I caught sight of this through Spacexula‘s RepRap Aggregator Feed – a $100 open source CNC mill. I was just thinking the other day how cool it would be to have an additive and subtractive CNC machine sitting next to one another.
But, $100?! It’s like someone would be paying me to build the thing.
I remember the first time I heard this question. I was babbling to a friend of mine about how I wanted a MakerBot. His response was to ask:
What is it you need that you want to spend $1,000 getting?
My first inclination when I hear this question to say, “Anything.”1
My second inclination is to step back, think about it for a moment, and then wonder whether I am going to ever actually print $1,000.00 worth of stuff. 2
Thanks to Jeff Keegan for unintentionally reminding me to post this. :) 3
Edit: Jeff – Just in case you read this – I do not really think you are a bastard. I follow your blog and am very appreciative of your in depth posts and analysis on all things MakerBot/RepRap. The title is more about me feeling like a sucker than a commentary about you.
Jeff posted about totally abandoning his dreams of building a RepRap Mendel. He said what pushed him over the edge was the constant question, “So, what are you going to build with it?” Of course, the guy had to post this on 4/1.
I actually felt sad at the thought of him turning his parts into a “melted sculpture of failure.”
I suppose it’s not his fault. I traded my MakerBot for some magic beans yesterday.
A complete1 Mendel for sale? That’s incredible!
There has been a truly amazing progression2 in RepRap parts lately. While I’m not crazy about eBay as a way of selling3 , it’s a very democratic4 way of disseminating RepRap parts. The first few parts and sets of parts were all printed, then molded, now MOLDS are for sale?!
Yes, the Platonic ideal of RepRap is that a machine makes the components of the next machine. But, is it not also part of the RepRap ideal that these machines be disseminated as far and as widely as possible? It’s really great you can use a RepRap to build another – but that doesn’t mean it’s the best/most economical way.
These RepRap mold are advertised to be good for roughly 50 pourings. It is advertised to create 9 vertexes at once, but they all appear to be 1/2 vertexes. The posting also suggests it takes 12 vertexes for a full RepRap. So:
Admittedly, this is only a set of molds for the frame vertexes, not the entire set of parts. However, it’s really only a matter of time before a set is up for grabs.
This makes me wonder – is there a different market value to printed parts rather than molded parts?
So, I finally got over my fear of commitment and bought a new cell phone. I had my prior cell for about 4 years, my cell before that for 3 years, and my cell before that for 3 years. I keep them well beyond the point where people make fun of my old beat up cell.
I just picked up the Motorola Droid and I’m pretty happy with it so far. A site that I use regularly that’s almost totally powered by Javascript and AJAX works beautifully with this phone where Windows IE on cells freaks out, Opera Mini does a reasonable job, and the iPhone does a fairly good job. Web browsing is fast, rendered quickly, connects to e-mail, and all sorts of good stuff.
The thing I’m perhaps the most pleased about is that I can tether the phone to my laptop to use it as 16G extra storage OR as a broadband modem – for no extra fee. 1 2 I wouldn’t often use my laptop away from WiFi, but when I do a little Droid powered broadband love is going to be sweet.
Now back to your regularly scheduled nonsense.
A shout-out to Professor Phunk’s Tri-Dimensional Printarium for the best damn RepRap quote of the day:
This will probably drive the price of my Mendel up into “WTF territory” but I am past caring. I am having too much fun.
It’s not that I’m not materialistic or a complete stoic. It’s just that my interests are so simple, narrow, and specific there just isn’t a whole lot I require out of life. But for other happy and fortunate life complications1 I’d live in a studio apartment almost completely devoid of furniture except for a futon, small table, one (perhaps two) and book shelf. Give me a library card and a laptop and I’ll show you a content man. For example – one of my hobbies is origami. Which boils down to basically a lot of paper. 2
While this means I’m easily content, it means those family and friends are frustrated at the thought of having to find me a gift. 3 So, for basically the first time ever I’ve put together a wish list with stuff I would love to get (in rough order):
How do you choose whether to use a PEEK or PTFE barrier? Well, I asked the benefits of using PEEK over PTFE thermal insulating barriers in an extruder assembly and Nate True gave a fantastic summary:
PEEK is more rigid and won’t bow out and leak everywhere with ABS. It would be better for PLA except that PLA likes to stick to everything. So PTFE (being not sticky) is preferable for PLA. ABS is very slippery by comparison so PEEK is more than adequate for it.
…BBQ
I’m still rockin’ my black ABS coil, so I’ll probably have to add a PEEK barrier to my MakerBot wish list.1
I’ve been fiddling with settings on my MakerBot for the last week or so trying to improve print quality. Skeinforge setting this, Skeinforge setting that. Up, down, left, right, set it to pi, increase the print temperature, decrease the raft radius, adjust the feedrate speed. Unfortunately, all I managed to do was decrease print quality. Over the last two days I noticed the filament was coming out fairly slowly and today I noticed I kept stripping the filament.
Well, it’s because ABS oozed down the barrel threads and around the nut. Yay. Time to break out the blow torch, eh?
In disassembling (mostly) the extruder I found:
Plastic on the threads is not a huge deal, but not trial either – it mostly peeled off in spirals. Plastic on the nut is not a big deal – I pulled that off with some needle nose pliers. Plastic inside the barrel can be drilled out using my drill bit and rubber band trick.1
Plastic inside the PTFE barrier… well, now, that’s a different animal. I’ve succeeded once in rescuing my PTFE barrier from PLA oozing down the threads, but in that case there wasn’t a plastic plug inside the PTFE. The problem with a plastic plug inside the barrel is that I can’t really drill it out. If I try to drill it out from the top, I’ll probably still leave a bit of plastic where the barrier meets the barrel. If I try to drill from up from the bottom, I stand a good chance of ruining the part where the PTFE meets the barrel – creating a small gap where plastic can get stuck.
Thus, I think I will drill out the barrel and slap in a new PTFE barrier. Since I have this old (ruined?) one lying around, I have sliced off about a 2mm wafer to use as a washer on my next heater assembly. Using a small hacksaw blade did the trick – even if it left me with a relatively uneven slice.
While I’ve been putting off buying additional parts for my MakerBot, I think it’s time to invest in some new bits. I’m liking the MakerGear modular thermistor kit ($5), MakerGear modular heater core ($15), MakerBot heated build platform ($42), MakerBot SMT Soldering Toolkit ($50), and a hotplate.2
So-called “friendship bread” is a ball of dough you cultivate, add ingredients, split off some of the dough, give away some of the dough, make bread, and keep a little bit around to cultivate for the next batch. Whoever gets some of the dough then does the same. I guess the idea is there is some sort of continuity between all these loaves of bread everywhere though (oh dear god forgive me for saying this) time and space.1
Whenever I think about friendship bread I throw up a little bit in my mouth.
What I find far more interesting… is the idea that someone could have a RepRap where every plastic part came from a different machine.
