Injection-molded Mendel Reprap Frame Parts for 3D Printer

We have available for sale sets of 6 main frame supports (supports only—no rods) used for the Mendel Reprap 3D printer (frame-vertex_6off.par). The parts are injection-molded (that’s right, injection-molded) of extremely durable HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) and have clean, smooth edges. The price is $25.00 USD plus shipping.

We have these parts in stock and can ship them as soon as your payment clears. US shipping (lower 48 states) is $4.95 USD. International shipping is the actual cost of USPS postage; no handling fee will be charged.

Please see our eBay listing for pictures and to purchase:

Injection-Molded Mendel Reprap Frame Parts For Sale

Alternatively, you may contact us directly to buy these parts at mappingser@aol.com. We prefer payment by check or money order over PayPal.

If the demand is great enough, we will continue to build molds for other Mendel Reprap 3D printer parts. Because these molds require some up-front investment of time and money, we are interested in receiving feedback as to which parts might take priority.

Thank you for your interest!

Tim,

I'm working on a set of injection molds as well.

I've already written toolpaths for the following parts;

FRAME-VERTEX_6OFF_3
X-180-BEARING-SET
Y-MOTOR-BRACKET_1OFF_1
XLR-BRACKET_1OFF

I'll keep you advised on my activities in this regard in the future as I tackle them. No sense in us flooding the markets with FRAME-VERTEX's losing money on our molds when nobody is making Y-IDLER-BRACKETS.

There's a significant initial investment in mold making, so I'll try and respect that and make the mold's you are already operating a low priority.

I get my machine time for free. If you want to sub out your mold making to me, I'm not in a huge hurry to turn my drill press in to an injection molding machine so maybe we can work something out.

-Johnny

Don't forget that you guys are operating in a market where people also make mendel molds out of rubber. I was going to try my hand at it myself, but those parts are quite fussy for mold making.

Johnny,

Thanks for your offer; however, we have a complete CNC machine shop and 4 injection molding machines ready to start making parts. We have a SolidScape 3D printer and have made catalyst parts as well before we switched to injection molding machines. Our company can make hundreds of quality parts a day if there were an interest.

We listed one Mendel part on eBay to “test the waters” for people’s interest in buying parts piecemeal instead of as complete kits. Our ad had 325 hits in 4 days and the forum topic on this site had over 250 hits, but we had only one buyer. Our long-term goal was to make a complete set of high-quality injection-molded parts for the Mendel. However, it would take a lot of time and money to ramp up to where we had a complete kit, so we would have to be able to sell parts individually along the way. Our test ad showed us that people are not interested in buying partial kits at this time.

Injection molding can produce higher-quality, more accurate parts in a faster timeframe than a 3D printer or a catalyst method, but we would prefer to allocate our time and resources towards markets where there are more buyers than lookers. We have decided to pull our ad from eBay but will continue to monitor this forum to see if this situation changes in the future.

Thanks,
Tim

Injection molding can produce higher-quality, more accurate parts in a faster timeframe than a 3D printer or a catalyst method, but we would prefer to allocate our time and resources towards markets where there are more buyers than lookers.

As you're aware, the interest is in the full set of plastic parts, and a partial set is only of moderate utility to a buyer.

Tim, assuming reasonable opportunity costs, I'd suggest selling poured-resin Mendel parts + those injection molded vertices as a possibility. This assumes you can pay a fellow to make the rubber molds and pay a fellow to pour-and-demold, while covering your profit, administrative overhead, and rent on your space. This may allow you to bootstrap to a full set of injection molded parts, or just recoup your costs on that vertex mold.

Also, a lot of mendel parts are printed slightly hollow, regarding 'quality'. And they tend to be sufficiently accurate for a daughter mendel.

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I find it very interesting that injection molding people are entering this market. I don't know if it is possible to recoup costs on injection molds before RepRap user-developers shift their focus to mendel-apollo, a post-mendel, or a good RepStrap.

Plus, this is a market where eventually people will run their repraps for for 4 days in order to sell a set of parts at (materials cost + $40) because 'hey, it's a free $40 and all I had to do was box it and ship it'. And this includes everyone you sell a kit to, so factor that into your calculations.

Good luck.

And be warned, you may need some luck. I don't want to see people taking a loss trying to sell RepRap parts - this is a warning in good faith, rather than in sarcasm, humor, irony, etc.

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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!

Other thing to remember, Darwin lasted what... 1.2 years?

Mendel will be supplanted, and when it does you will be stuck with the old molds.

Mendel has a few issues that the "next" RepRap might fix, alter.

The lasercut Darwin parts can be cut for a few hundred dollars of Big Blue, but you don't see the passion for it you see for Mendel.

I hope you make the molds and sell the parts, just bringing up a point.

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repraplogphase.blogspot.com

The smaller, simpler Mendel parts can be rolled out of printers easily; I've seen vertices used as "give-aways" at demonstrations. Instead of starting at the easy parts and working your way up to the complex ones, you might want to consider going the other way: molding the hard-to-print parts first.

Produce the molds for the big, complex pieces that are much harder to print, and you may find a market happy to place an order for those molded parts.

I for one would be interested in the more complex larger printed parts, like say the x, y ,z axis assemblies.

Eg y-bearing-360-inner_2off.par, y-bearing-360-outer-{left,right}_1off.par


I'm already buying in small 'kit' form, I have vertices's 'kit' and complete parts for a geared extruder, still waiting on my electronics (in the post ...)

But I guess I may not be very representative of the market ... but it would seem frame parts are fairly easy to get hold of. Axes are next on my list

for what is worth for those trying to enter the market.

include detailed instructions. and include a parts list. those are biting me right now.

make parts cheaply, let people know they need sanding, or a little work, people expect things to be perfect like they see in a 30,000$ machine. really. set reasonable expectations.

a good mold gets 25-50 uses. have the machined part you used on hand and about 700$ of silicone to pour any mold that is retiring.

ship molded parts out the next day. people are paying you because they are tired of waiting. Also note that the post office plays basketball with every package you send. double box and use twice the amount of bubble wrap you think is needed.

give to charity. it offsets things. it gives purpose and satisfaction! and is a point of the reprap project. to eliminate barriers.

for what its all worth!

James

Sorry i have no idea of a company in EU.Did you try finding them on Google? I think it will help you.
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