I’ve read others writing about creating molds for pulleys and molded RepRap parts. Is this something you do? Several of the Mendel sets on ebay appear to be parts cast from molds. This would seem to be a very cost effective and relatively quick way to replicate parts.
At the same time, I’m not sure just how useful it is. The best thing about a RepRap/RepStrap is you can tell the robot to build you something while you go out for a beer or take a nap. Casting molds (from the reprap.org link above) seems to be a more involved and detailed process require a fair bit of human intervention.
Given that a set of printed or molded parts are selling for upwards of $400, I have to wonder why no one has stepped up to create a huge mold with all the parts and just start stamping them out.
I also wonder – if everyone had all the plastic/reprap’ed parts they needed – what would the next bottleneck be? Electronics?
“I also wonder – if everyone had all the plastic/reprap’ed parts they needed – what would the next bottleneck be? Electronics?”
They already are! I got everything for my RepRap Mendel except the electronics…
Well the problem is that the 5th column efforts of people like yourself on Team Makerbot to attack all non-Makerbot Repstrap technologies that has slowed their development and therefore decreased interest in Reprap overall. Which seems to be the singular focus of Team Makerbot, but I’m still not clear why. Can you explain that to me? Someone has made it possible to put another Mendel in the field. Whatever technique they used to do it, why should you or anyone else care. The important part is that the community just became one member stronger. Of course, the Makerbot community lost a chance to have another member, which seems to be the focus instead. Team Makerbot seems to no longer be interested in the future of Reprap, they are only interested in Makerbot and it’s future.
To your other question. Molding is a challenging exercise to say the least. Most people start out with 6 frame vertex and never make it beyond that. Ironically the first piece you need is the 2nd most challenging piece to make. Mass produced plastic parts require an expensive machine and special molds that you have to sell tens of thousands of parts to justify the expense. Hence even the level of interest in Reprap that exists now, still isn’t enough to justify that kind of approach and probably won’t until we solve a lot of the technical challenges in print quality.
There has been only one bottleneck to the Reprap project and it’s been team Makerbot from what I can see. They’ve tried desperately to starve off interest in the Reprap project by forcing everyone to go through Makerbot, then went about working to creating critical parts scarcity. Luckily people and companies have started to step up and fill those voids. I’m proud to say, I’ve sourced my entire Mendel without getting a single part from Team Makerbot and I encourage everyone interested in the future of Reprap to do the same.
Hmm… You know, there are non-MakerBot sources for the electronics. There is someone on the RepRap forums who is suggesting they’ll sell the electronics for $215. I haven’t tried them out, so I don’t know.
Who is attacking non-MakerBot Repstrap technologies? I don’t understand how things people have said are slowing down development. It’s open source – people are working for free no matter what anyone says. Apparently you believe I am attacking other reprstraps? I’m having a hard time understanding why you believe this. I’m totally stoked people are created molded Mendel parts. $400 a set is nothing to sneeze at. I would like to print up my own Mendel set – but what to do with it then? The good thing about a RepRap is I can tell it to make more parts and walk away. Creating molded parts seems like a lot of work for $400 – but I haven’t ever tried it before.
Your point about expensive molds is well taken. I have to wonder if the costs are really in the tens of thousands a part, though.
I don’t know what scarcity you’re referencing. Printed parts? If so, MakerBots are churning out Mendel parts everywhere. Electronics? They’re open source – you can build them yourself, have them made for you, or buy them from third parties.
Open source hardware basically means there’s no scarcity as long as the raw materials exist.
I think what ManDrake means is that MakerBot makes the electronics that can be modified for a Mendel and they get more interest in the CupcakeCNC than in the RepRap project just to get more MakerBot sales. Then, they create artificial shortages in the electronics so that people buy MakerBot kits instead of Mendel parts.
I, personally, do not believe this because it would only work if MakerBot was totally secretive about everything; they would have to make everything proprietary.
An artificial shortage is where supplies exist and are readily available – but someone is not permitting that stockpile to hit the market. I’m not buying that MakerBot is sleeping on a mattress of electronics.
I just don’t believe in shortages of open source hardware. If you want the electronics bad enough, you can just go make them, get someone else to make them for you, or buy from a third party. In fact, this is one of the great things about open source hardware – no matter what happens you can always build everything from scratch yourself.
Someone on eBay is selling a full set of electronics (apparently altered from the MakerBot versions to be more RepRap?) for $226. This was an auction of 10 sets, only one of which has sold so far.
Cyrozap correctly understood my comments. And Cyrozap might be right, maybe I should fall back to Hanlon’s Razor “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”. Sure seems like malice to me, but maybe it’s not. But definition the notion of a Repstrap or any Bootstrap in general is a means to an end. The goal at the end is a functioning Mendel. The Repstrap itself isn’t the goal. Makerbot instead has made itself the end goal and Reprap is no longer the objective at all. The Makerbot technologies aren’t compatible with the Reprap machines. Hence my view that it’s no longer a good choice for the Reprap project and that everyone interested in the objects of the Reprap project should avoid and if necessary undermine the Makerbot efforts at every turn for the long term good of Reprap project.
A reprap isn’t the end goal for everyone. It isn’t for me – I wanted a 3D printer. I’m very happy to print up RepRap parts and look forward to printing RepRap parts for friends, but that wasn’t my end goal.
“everyone interested in the objects of the Reprap project should avoid and if necessary undermine the Makerbot efforts at every turn for the long term good of Reprap project.”
Tell you what – if you get Adrian Bowyer to sign off on your position, I’ll help.