anyone willing to donate/sell a mendel90 to a school in cambridge (UK)

hi folks,

i'm in contact with a progressive new school in cambridge that is considering opening a makerspace on the premises: the key difference with this school is that they would like the students to be mostly self-taught: independent thinking, self-motivation and teamwork will be encouraged. a good way to do that would be to have the *students* design and build the equipment, under supervision.

as i'm a big fan of the mendel90 (but having just sold mine) is there anyone who knows anyone who would be happy to either donate or sell a mendel90 that they're looking to retire or replace, so that the school has a first piece of equipment that they can get started with. even if it's one that's in some state of repair, that would be ok as i have a 3d printer to be able to print up replacement parts.

thank you.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2016 04:27PM by lkcl.

Hi,

Is this wise? The Mendel90 is an excellent machine and I understand your liking of it but it is probably not a wise choice for this scenario for the following reasons:

1. You no longer have a Mendel90 to use as a reference in assisting the school.
2. Mendel90 kits are no longer in production so the school would have to source parts for new machines.
3. While you may be willing to assist the school now, what happens later when you wish to stop doing this?
4. The Mendel90 is an older design that does not accommodate newer technologies without significant modifications.

I think it would be wiser for the school to adopt a commercial machine. It will be CE Approved (this is important to educational establishments) and have manufacturer or reseller support. They could order new machines and upgrade much more easily.

Regards,
Neil Darlow

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I try to write with consideration for all nationalities. Please let me know if something is unclear.
Printing with Mendel90 from fedora 25 using Cura, FreeCAD, MeshLab, OpenSCAD, Skeinforge and Slic3r tools.