Cost Reduction

This is a page for documenting ideas for reducing the cost of RepRap builds. The first section is a short summary of the current cost structure and then each major category will be split up to be discussed separately. The estimates will be in dollars but the article is meant to be comparative so conclusions should be universal.

The main categories of reprap materials cost are as follows.

RP Parts $60-$100 Steppers $60-$80 Hardware $50-$100 Electronics $120-$200 Hot End $60-$90 Heated Bed $30-$50 Total Cost: $380-$620

RP Parts

The cost of RP parts have come down so far that alternate strategies like cast parts etc. may not be as attractive as they once were. Still if you are solely focused on cost savings then that may help a little. It seems as though the price of RP parts is at an equilibrium state. I doubt that a set of Prusa RP parts will come down much more.

The main path to cost savings in this category therefore is likely to come in new designs that minimize RP part count and print time. On the whole though, there is not that much savings to be had due to the already cheap price for a set.

Steppers

This will likely remain a constant. Small designs like the Huxley that use smaller steppers can reduce this cost somewhat but there may not be much we can do short or long term about this cost.

Moving away from steppers may save some money but seems likely to raise costs in other areas like electronics, and may reduce print quality.

Hardware

This is already a minimal cost item. New designs with lower overall hardware requirements may bring this down a little but overall savings are limited since the price is already pretty low.

Electronics

Now that the price of RP parts has come down so far, the cost of electronics has become the single largest line item in a RepRap build. This is likely to be a place where significant savings could be had.

Current electronics solutions are split up into three different solutions.

1. Modular designs: These designs are not necessarily aiming for cost effectiveness but rather for easy repair and performance. Currently Gen3 is pretty much an old and deprecated set, while the Makerbot Gen4 is very expensive compared to other designs. This is not likely to be the design paradigm to look to for low cost designs.

2. Ardiuino shield/daughter board designs: RAMPS is the most common example of this type of electronics. These designs suffer from two different budget busters. First an Arduino must be purchased separately, and the Pololu driver boards are also separate purchases. This means that a RAMPS build will likely be in the $150 to $200 range for the final completed build with drivers and arduino board. The user can save some money by buying the RAMPS board as a kit and doing assembly at home.

3. All in one surface mount boards: Gen 6 is the most common example, though others like Melzi are becoming more common. These designs are made for easy scalability of supply. Since they can be mass manufactured they are much easier to spec for large orders like with the recent IndyGoGo campaigns of Huxley and Printrbot. Unfortunately the fact that very few people are likely to be comfortable building their own surface mount board means that all such boards are generally sold assembled. The cost of assembly generally offsets the advantages of cheaper surface mount components, and integration of the driver chips on board. So most of these boards are likely to be in the $130-$200 range as well. With higher volume, this may be the future cost leader. A surface mount design in large quantity orders may even beat out the DIY boards below as the low price design, but not likely to be so in the short term.

4. All in one DIY boards: This is where cost savings gets serious. When you do a DIY board like Gen7 you are trading your time for cost savings. Unfortunately most DIY designs still suffer from Pololu lock in. You could probably build any of the current all in one boards like Gen7 and Sanguinololu for about $50, but you would still have to buy the Pololus which bring the total cost up to about $110.

The main area for cost savings in this category is in elimination of the pololu daughter boards and integration of the driver onto the board. This is the goal of the uncompleted Gen7T electronics design along with some others. There are not many choices of through hole(DIY) driver chips. The toshiba driver in Gen7T is one of the only commonly available drivers that is also available as a through hole component. Trading the four $13 pololu board for a