state of the art

With so many models and variations around...
What is the state of the art?
What are the current extruder-models and wich ones are obsolete?
What are the official extruders of Mendel and MiniMendel?
Is there some kind of family-tree to see wich one developed from wich?
Is there a roadmap or requirements-document or sth. for the next official extruder?

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Very good questions.

You're a RepRap developer, so you're in charge. How do you want to go about answering this?

I'd suggest hacking these new templates into shape, pasting them into the relevant pages, and getting the relevant developers to edit them.

[reprap.org]
[reprap.org]

These templates are based on Rob Gilson's Development Template:
[bit.ly]

mediawiki template documentation:
[www.mediawiki.org]

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It may be possible to do 'Widget Stuff'
[www.mediawiki.org]
to generate comparison tables so that our fellow user-developers can see what's fastest, cheapest, biggest, smallest, lightest, "Best" etc.

Also, I'd suggest that RepRap doesn't do "official". As long as it is in the wiki, reasonably well documented, and doesn't probably won't burst into flame, it is "official".

Not very official:
[reprap.org]
(note: not thermoplastic)
Somewhat official:
[reprap.org]
Looking pretty official:
[reprap.org]

Will be official as soon as VDX finishes building it and signs off on it:
[reprap.org]
(Note: not an extruder)

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2010 09:55PM by SebastienBailard.

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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!

SebastienBailard Wrote:
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> Very good questions.
>
> You're a RepRap developer, so you're in charge.
> How do you want to go about answering this?

I´m not.
I did some improvements on the Mini-Mendel fork
but am in no way associated with the RepRap-project,
have no SVN access and no clue what the maintainer of
this chaotic project is doing in terms of roadmap,
milestones or releases except that 2 versions "Darwin"
and "Mendel" have been released in the past and are
being forked left and right with noone merging improvements
from these forks back into the trunk.
At least I´ve not seen a "Mendel V1.1" despite many
improved parts showing up on Thingiverse.

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I think of you as a RepRap developer.

I'll ping Adrian, I'm curious about these matters as well. This is the roadmap I am following, but it is too early to announce on the blog: [reprap.org]

Would you like to be the Mini-Mendel maintainer? It would be very helpful of you.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2010 01:14AM by SebastienBailard.

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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!

SebastienBailard Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Would you like to be the Mini-Mendel maintainer?
> It would be very helpful of you.

No thank you. I am way too busy to even properly maintain
my own projects. (Traveling Salesman navigation system for OpenStreetMap,
jGnucashLib accounting-automation, ...)
I´m cleaning up my Hollow MiniMendel and then turn to other
things.

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* Blog
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Marcus,
I'm not trying to be rude... but are you suggesting that Toyota have no idea what they are doing because all the after-market add-ons and improvements never make it back into the mainstream product?

Perhaps it's just the testing and quality-control required of the parts that make it into the main-stream product takes many, many more man-hours to undergo than it does to upload a supposedly "improved" version?

Perhaps it's just that the maintainer/s focus is different than yours? Does that make it wrong?

If you want to get involved more, I encourage you to email one of the "core" Developer team privately, and ask for an invitation to the email list.

Buzz.

buzz Wrote:
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> Marcus,
> I'm not trying to be rude... but are you
> suggesting that Toyota have no idea what they are
> doing because all the after-market add-ons and
> improvements never make it back into the
> mainstream product?

Who is Toyota?
According to
[objects.reprap.org]
Adrian Bowyer is the maintainer of "Reprap".

I´m suggesting that the development that is happening
is completely intransparent to anyone outside the core team.
Or can you tell me what the core team is currently working on
and what the next version will consist of?
From the documentation I see there was just "plop" a Mendel
popping it after "plop" a Darwin suddenly existed.


>
> Perhaps it's just the testing and quality-control
> required of the parts that make it into the
> main-stream product takes many, many more
> man-hours to undergo than it does to upload a
> supposedly "improved" version?

Well, what improvements HAVE made it back into the trunk
and when? Changelog anyone? How to even submit bug-reports
and patches? The official Mendel STL-files are oriented wrong
for printing for ages now for example.

Heck, what format is it even kept in?
I see STL-exports, AOI-files that no sane person would
work with and Solidworks-files that are stated to NOT be
the master-files.

> Perhaps it's just that the maintainer/s focus is
> different than yours? Does that make it wrong?

What ARE they focusing on?
Does the wiki state ANYTHING about what direction the
trunk is taking AT ALL?

> If you want to get involved more, I encourage you
> to email one of the "core" Developer team
> privately, and ask for an invitation to the email
> list.

I don´t have the time to get involved. I just would like
to see any project management at all. Here is just a forum
with hundrets of forks and experiments that people do on ther own
and everyone has to learn about all these third-party forks
to gather the changes for his own fork.

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I´m cleaning up my Hollow MiniMendel and then turn to other
things.
Hmmm ... your Hollow MiniMendel sounds like it is the state of the art. Once it is cleaned up, do you think you'll upload it to RepRap? I don't mean to be a bother.

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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!

SebastienBailard Wrote:
> Hmmm ... your Hollow MiniMendel sounds like it is
> the state of the art. Once it is cleaned up, do
> you think you'll upload it to RepRap? I don't
> mean to be a bother.

How?
I can´t upload it to the SVN-server as I don´t have
SVN access and it is a fork. I guess development continues
with the next version of the regular Mendel. What would a
third-party fork do in the main SVN except confuse people?
Who would maintain it once it´s in there?

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How?

I would start with a wiki page and attach the files as a zip. It worked for
[reprap.org]
And that is what matters.

