Mendel to the power of 101 [12/21/2010]

[Nophead has been clearly deeply dedicated to producing RepRap parts.  It’s pretty incredible he could run his printers around the clock for 9 months to produce more than 100 RepRap part sets.  This comes out to about 3 days for each set.  The RepRap website has a wealth of information on all the different kinds of RepRaps that can be built – but it doesn’t look like there’s any longer one “official” recommended build.  The strength of the movement – diverse ideas, highly configurable and customizable designs, can make it very daunt for someone just getting started.  I’m honestly not sure where I would get started if I wanted to scratch-build a RepRap these days.  After noodling around with a few of the models, I’m guessing it might be possible to build a set of modern RepRap parts in as little as 12 hours.]

Nophead of the HydraRaptor blog is probably the most prolific producer of plastic RepRap parts.  He recently posted that he’s run his 3D printers1 just about constantly for the last year, printing 101 sets of Mendel parts.

Drafts Zero - The Lost Blog Posts
  1. Misnamer [11/28/2010]
  2. The Lost Blog Posts
  3. Plastruder! [Draft 12/25/2009]
  4. UNTITLED [Draft 12/25/2009]
  5. Preparing to print [Draft 12/27/2009]
  6. More prints [Draft 01/04/2010]
  7. Prototype Pricing [Draft 01/19/2010]
  8. MakerBot tuning [Draft 01/20/2010]
  9. Plastic Screw Anchor [Draft 02/02/2010]
  10. Magic [Draft 02/03/2010]
  11. How are you printing with PLA? [Draft 02/16/2010]
  12. Rebuilding my extruder [Draft 02/16/2010]
  13. MY robot [Draft 02/18/2010]
  14. more things i learned [Draft 02/20/2010]
  15. First commissioned piece! [Draft 02/22/2010]
  16. MakerBot: Toy or Tool? [02/25/2010]
  17. Idea for Skeinforge settings… [Draft 03/27/2010]
  18. RepRap and MakerBot alternatives [Draft 04/05/2010]
  19. RepRap Parts for Sale [Draft 04/07/2010]
  20. Where is the Othercutter? [Draft 06/08/2015]
  21. Mendel Parts – Printed, Cast, CNC’d, Lasercut or Injection Molded? [Draft 04/12/2010]
  22. MakerBot Operator’s Manual [06/04/20210]
  23. MakerBot on CBS! [07/07/2010]
  24. New Print: Soft-Pawed Albino Stoat of South Wales Cookie Cutter [07/07/2010]
  25. House calls [07/11/2010]
  26. Digital assistant? [08/05/2010]
  27. MakerBot + Junk = Stuff! [08/06/2010]
  28. Design choices in RepRap, Goals of RepRap [08/14/2010]
  29. Upgrades and obsolescence [08/25/2010]
  30. Dear Anonymous [08/25/2010]
  31. The ultimate in customer service [08/26/2010]
  32. Open Source Makes You Smarter [08/27/2010]
  33. Getting my Plastruder MK5 running [09/06/2010]
  34. Weird new kind of spam [09/19/2010]
  35. An open letter to Ms. Word [10/18/2010]
  36. Printing with PLA again! [10/18/2010]
  37. Halloween costume too [10/27/2010]
  38. Dream jobs [10/29/2010]
  39. The nuances of time travel [10/31/2010]
  40. Printed Pink Panther Person [11/22/2010]
  41. Skein them all and let ‘Bot sort them all out [11/24/2010]
  42. The Patents for disc shooters [12/10/2010]
  43. Princess Bride with Lightsabers [12/13/2010]
  44. Dilbert comic [12/13/2010]
  45. Ultimachine PLA review [12/15/2010]
  46. Mendel to the power of 101 [12/21/2010]
  47. Potential improvements for Leonardo Voltron [12/27/20210]
  48. You can keep your filthy money [12/28/2010]
  49. I watched Primer the other night [12/30/2010]
  1. A Mendel and his own HydraRaptor []

An honorary Duggar

Nophead’s Mendel1 has produced 15 sets of Mendel parts, and is hard at work on it’s 16th!!!  My understanding is that it would take about 60 hours to print a full set of Mendel parts.  I have to admire anyone who prints up Mendel/Mini-Mendel parts because of the amount of dedication it would take to do so.  After spending 90 hours2 printing something, I don’t know that I could part with it.

My point is that we really have guys like Nophead, Spacexula, and Cyrozap3 to thank for cranking out parts and pushing replication forward.

I hereby bestow upon you gentlemen the Duggar medal of continuous replication.

  1. I don’t know if he’s named it yet – so I’ll call it Anna until he corrects me. []
  2. I’m just assuming it would take me 50% longer since I don’t know what I’m doing… []
  3. Dude, I realized yesterday I’ve been misspelling your name.  I’ll go back through and fix that – sorry! []
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