Anet A8 3D Printer.

[mrsbruce]

I’m not claiming it’s altruistic, just musing on what I view as a small conumdrum regarding the original 3D printer concept.

 

[PhillipM]

Yes, but there's a reason we're not all still using PEEK nozzles and wobbly RepRap machines made of threaded rod and nuts with unheated beds and printing strimming line

 

[mrsbruce]

Yes, but there's a reason we're not all still using PEEK nozzles and wobbly RepRap machines made of threaded rod and nuts with unheated beds and printing strimming line

And there’s a reason we had free access to those original wobbly reprap machines in the first place.

As I said, I am musing on the whole 3D concept. Whether you agree or disagree with that musing, is no reason to go all capitol on me.

 

[PhillipM]

Yes, the reason is, most of the development costs were paid by grants and university research, so it wasn't costs to someone personally or their firm.

And a lot of people that donated their time and efforts to RepRap were/are also the guys at the firms that people now claim are 'ripping them off' for parts.

 

[mrsbruce]

And now we are full circle in the conversation.

See my entry somewhere in the pages above.

 

[PhillipM]

Respecting licencing and accredition is the heart of Open Source, which is why people get ****** when it's ignored. See my other entry somewhere above

Also see why Tevo, Creality, etc, etc, all get shunned by the people that actually did the hard work to start with.

 

[mrsbruce]

Respecting licencing and accredition is the heart of Open Source, which is why people get ****** when it's ignored. See my other entry somewhere above

Also see why Tevo, Creality, etc, etc, all get shunned by the people that actually did the hard work to start with.

Again your aguing a point I wasn’t making. I repeat, I was musing the conumdrum of the original 3D concept. That a system was deliberatly released to allow anyone to use it, is now within the commercial realm, with everyone griping about licence breaking, and machine/parts costs.

I doubt I’m the only here to see the irony of that.

 

[130]

Surely both models can coexist
You buy your accessible printer based on open source and make stuff

If you want quality upgrades above that you pay folk their pound of flesh

 

[PhillipM]

I see no irony, the very reason it was deliberately released like that to start with was because it was obviously no commercial company could stomach taking the R&D costs even for a simple system because it'd get knocked off for peanuts straight away.
Unfortunately, if you want to press development forward, you can't rely on that every time, especially when the funding comes from grants and public funds, so eventually, you have make a concious decision to support the companies and people pushing development forward or watch it stagnate. Especially when those companies are open sourcing all their designs to help the push.
Nobody is building the old RepRaps any more because those companies have pushed things forward technologically.

It's pretty easy with e3d to be honest because if you compare their products side by side with the cheapos you soon see where your money went, whereas with other stuff like steppers, etc, it makes little difference where you buy from, and they're generally just basic parts anyway.

It's just rather annoying to see people saying firms like that are ripping people off with prices when those firms, and their hard work and investment, are the very reason their cheap copy or entire printer exists to start with.

 

[mrsbruce]

And yet you miss the point. I grasp the r&d, but it’s the irony of concept of it now being commercial I am talking about.

It was never originally conceived as a commercial venture.

 

[PhillipM]

Well in that case, I guess you all be happy to go back to making your own hotends out of round bits of PEEK and chopping down a bit of ally bar, right?

It was only concieved not to require massive upfront manufacturing costs to develop and evolve personal printers. There were commercial designs from the start, so I'm not sure where that comes from. They even had a couple of umbrella companies setup after they managed to get the whole thing replicating all it's own printed parts.

 

[mrsbruce]

No, I’ll just buy them from China.

 

[PhillipM]

Which you have commericial companies putting their time and money in to development to thank for.

 

[mrsbruce]

Because they took the non commercial product, and made it commercial.

Listen son, just give up, I can do this all night, until a moderator steps in to stop it.

 

[PhillipM]

Because they put money and time in to come out with far better developed concepts that they'd already been working on for free, to be far better, easily made, and commercialised it to try to earn a living from their hard work and investements.

Do whatever you like all night, I'll support the people actually giving back to the community when I can, thanks.

 

[PhillipM]

I have learnt that too much adhesive gives the opposite effect.

I put on just a few strokes with glue stick and the smear it out with a wet paper.

If you are getting poor adhesion ( it will degraded with time) wash all of the old off before applying anything new.

I find just scuffing the glue with 80 grit will get your adhesion back if you put it on too thick, although I tend to use watered down medium as I don't want to affect my bed accuracy too much.
Best thing I've found for tricky prints is to put a single thin lyer of TPU down first if you can cope with it as a surface layer - nylon, etc, will bond straight to it.

 

[mrsbruce]

Because they put money and time in to come out with far better developed concepts that they'd already been working on for free, to be far better, easily made, and commercialised it to try to earn a living from their hard work and investements.

Do whatever you like all night, I'll support the people actually giving back to the community when I can, thanks.

Since when is making money giving back to the community. If you decide to commercially produce something, and sell it for profit, altruism and giving back to the community isn’t biult into the profit margin.

Again, back to the original concept of not for profit, and the irony of it now being commercial.

 

[PhillipM]

It was never a concept of not for profit, as I said, I don't know where you got that from, it was commercialised by the original university and researchers selling hardware kits the minute they got fully self replicating devices and the firmware/software to support it.
It was only ever concieved as a way to lower costs to get development going for home users, by allowing the expensive custom parts to be made at home by other printers. Nothing about that was ever not-for-profit, it was merely cost reduction of vital parts, to kickstart evolutionary development.
In fact one of the main drivers behind the entire point of getting 3d printers in homes was to drive forward small business popping up and being able offer highly specialised, customisable or bespoke products without the huge barrier to entry of jigs, moulds, patterns, etc.
Yes, that's right, one of the main points of RepRap was to help encourage many more for-profit commercial ventures.


"Since when is making money giving back to the community" - since they spend their own time and money making new evolutions of designs open source so people can make their own improved parts. Which they've done for a long time.

As an aside to that, after all your bluster about none-profit, not giving back to the community, development, etc - you seem quite happy to spend your money with a commerical for-profit company in China that contributed nothing to RepRap at all and merely made the cheapest copy of a hotend they can in order to grab the most profit from other peoples work.
How's that for irony.

 

[mrsbruce]

The concept was to take the open source, develop it, and reshare the upgrades. Never bought a kit, Someone printed the kit from the free files, and I gave them the cost of the parts. All with the blessing of that nice reprap man, who wanted everyone to access it.

My whole point is the irony of such an open system now being commercial. Not whether commercial develoment is good or bad. The irony.

As an aside to that, after all your bluster about none-profit, not giving back to the community, development, etc - you seem quite happy to spend your money with a commerical for-profit company in China that contributed nothing to RepRap at all and merely made the cheapest copy of a hotend they can in order to grab the most profit from other peoples work.
How's that for irony.

Actually, I buy from a British company, but he admits to most stuff now being imported from China due to profit margins being tight. How’s that for irony.

Sadly, the hubby never had any interest in buying a lathe, so I can’t even make them for myself. Maybe Santa will get one for me, and I can ‘give back to the community’ by turning 0.4mm nozzles.

 

[PhillipM]

There's no irony, it was released under open licences, as are the e3d nozzles, exactly the same.
That system was commercial from the start - you could buy the hardware kit straight from RepRap, RepRap commericalised it! then get the printed parts from someone else with a printer. That was the whole point.