I have found out that of the sets of Mendel I have printed, only 1/2 have been assembled at all, and NONE are printing. No matter what people think, there is no money in printing Mendels, or honestly any RepRap, even if it was only 2 hours to print, you couldn't really "get your money back". I print parts for people because I want to spread the hobby, obviously I have failed.
I am starting a Credit Union for Reprap over at the Reprap Wiki. I came up with a very original name for it SpaceXULA Union. :)
Here are the terms:
The Fees:
$100 Mini Mendel (Current Version as http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3581($50 back if you replace within a month)
$30 Prinstruder II http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1980($15 back if you replace within a month)
$40 Wades Extruder http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3069($20 back if you replace within a month)
The "Terms"
-To receive parts you must have Hacker space or group with multiple members (And have some way to confirm this to SpaceXULA's satisfaction).
-You must promise to form a bank once you have an operating RepRap.
-You must pay a deposit before I send the parts
-You must be within the United States (Sorry, Import dues make international shipping unfair to the receiver)
The Benefits
-SpaceXULA promises to support you though to completion of your project, you are getting a relationship. You get the parts, and if you need more parts because you break them, or the design changes before you can get your own printer operational, he will provide them as 1st priority prints.
-If SpaceXULA receives a set of parts back from you within 1 month of the day you receive the parts, he will PayPal back to you 1/2 the cost of the part to you.
If your interested, please add your RepRap Wiki user name under Aplicant, and I will contact you right away.
I have 5 Wades Extruders, 2 Prinstruder II, and 1/2 of a Mini Mendel ready to go.
+1 for the idea of a tested,packaged extruder that works with a conventional cnc 3 axis mill.
ReplyDeleteI am a hobbiest, and have created my own 3-axis router. it works great and uses primarily 'standard' parts and EMC2 for control.
If there had been an EMC compatible, turn-key extruder that bolts on as an axis, i'd have been willing to pay $200 or so for such an assembly. But there wasnt. This is because Repraps' formal goals are self-printing. Thus, there are a lot of unorganized hackers out there working to make repstraps, but they all 'abandon' perfectly good machines because they are not a 'real' reprap.
But, since there were not such products, i ended up doing what it seems others have done: i created my own project with the
goal of creating an extruder who's design and controls are
intended to act on an existing 3-axis platform:
http://cncfdm.blogspot.com