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Commenting on this while my 3D printer is making parts for my new 3D printer, with parts I designed from the comfort of my own home. 3D printing and the RepRap

Commenting on this while my 3D printer is making parts for my new 3D printer, with parts I designed from the comfort of my own home. 3D printing and the RepRap movement have managed to get me truly excited about something for the first time since I took up programming 20 something years ago. We're not quite at the fully consumer-ready stage yet, there is a lot of tinkering and know-how that would be too much for the average consumer. I'd say the current state of 3D printing is at the same level 2D printing was ~40 years ago (comparatively), but I'm confident we'll reach a similar stage within the next few years. For those interested, the RepRap community is extremely active and there are lots of open-source projects (including hardware) to get involved with.

opencl 9y ago
I'm also really excited that SLA prices have absolutely plummeted in the last year or so as well. The level of quality you can get from a ~$500 machine now is stunning, but of course it comes with its own set of problems so it's not going to dethrone FDM anytime soon. I hope we get more open-source SLA development soon though.
mikenew 9y ago
Same experience for me. I bought a cheap printer from eBay and slowly started re-designing and replacing existing parts by printing them out on the printer itself. Nearly 100% of the printer has been replaced, and I’m finalizing the design for a second printer. I’ve started making contributions to the firmware, slicers, and host software to get features I want, learned to model in Blender, learned about programming micro-controllers, started researching thermoplastics, material science, and the list goes on. 3D printing is an incredible intersection of software, electronics, machinery, chemistry, and an open, community-driven R&D environment. It is the most fun I’ve had since being a child building RC cars.
- function_seven 9y ago
  Things I learned from RC cars as a kid: 1. Basic electricity 2. PWM 3. Battery chemistry and care 4. Transmissions/gear ratios 5. How DC motors work. Winds and turns and brushes, etc. 6. Suspension basics 7. Basic RF (crystals and channels and avoiding interference) 8. Soldering And all sorts of hard-to-list mechanics and know-how. I didn't realize it at the time (and I don't think my parents did, either), but I learned so much more from that hobby than I did in school, for those areas. 3D printing feels the same way. I only recently got the Monoprice 120mm^2 unit, and it's working great for what I've thrown at it so far. What are you using for all the non-plastic parts? Do you print slides and bracing as well?
  - mikenew 9y ago
    The board is an MKS Sbase 1.2 with an ARM chip running Snoothie, and I’m using the integrated stepper drivers. I switched from using the typical Arduino Mega + Ramps setup because working with Marlin was really difficult, and it felt like they were fighting a losing battle trying to cram more features into an 8 bit architecture. The motors are varying sizes of Nema 17s, but I don’t remember the manufacturer. I have started experimenting with printed linear rails, and likely V2 of the printer will have printed rails on the z axis. The bushings are printed nylon that thread directly into the bed, x carriage, etc. I would also like to start experimenting with printed wiring, but most conductive filament is more like resistor wire, so that would take some figuring out. As far as the frame and all that; yes it’s all printed. You’d be surprised how much the part count starts to fall when you no longer have to attach different parts together and you instead start integrating them into a single, printed part.
- mdorazio 9y ago
  I want to offer additional context for other people who read this and may not be familiar with how 3D printers work. The core components of a 3D printer are not currently printable. These components are: power supply, control board, steppers, rails, bearings, belts, hotend, and the bed. When people talk about printing parts for their printer, they are almost always referring to the secondary parts like the carriage assembly, extruder gears, fan shrouds, and frame components that can be made from a large variety of cheap materials (acrylic, MDF, ABS, etc.). We are a very long way from a printer being able to actually replicate itself. Source: own and operate 50 3D printers
  - jstanley 9y ago
    If you operate 50 printers you're presumably doing some sort of business. Nobody operates 50 printers for a laugh. It sounds interesting. Are you printing arbitrary parts that other people send you, printing parts of your own design for your own products, or something else?
    - mdorazio 9y ago
      Yes to all of those. It's a micro manufacturing shop (we also have laser cutters, a CNC mill, woodworking equipment, casting materials, etc.). We mostly sell products that we design and build on Etsy & Amazon, but also do small batch runs for people who need 50+ pieces of something and the economics of injection molding don't make sense. It actually started as a makerspace, but the economics of that model were not sustainable, so we scaled into small-run product manufacturing.
      - asnyder 9y ago
        How can I contact your shop?
        mdorazio 9y ago
        Shoot me an email - michael at rndx2 dot com
  - 9y ago
- ChuckMcM 9y ago
  Agreed. One of the reasons I've enjoyed robotics so much is that it presses on all three of mechanics, software, and electronics. Since there is rarely someone who is good enough at all three it gets a huge boost by community involvement by folks with complementary skill sets. The problem with robotics was that once you did the basics, obstacle avoidance, line following, balancing perhaps. You Were sort of stuck on the next thing to work on. But 3D printers are robots that can make more interesting things so they are useful in their own right. My current favorite application is to make holding fixtures for things like breakout boards so that I can fabricate systems out of a bunch of separate boards easily.

