FoldaRap Buyers Guide
This project was for myself, as I need/want a RepRap that's easy to carry around and for the challenge of making a folding 3d-printer. But I believe in open-source and sharing and all the revolution behind that. Thus I try to well document it, in case others want to make one; to acknowledge all the things we own to those who went before, and to encourage those who come after to do the same.
On a more long-term view, I don't plan to create a company out of it, I'd better hope to see it grow on itself in the wild, just by indicating how to source it. I have more fun in designing stuff than marketing it, nonetheless I may try to sell few beta-test kits (bulk ordering is good for prices), eventually via a crowdsourcing campaign or by request, maybe with the help of my hackerspace. Just for the experience of it and to say I can push a project to that point :D
(almost all the projects I did during my design studies could have done something, but I never found the time for that and they ended sleeping in their drawing books which is sad; while now I have taken the habit to publish everything, even an old one sometimes).
"Ideas are like living things and breed happily in an open-source context" as I like to think ^^
Bill Of Material (BOM)
Total end cost : 400-500€
A draft BOM is available on Kitbom
My spreadsheet is a little more detailed, but beware that it's still highly experimental and not tested yet :)
Hardware 1 PTFE Tubing for bowden extruder (2mm inner diam. and 3mm outer), 300mm long - See Bowden 2 Pneumatic fittings for 3mm tubing, with M5 thread - See also Bowden 3 Suppliers of aluminum profiles can be found here Aluminium_profile_Suppliers
Electronic 1 - extruder motor - Nema14 [1] or geared PGL35-048 [2]
Printed parts (~30parts) Frame 10 parts (4 foot, 4 hinge, 2 z-corner) XZ axis 11 parts (4 coupling, 2 x-ends, 2 x-carriage, 2 xz-clamp, 1 extruder-idler) Y axis 4 parts (y-motor, y-idler, y-plate, belt-clamp) 1 - board mount
Partial or complete kit
When the first prototype will be operational, I'll list all the parts on Kitify for those who prefer to order a kit rather than source all the parts.
Fully assembled machines
After extensive tests, the FoldaRap will be probably also available via a known French supplier of robotics :)
These time they will be sold as plug-n-play machine (assembled, tested, and ready to run).