I believe we may start using github soon. I had considered installing gitorious on the server or using gitorious's server but I don't think that will maixmize user-dev participation.

I do sympathize with your general position. It seems as though very often RepRap user-devs say: "I am very busy, I'm just tacking this up (in random, possibly non-optimal place) and I'll let someone else figure it out." It may not help that many of our skilled user-devs such as yourself or Vik Oliver sometimes occassionally prefer to check their improvements into Thingiverse, which was skillfully and deliberately designed to do well what the wiki currently does poorly. I admit I have strong feelings about that.

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This "state of the art" thread
=
[forums.reprap.org]
=
[en.wikipedia.org]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2010 02:59AM 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!

SebastienBailard Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How?
>
> I would start with a wiki page and attach the
> files as a zip. It worked for
> [reprap.org]
> And that is what matters.

I updated the MiniMendel wiki-page to mention it already.
There is no functional difference to the MiniMendel, so that
page is a good place to keep the info.
I´ll keep the files in Thingiverse because of the nice derived-work
and other -features there. And to not have the files in 2 places.

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... i'm following the f@h-project as long as RepRap ...

As you can see, the f@h had a highly optimized start, a strict roadmap, mainly closed development ... and a relative small community

RepRap on the other hand was/is much more imperfect, a bit 'shaky' and a really good candidate for 'repstrapping' with materials you have at hand or in your scrapery ... and the community 'explodes' in a nearly geometrical progression

So whats better? - a closed, plain and predefined path to a perfect 3D-printer with low possibilities to interfere, or a much more chaotic evolution-mess without any chance to foresee if ore when the goal is reached?

... i think here the old chinese saying fits: "... the way ist the goal ... (in German: "... der Weg ist das Ziel ...")

You have a highly chaotic structure and anticipating is really hard, but you have much more possibilities ... and sometimes you change your path radically to get a much better (and complete different) system than targeted ... e.g. laser-sintering ceramics and glass instead of FDM-fabbing ... or in combination with other methods anyway?

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Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

So whats better? - a closed, plain and predefined path to a perfect 3D-printer with low possibilities to interfere, or a much more chaotic evolution-mess without any chance to foresee if ore when the goal is reached?
That is much like Adrian's attitude. I rather agree with it.

I´ll keep the files in Thingiverse because of the nice derived-work
and other -features there. And to not have the files in 2 places.
That is much like the core-devs' general attitude. I admit I have strong feelings about that. I believe you may be starting to understand why the instructions, docs, and files in the wiki are not always up to date?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2010 03:27AM by SebastienBailard.

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-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!

SebastienBailard Wrote:
>> I´ll keep the files in Thingiverse because of the
>> nice derived-work
>> and other -features there. And to not have the
>> files in 2 places.
> That is much like the core-devs' general attitude.
> I admit I have strong feelings about that. I
> believe you may be starting to understand why the
> instructions, docs, and files in the wiki are not
> always up to date?

????
It does not matter where the link to the files in the wiki ends.
It has a wiki-page "MiniMendel" and there is a link to the
printable STL and original solid -files and there is only one
set of files in one place.

On the contrary. If I uploaded the files to the wiki, they would
exist in 2 places with noone knowing with one is the more
"up to date" version. A simple link solves that.

Marcus

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????
Nevermind.

Some other time, I'll try explaining why the wiki does not always contain information on the state of the art and the relationship between that fact and the fact that users and developers often do not upload their projects to the wiki.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2010 03:44AM 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'm not trying to be rude... but are you suggesting that Toyota have no idea what they are doing because all the after-market add-ons and improvements never make it back into the mainstream product?

I think Vik is trying to put together a Mendel 1.1V, by the way, with some of it in the wiki, even.

---

-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!

... a word for "all files in one place" - i'm actually posting/blogging and updating my diodelaser-work ...

As i was asked for more informations in complete separate forums (and languages), i started with a 'multi-places'-blogging: - so i actually have to update all relevant infos here in english and german, on the wiki in two language versions too and aditionally in a german CNC- and a specific laser-forum too

It's not so much more work as i can copy/paste the same posts in the specific forums, but it's my fate to hold all the infos active and react to the same questions and PN's in the different communities

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2010 05:17AM by VDX.

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Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Quote

I think Vik is trying to put together a Mendel 1.1V, by the way, with some of it in the wiki, even.

Yeah, I think Vik's OpenSCAD Mendel is really the most promising design we have. The point about different model formats will probably simplify to OpenSCAD replacing AOI as the development medium and STLs will be for ease of use/printing.

Since the concept of a roadmap has been brought up can we take this opportunity to discuss other objectives in a Mendel 1.1 that you guys have?

Personally I'd like to see the bowden extruder ported to Mendel and am doing some work (not online yet) to do so. I'm also interested in what happened to the tool change system that was developed for Darwin a long time ago - can we bring this to Mendel 1.1?

I'm also interested in what happened to the tool change system that was developed for Darwin a long time ago - can we bring this to Mendel 1.1?

Don't see why not. Want to declare a working party on the blog?
(You may want to suggest that people upload their work on the subject into the wiki, impressing upon them that they are all developers, otherwise we'll have the same conversation about the state-of-the-art-toolchanger a few months from now. )

It sounds like we have a "Roadmap". Works for me, anyway.

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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!

I'd love to work on tool change when I finish my current projects (see the distant future for more details) but I have never really found any details on the tool change project - it seems it was a research project at Bath or something that never ended up being technically documented online except for one youtube demonstration which I can't even find anymore!

I'd like to see a Tool change working party! and/or a catagory in the forum to help get things started...


MB