opencl 9y ago

I'm also really excited that SLA prices have absolutely plummeted in the last year or so as well. The level of quality you can get from a ~$500 machine now is stunning, but of course it comes with its own set of problems so it's not going to dethrone FDM anytime soon. I hope we get more open-source SLA development soon though.

mikenew 9y ago

Same experience for me. I bought a cheap printer from eBay and slowly started re-designing and replacing existing parts by printing them out on the printer itself. Nearly 100% of the printer has been replaced, and I’m finalizing the design for a second printer. I’ve started making contributions to the firmware, slicers, and host software to get features I want, learned to model in Blender, learned about programming micro-controllers, started researching thermoplastics, material science, and the list goes on. 3D printing is an incredible intersection of software, electronics, machinery, chemistry, and an open, community-driven R&D environment. It is the most fun I’ve had since being a child building RC cars.

function_seven 9y ago
Things I learned from RC cars as a kid: 1. Basic electricity 2. PWM 3. Battery chemistry and care 4. Transmissions/gear ratios 5. How DC motors work. Winds and turns and brushes, etc. 6. Suspension basics 7. Basic RF (crystals and channels and avoiding interference) 8. Soldering And all sorts of hard-to-list mechanics and know-how. I didn't realize it at the time (and I don't think my parents did, either), but I learned so much more from that hobby than I did in school, for those areas. 3D printing feels the same way. I only recently got the Monoprice 120mm^2 unit, and it's working great for what I've thrown at it so far. What are you using for all the non-plastic parts? Do you print slides and bracing as well?
- mikenew 9y ago
  The board is an MKS Sbase 1.2 with an ARM chip running Snoothie, and I’m using the integrated stepper drivers. I switched from using the typical Arduino Mega + Ramps setup because working with Marlin was really difficult, and it felt like they were fighting a losing battle trying to cram more features into an 8 bit architecture. The motors are varying sizes of Nema 17s, but I don’t remember the manufacturer. I have started experimenting with printed linear rails, and likely V2 of the printer will have printed rails on the z axis. The bushings are printed nylon that thread directly into the bed, x carriage, etc. I would also like to start experimenting with printed wiring, but most conductive filament is more like resistor wire, so that would take some figuring out. As far as the frame and all that; yes it’s all printed. You’d be surprised how much the part count starts to fall when you no longer have to attach different parts together and you instead start integrating them into a single, printed part.
mdorazio 9y ago
I want to offer additional context for other people who read this and may not be familiar with how 3D printers work. The core components of a 3D printer are not currently printable. These components are: power supply, control board, steppers, rails, bearings, belts, hotend, and the bed. When people talk about printing parts for their printer, they are almost always referring to the secondary parts like the carriage assembly, extruder gears, fan shrouds, and frame components that can be made from a large variety of cheap materials (acrylic, MDF, ABS, etc.). We are a very long way from a printer being able to actually replicate itself. Source: own and operate 50 3D printers
- jstanley 9y ago
  If you operate 50 printers you're presumably doing some sort of business. Nobody operates 50 printers for a laugh. It sounds interesting. Are you printing arbitrary parts that other people send you, printing parts of your own design for your own products, or something else?
  - mdorazio 9y ago
    Yes to all of those. It's a micro manufacturing shop (we also have laser cutters, a CNC mill, woodworking equipment, casting materials, etc.). We mostly sell products that we design and build on Etsy & Amazon, but also do small batch runs for people who need 50+ pieces of something and the economics of injection molding don't make sense. It actually started as a makerspace, but the economics of that model were not sustainable, so we scaled into small-run product manufacturing.
    - asnyder 9y ago
      How can I contact your shop?
      - mdorazio 9y ago
        Shoot me an email - michael at rndx2 dot com
- 9y ago
ChuckMcM 9y ago
Agreed. One of the reasons I've enjoyed robotics so much is that it presses on all three of mechanics, software, and electronics. Since there is rarely someone who is good enough at all three it gets a huge boost by community involvement by folks with complementary skill sets. The problem with robotics was that once you did the basics, obstacle avoidance, line following, balancing perhaps. You Were sort of stuck on the next thing to work on. But 3D printers are robots that can make more interesting things so they are useful in their own right. My current favorite application is to make holding fixtures for things like breakout boards so that I can fabricate systems out of a bunch of separate boards easily.