, and the printed parts cost 100 ( mostly due to print time ), it won't mean people won't print reprap parts on reprap machines, just that it will be easier to get a reprap machine. Same thing goes for all the parts ... I'm not experienced enough with reprap, but the day I am, I already have contacts with suppliers and quotations that would make it possible to sell reprap kits for less than 200$ for a prusa with electronics ... Lower prices means more reprap machines in the wild, means more people working on getting printed parts possible and cheaper, lesser skills required, faster print speed, etc .... And then maybe/probably, the price of printed parts will compete with industrial parts ... today they don't, that's all.

About putting efforts in a recycler or a better extruder : people do what they know ... I don't know extruders, I know contacting industrial manufacturers, so that's what I do. I'm sure other people will do the things you want to happen. And if they don't maybe you should. Just don't try to convict people that do stuff that they shouldn't : doing something is better than doing nothing, and that's the kind of discourse that kills ideas.

snoopy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Windows is on every PC because they had the
> profit/funds to do further research on improve the
> product. Before windows there was DOS. Do you
> honestly think that DOS can evolve to windows
> without profits and funding from selling DOS and
> related products? Don't be a simpleton.

Not nice.

I'm not sure Microsoft is a very good example. First because it's evil ( as in : kills innovation ), then because it's probably one of the companies that has the worst profit/innovation ratio. Also because software innovation has much lower cost than hardware innovation.
Free Software evolves from version to version without profit, so it is indeed possible to do innovation without profit.

On the other hand, part of reprap is hardware, that clearly requires more money in order to innovate, because you have to buy physical stuff.
But people don't buy reprap sellers repraps to support innovation. They buy it because they want reprap machines. Otherwise they would give donations to the reprap research foundation.
Innovation is a byproduct of that economy, But that economy is not the main source of innovation in the reprap project : enthusiasm is.
Not all reprap buyers want to end up reprap sellers, still reprap machines sell. Meaning people buy the machine and don't expect to make profit out of it. Still these same people innovate.


>
> Don't tell me you use some free open source
> software as your operating system and not windows
> or some sort of commercial software.

I do, but I'm not sure how my computer is related to all this ...

Again, I see a lot of agressivity, but I have difficulties getting you point ... could you summarize in a simple sentence ? ( also maybe quoting what you answer to would help understanding ).

arthurwolf ,
I'm just being the devil's advocate.

snoopy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> arthurwolf ,
> I'm just being the devil's advocate.

That makes what you have to say even more interesting

Quote

Making a stepper motor may be possible some day with a reprap, but today it's less expensive to just buy one. ( same thing for the electronics ).
[...] people do what they know ...

Interesting tidbit here: Gen7 _can_ be manufactured on a RepRap, at least more than any other mainstream electronics. Yet, I've yet to hear somebody saying "Hey, it's great I can mill or etch the PCB on my own now". For some reason I'm not really aware of only very few people are interested in replicating the machine on their own. They either produce parts to be sold, or they buy parts.

---

Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Well, printing 3D objects is something new.

Whereas geeks have had the capability to do PCBs a few (human) generations now, so having a RepRap etch boards meets a need that was already fairly well met by existing tooling and the marketplace.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2011 05:22AM by SebastienBailard.

---

-Sebastien, RepRap.org library gnome.

---

Remember, you're all RepRap developers (once you've joined the super-secret developer mailing list), and the wiki, RepRap.org, [reprap.org] is for everyone and everything!

I've been thinking about what's been said on this thread, and about the $30 parts sets themselves, and I suspect they may be a bit premature. Not that they can't be made and sold (and if you can, by all means, please do). But more a philosophical issue of whether $30 will be incorrectly perceived as a low cost of entry by too many people.

I'm thinkining the most good might be to make those parts and partner with one or more of the existing stores to sell them. That will lower the cost of a printer, provide a higher volume distribution channel and avoid a perception of an inexpensive parts set being a low cost of entry.

RepRap appears to be starting to attract people who just want to be users. The last thing I want to see happen is for a bunch of people to buy inexpensive parts sets only to realize they still have a long way to get to a working printer. If that happens to too many people, it could give RepRap a reputation as being too hard to get to a working printer, and then it'd be fighting to overcome that forever.

I think this thread has evolved from the tag line to "low cost mass produced plastic parts."

I'm sure anyone producing the plastic in volume will be primarily selling to those producing kits if not making kits themselves.

I, personally, am aiming for the "one stop shop" approach.

for people looking for moulded parts, i saw a new category at eMAKERshop

I`m interested in the Mendel parts too.


Uli

patbob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've been thinking about what's been said on this
> thread, and about the $30 parts sets themselves,
> and I suspect they may be a bit premature. Not
> that they can't be made and sold (and if you can,
> by all means, please do). But more a
> philosophical issue of whether $30 will be
> incorrectly perceived as a low cost of entry by
> too many people.
>
> I'm thinkining the most good might be to make
> those parts and partner with one or more of the
> existing stores to sell them.

Exactly the way the project is going right now.
I can't say names, but I can say that some/most sellers are very interrested in resseling these parts.

But again, this project is on hold because of the factory not having time right now ( "small" quantities mean you don't have priority, would be different if I had 10000 made .. ) , and to see the way clonedel parts price evolve ... ( should write to the sellers about that, but not much time for it now, I hope they read this thread )

Pacca Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> for people looking for moulded parts, i saw a new
> category at eMAKERshop

50$ ... too close to my 30$ ( even if they are not processed and mine would have been ) for my project to be viable.

Not throwing it away, but it's definitely on hold for now ...

But think that your project is slightly wider...

Pacca Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> But think that your project is slightly wider...

That's exactly the problem : if I get 300 kits made, and start selling them at 30$ each, I probably won't sell them all before the price for non-industrial molded parts drops bellow that ( with the current price evolution ).
Looking into having them made for even cheaper, but that's going to take time.

yes, 300 is a big number if you want to sell only plastic parts. but you can use them for making full ready to assemble low costs kits...

The problem is the same as I see it. Many like I got interested in making their own reprap but got driven away by the cost of all the parts. Make in it cheaper is definitely a way to go since it will get more people into the reprap community making it grow. By making it cheaper you make sure people build their own, getting familiar with the software, electronics and assembly part. By that people learn to fix problems by themselves and also getting into optimizing and developing better versions. Lowering the price of part should certainly be a goal.
Please update us on any progress with this project of yours.

Rgds

.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2011 12:28PM by snoopy.