Tips for Building the RepRap and buying materials?

Hi Community,

my father and I are interestid in building this fantastic Robot ourselves.
The only problem we have is to buy the materials for the RepRap.
On the Wiki homepage we found a list of seller and looked at the German seller (https://shop.grrf.de/index.php?main_page=) because we are from Germany ,

Now my question is:
Is it useful to buy the kits they offer for sale or should we buy every material lonely? What is easier and better?

And my second queston is:
Is it useful to buy the Extruder or to buy the materials of it and build it by ourselve?
We had written that the Extruder is very difficult to build and so we dont know wether we will can do this.

I hope you can help us,

Sincerely,

Pandora1337

You should post this in the Germany RepRap User Group (auf Deutsch)!
For the hardware kit I think you can get a better deal from MENDEL-PARTS.COM.

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Bob Morrison
Wörth am Rhein, Germany
"Luke, use the source!"
BLOG - PHOTOS - Thingiverse

Whatever you do, do not go to Botmill to get your parts. You won't have enough to complete your project. Trust me I speak from experience. I had to make an addition few trips to the hardware store to get nuts and bolts that I payed full price for already through botmill. If you do end up going with them, they will stop replying to your emails about problems with their parts after a while. I do not recommend botmill. Avoid at all costs.

Please note that BotMill does not manufacture the kits or any parts-we are one of the distributors for TechZone, the manufacturer. We are able to sell the kits and related items at substantial discounts but please note that Techzone is the party who is the manufacturer and provides support to buyers.
Due to the lowest possible prices, at times there is a small delay from the time an order is placed to the time it is shipped as TechZone is manufacturing them in batches.
We at BotMill are always very responsive to all clients communications and we have continued praise for our efforts from numerous clients. Customer service is utmost for us.
I can be reached directly if needed at gil@botmill.com

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www.BotMill.com
Follow us on twitter @BotMill

Well Botmill...gil...whatever, you should consider getting your parts from a different source. Oh and you should consider replying to your emails.

BotMill Wrote:
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> We at BotMill are always very responsive to all
> clients communications and we have continued
> praise for our efforts from numerous clients.
> Customer service is utmost for us.
> I can be reached directly if needed at
> gil@botmill.com

Are you saying that your customers that have said otherwise are liars?

It would be more accurate to say "our goal is to be responsive to all clients communications", from what I have seen that's not true, but at least you wouldn't be calling your customers liars with that statement.

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repraplogphase.blogspot.com

Hello all,
COuld you please tell me if anyone has success in building any item using a few colours in the same item?
What I mean is changing the ABS plastic from one colour to another
If so, could you also let me know where can I see pictures of such multi colour items?
I am contemplating a project but would like to see others ideas
Thank you very much

Hello Fred,

Myself, I haven't printed anything out as of yet. Iam however building a reprap mendel machine. The way this thing works, It would probably have to have multiple reels and multiple extruders equipped with different colors. It would also have to have a "head bank" for all the extruder tips that are not in use along with a way to switch them out. It would require some more dev work on the reprap program once a mechanically workable model was built. Maybe some kind of color mixing multi extruder tip could be used. It would be like setting up a rainbow of colors into individual heated tips and squirting them into a main heated tip. That way you could fade from one color to the next and have full color prints. I don't know how well colored plastic mixes but it's just an idea.
I haven't seen anything like that so far as I have been looking but I will definitely keep my eyes open.

I dont know about Mendel-parts.com. I have placed an order there a month ago and am still waiting for my items to ship. Keep giving me excusses and now prices are dropping, and I am stuck with nothing for now. I regret using them and am ready to demand my money back.

Well, mendel-parts.com came through. Made me think that something should be started to review vendors on here (if I am not missing it already) so other peoples experience may help some one else. I am pleased with mendel-parts.com though. Great communication.

Good Idea.

I would have to say that during my research reprapcentral.com seems to be the most expensive way to buy anything, I have not used them so maybe they have good service? but a very high cost in my opinion.

They have a minimum order of £20, fair enough almost anything on their site will get over that

Alchem25 Wrote:
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> Well, mendel-parts.com came through. Made me think
> that something should be started to review vendors
> on here (if I am not missing it already) so other
> peoples experience may help some one else. I am
> pleased with mendel-parts.com though. Great
> communication.

Right now mendelparts.com is one guy, and he is focusing heavily on the new electronics board testing.

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-Steve

>Right now mendelparts.com is one guy, and he is focusing heavily on the new electronics board testing.

>-Steve
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I have to say that it was worth the wait. printed parts are very nice. I was getting worried cause I would have run out of time to file dispute with paypal, and didnt want to get burned. I guess he ran into problems with his mendel, so had to wait to get it back up and running. I am very happy with my purchase from Mendel-parts.com. Got here very fast also. Shipped out friday from Netherlands, and got it monday. I only wish the parts were cleaned up first, but it is not a problem.

Hi Richrap,

We at RepRap Central, like almost every other supplier, are fairly new to the market and we decided to set our initial sights on providing great Customer service and reliable delivery, rather than rockbottom prices. As an engineer, there's nothing worse than parts being delayed or not turning up when your ready to go with a project. We are looking at our pricing, but we wont compromise on quality of service and speed of delivery. MIke from Manchester recently ordered 13 components of which 12 were with him in less than 24 hours, these are the sort of targets we're after, allowing our Customers to get on with the build virtually straightaway.

We can improve on the prices of the nuts and bolts which we think you are referring to, but are not keen on waiting for shipments from China to do this. The RepRap project was born in the UK and we'll be supporting our UK nut and bolt suppliers. If this costs a little more then we think this is worth it.

Regards
RepRap Central

[Edit as per poster's request -Sebastien]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2010 01:24PM by SebastienBailard.

For people in the UK planning to self-replicate, I suggest looking for information about UK suppliers in the United Kingdom RepRap User Group.

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-Sebastien, RepRap.org library gnome.

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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!