Spare Parts

With the recent and very sudden demise of RepRap Pro does anyone know what can be done in future if hardware needs to be replaced in the machines? Is there an alternative supplier that can be used for hobbed gears and/or nozzles, these seem to be the life limiting hardware parts, the plastic can be printed obviously (which I will be doing as soon as I have my Fisher fully calibrated).

I've only just got my printer, my wife bought it for Christmas thinking RepRap Pro would be around for a while, she's quite disappointed, but I'm more concerned how they're going to support the statutory 12 month manufacturers warranty. They're very clear in their message that they've not gone bankrupt, so they are still legally obliged to honour the 12mo warranty, but the message is a bit Woolley and seems it will only run to the 15th? I've asked this question directly to them but don't expect a response.

If the rrp uk source dries up, id look to rrp china

Also, there is nothing stopping you from using a non rrp extruder, or head etc, most repraps become a mixture of oem parts, self designed parts, and stuff from third parties

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RepRapPro Mendel 3 Tricolour
RepRapPro Fisher
-Carbon Arms
-Easy adjust Carriage+effector
-axis stiffness mods
HE3D -600 delta
-Duet 0.8.5
-PanelDue
-DC42 Height probe
-RobotDigg metal components
Simplyfy3D
RS Design Spark CAD

Dear all:

Closing-down of RRP-UK is a sad news for our customers and supporters ,it is also pity to RRP=China. As mentioned in reprappro.com, RRP-China will continue our business . We will announce which service could be provided to our customers outside of China in due course.

Many thanks for your continuous support!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2016 06:14PM by reprapprochina.

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RepRapPro China 技术支持团队

西安锐普3D打印机有限公司
www.reprappro.com.cn

our website is www.reprappro.com.cn , sorry it is only in Chinese for the time being.

Quote
geeksarebeta
With the recent and very sudden demise of RepRap Pro does anyone know what can be done in future if hardware needs to be replaced in the machines? Is there an alternative supplier that can be used for hobbed gears and/or nozzles, these seem to be the life limiting hardware parts, the plastic can be printed obviously (which I will be doing as soon as I have my Fisher fully calibrated).

I've only just got my printer, my wife bought it for Christmas thinking RepRap Pro would be around for a while, she's quite disappointed, but I'm more concerned how they're going to support the statutory 12 month manufacturers warranty. They're very clear in their message that they've not gone bankrupt, so they are still legally obliged to honour the 12mo warranty, but the message is a bit Woolley and seems it will only run to the 15th? I've asked this question directly to them but don't expect a response.

I've just got the Fisher as well, I think that as far as things like the Hobbed Insert, etc things can be sourced from other shops. It's good that RRP CN is still up and running and I'd expect them see this as an opportunity tbh.

As far as the fisher is concerned I already see limitations for myself and so I am beginning to formulate an upgrade path (after only 3 weeks - it's good to have a hobby ). Firstly while I haven't had any breakages of the arms yet, they do come off with a horrible regularity during printing and so I am in the process of replacing them with Carbon Fibre ones (see the post in this forum by bgkdavis) - I actually bought extra carbon fibre rods because it was much cheaper and am toying with making extras and selling them to fund their replacement I'm also probably going to use the replacement effector / carriage parts designed by bgkdavis as well. Many more ideas as well but one at a time

I think my point is that the community will always help even if they no longer have the model you have. The nature of these machines is one of common hardware parts and reproducable plastic parts meaning that there are likely to be sources of them while there is demand out there and I think that demand is growing.

I think the biggest issue for spares (assuming you print a parts kit) is going to be the nozzles and the 19v fan. The motors, duet, hobbed insert, bowden tube and ends are available online although I did notice some stores are selling reprappro parts (you can tell by the bags) so they might not have stock long. Currently reprappro.com.cn doesn't have much stock advertised. You can browse their site through google translate quite well.

If you need to replace the acrylic parts the drawing can be sent to one of many only laser cutting services, I did that recently to make the Fisher XT and had aluminium cut from those drawings - albeit I modified them slightly for height and additional holes.

I already have a plan to change the fan to 12v, it should cost about £2 to do that using an ebay fan and power converter (99p each delivered) and with the dc42 o level firmware the fan is only on when the heater is warm so will extend the fan life quite a bit.

The hot end I would dearly love to see someone amend the carriage/effector to house one of the cheap clone E3D hot ends, I've seen these on ebay for £15. Id continue to use the 19v carriage heater and only replace the PSU when that finally failed. That said I don't know if the heat sink is a different size or not, it might just slot in as is once the fan is removed. - See [www.ebay.co.uk]