All things MakerBot! MakerBots, RepRap, and robots!
I’ve been using Splenda instead of sugar lately. For single serving doses Splenda comes in little paper packets – like you see at restaurants. In order to keep them in line and at hand I designed and printed a sweetener holder.
It’s the little things in life, no?
The cheapest commercially available 3d printer on the market is the Dimension uPrint Personal 3D Printer, clocking in at $14,900. The media cartridges run $250 – and consist of coiled ABS in a plastic box. I can’t tell from their website how much plastic is in each cartridge, so I don’t know how cost effective it is. I’m not positive exactly how their cartridges operate – but I would not be surprised if they were tamper resistant, not able to be refilled, and contained special chips which authenticated them as being untampered and coming direct from the manufacturer.
Am I jaded by inkjets? Probably. I’m tired of buying printers with 1/3 full cartridges and expensive refills. The warranties are so much worse:
“Expensive manufacturer refills only! Only use paper made from unicorn tears and the hopes and dreams of orphans! Only power your machine with live baby seals. Using reasonably priced alternative supplies, making disparaging remarks, failure to properly maintain your machine, or printing will destroy your machine and void your warranty.”
My MakerBot came with more plastic than I can print in two years runs just barely over $1,000 with shipping. If something were to happen to MakerBot Industries, I can always find new filament elsewhere, adapt my ‘bot to a new source, or even a new material entirely. Or, I could just toss in a Dremel and have a mini-CNC/drill press.
I’ve found that backing out the filament after each print, while a pain, has been helpful in avoiding extruder jams. Or, rather, I have found fewer extruder jams while doing this. 1
I suspect the reason this has helped is that it removes from the PTFE insulator any of the remaining plastic that might have been about to ooze near the barrel top. Have you found that this helps you?
Sometimes when using the ReplicatorG control panel I accidentally hit Z- instead of Z+ to adjust the stage height. As you might imagine, this causes problems. At best, I end up with the Z stage out of whack. At worst, the hot and extruding print head slams into the build platform or model and knocks the Z stage out of whack.
Two possible upgrades would be:
A few days ago I posted about a RepRap Mendel for sale on eBay with all electronics, motors, belts, etc fully assembled. 1 The auction (for a set sold in Ireland) settled at 760.00 Euros or about $1,017.18 USD.
Frankly, I would have thought it would have sold for more. Printed parts are still selling in the $300-$450 range, electronics clocking in at $250 or so, bearings at $50, and all the other bits probably costing another $100 for belts, rods, nuts, bolts. This means just the materials would cost $700 – $800. Then there’s the delay and extra expense of sourcing all of the parts for yourself.
Interestingly, I had thought the bottom had fallen out of the RepRap printed parts eBay market. However, a set of printed Mendel parts just sold on eBay for $455 on April 5. I suspect the difference is that these parts are being generated and sold in the US which makes for an easier and slightly cheaper transaction
A little while ago someone posted on the MakerBot Operators group that they were looking for printed pulleys. Apparently he had managed to scavenge or hack together everything else.
This got me wondering – what printed parts would someone need to get a MakerBot rolling? There’s the obvious printed pulleys. If I had a friend who was putting one together, I’d probably want to give them a spare insulator retainer ring and Z axis pulley. What else should be in a MakerBot starter/welcome kit?
I’m a big fan of Google Sketchup. I know it’s not open source, but damn it sure is easy to use. The other day I noticed this blog post about a new Sketchup STL Importer plugin. Earlier I had posted about other useful Sketchup plugins, and this one will probably make my list too. I’ve installed it, but not tried it out yet, so caveat emptor.
I just bought a Motorola Droid and was faced with a problem I always forget about when I get a new phone. If I want Tetris on the phone, I need to purchase it all over again. This makes me think back to the Actung Baby album by U2.
I’m fine with copyrights, even if the life span of copyrights has gotten ridiculous. However, it’s pretty ridiculous that I’ve actually shelled out for a copy of Actung Baby on cassette and again on CD. It’s the SAME music by the SAME band that I’ve ALREADY paid for. :/
Some people have suggested MakerBot is somehow stealing thunder from the RepRap project. 1 Here’s a super simple way every MakerBot sold could, in a very small way, help the RepRap project.
Why not put a copy of every Mendel part as an STL on the SD card that comes with the MakerBot? Actually, why not put Spacexula’s set of Mendel production STL’s?
This is a cheap and fast way to disseminate plans for RepRap files to people who are actually capable of making them.
Having reached the bottom of a market can actually be a very good thing. It means anyone who wants a set of RepRap parts can have them for as little as the market will bear. Right now there are lots of options for someone who wants to get involved in building a RepRap/RepStrap. You can get a MakerBot, RapMan, ShaperCube, Profound Devices, Isaac Mendel, or pick up a large selection of parts on eBay.
As an owner of a MakerBot, I’m far more likely to want to print up my own RepRap parts than buy them. However, each of Spacexula‘s Mendel print sets would probably take me 2-3 hours of print time plus about 15 minutes of human intervention/monitoring.1 I would of course also print up parts for any friends/family who wanted parts. 2 I’d be willing to do this to create my own Mendel, but the idea of spending three weeks3 , say $30 in plastic4 , and about six broken up over that three weeks fiddling with stuff5 makes me wonder if there’s a better way to make $300.00.
Setting that aside, I wonder where the bottom of the RepRap parts market is heading? Spacexula has suggested around $250 or so based upon the price for lasercut parts. I suspect the price of printed parts will always be higher than the price for lasercut or molded parts – because of the time involved. Lasercut parts can be cranked out as quickly as a lasercan cut. 6 Molded parts can be churned out as quickly as the poured material can be dried. Plus, no matter how nice lasercut/molded parts are – you still have a RepStrap, not a true RepRap. Assuming identical quality, I’m probably always going to be more interested in printed parts over alternatives.
