Full Sized Prusa Mendel, Fully Assembled and Calibrated, T minus 10 hours :)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180645671068#ht_500wt_1156

I feel dirty doing this on by blog but WFT why not?  My Mendel is now at $812, and the auction ends in 10 hours.  I guess I am nervous because I messed up the title and said everything but RepRap in it :).  So if you search reprap you don't find my machine.

Anyway, back to being a good dev and not some used Robot salesman :)

Selling my Mendel for $1

She has done great, she printed for 14 hours straight at Posscon, did a 18 hour straight print for a 1 shot replication, and did another in smaller chunks till I had the bed level enough for the 1 shot print.  She has copied herself twice, printed a ton of odds and ends to test designs, and now it's time for her to go out into the world.  I wanted to be fair, so I posted her for $1.  Let the market do what it will.  I will do anything I can to help the person that get's her have a good experience with it.  Here is the link.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180645671068#ht_500wt_1156

I really hope this goes to a good home, with someone who will print with her 24/7.  It's a heck of a machine.  God I am a little teary over this.

BTW as with all my sells, the proceeds for this just goes to make more Mendels.  I want everyone in the world to have these things, best invention ever.

I thought I had done something pretty cool

My 1st time printing with my Prusa Mendel in Starbucks.  I was disappointed, no one even noticed.

Come to find out Rick over at Makergear likes printing in Panera Bread.

The girl sitting in front of me never even turned around for a 30 minute print... disappointing..

I mean I know your Mac Book Air is cool and all, but a RepRap doesn't even score a turn around?

So where have you printed for the fun of it (demo's don't count, just random printing)?

It's just can't be that easy can it?

On the left is my 1st calibration print with my Prusa, on the right is my Prusa Mendel motor block.  I am officially heart broken.

I use Makergear .5mm big head nozzle, heatercore, PEEK thermal barrier, ACME threaded rods, a Brustruder, Teflon filament feeder tube from my horizontal filament spool... I have spend a YEAR getting my Makerbot calibrated to the point where most people can't believe I get the quality I do.   I mean, heck I have had over 1000 people download MY calibration set on Thingiverse.

And here I am !1ST! print off my Prusa, and it looks better than my Makerbot print.  This Home made Prusa just blew my Makerbot out of the water BEFORE calibaration.

I don't know if you can see it in these photos, but there is no visible Z wobble on my Prusa, but even with the ACME rods, there is a very slight wobble in my MB.

Here is a video of my getting as excited as a little school girl over a box :)

And here is a video giving you the sound difference between my two machines


Now I go onto printing on Makerbot, Calibrating Prusa White, and building Prusa Pink.  I know I am hugely behind on the goal for the week, 2-3 family emergencies, and learning the eccentricity of Gen6, Repsnapper, and 5d firmware took a bit more than I was expecting.  But it all came out in the end :)

On to printer 3!

BTW Prusa White thank you list.

Mendel-Parts.com for the Gen6 Electronics & motors
Ultimachine.com for the PLA
Ultimachine for the Skeinforge Settings
Makergear for the Hot end
Eckerteck for the hobbed bolt
Lowes Hardware for the wood
My local plastic supply Triad Plasticfor the Acrylic
My local fastener supplies Automotive Fasteners and Salem Supply for the fasteners, tool rod, and threaded.

But the largest thanks has to go to Makerbot & Makergear. Makerbot for getting me off the fence about the kit over a year ago with their great price at the time, and Makergear for spending a year giving me wonderful customer service helping to get my Makerbot reliable. 

And of course Klimnent, Prusajr, Tesla, Makergear_Rick, arspitfire, Camiel, Spec, and ALL the others for answer 1000 stupid questions in the RepRap IRC

Day 1: One step ahead, right into a wall

On the up side:


-I got one set of RP parts printed on day 1, I assumed I would not get much of anything done
-Installed Redsnapper Repsnapper (I keep calling it redsnapper, and people get getting hungry), found an out of date RepRap Wiki page for Repsnapper.  Luckily half the dev community for RepRap are in and out of #reprap in Freenode IRC all day and night.  Tim Schmidt, they guy that runs the github for Redsnapper was in there and straightened me and the wiki page out.  Check it out, he has written a a pretty great on how to install Redsnapper
-Ordered $500 worth of parts for the printers (all money from prior RP sales)
 8  4218L Nema 17 steppers from Alltronics (I have two others in my office, so that's enough for two more printers
1 Groovemount for Makergear's Groovemount thermal barrier
2 36mm brass barrels from Makergear
1 .35 Bighead nozzle from makergear
2 V3 Hybrid Groovemount 3mm thermal barriers  (I have the rest of the stuff in hand to finish off 2 hot ends), and I plan to use Rick's Groovemount as a jig to make more (sorry I am cheap).
1 5lb roll of 3mm Natural PLA from Ultimachine
1 set Pre-Assembled RAMPS Kit from Ultimachine
1 1lb roll black PLA (for calibration, from what I understand black is easier to calibrate with)
32 PLA sliders for Tesla893.  I can't print in PLA and he decided to help me out with PLA sliders.  He is awesome




So there goes $500 in about 20 minutes.  But that should give me everything I need to get up to the testing point on 2 more Prusa.  Still need more stuff but I am sure I can sell enough RP sets to get me further along.


On the down side:


-My god forsaken Makerbot DC gearmotor died again.  That's 5, FIVE freaking motors failed!  
I understood the justification when we didn't have gears worked well, but why would Makerbot put DC gearmotors in the ToM, a freaking $1200 Machine, when they have KNOWN for the last year that they are fail prone.  The Thingomatic seems to be  a great Cartesian bot, but it's extruder is junk.  I am done with the DC gearmotor extruder on my MB, time to go stepper.. on that note.


-When one asks a vender to not include the printed parts so you can get a few dollars off on the parts.  It's a wise move to go ahead and print those parts BEFORE your extruder breaks.  That way your not stuck with no printer to print the RP part you need to put together your new extruder for your Makerbot.  Not that I would EVER do that, just a note. :)  When stupidity meets procrastination, fun things happen


-I now have to solder stepper driver board for a stepper extruder for my Makerbot.  God I hate soldering.  I killed 3 opto end stops when I put my Makerbot together last year...  I have got much better, but none the less the all or nothing aspect of soldering scares the heck out of me.


-Speaking of Makergear.  I wanted to go Geared Stepper Extruder on all my bots, and use Prusajr's HBP on them all..  But SOMEONE has grabbed up all the really nice HBP and good priced geared steppers in the world.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/makergear/5382716290/

Ohh yea, Makergear hogging all the "good stuff" for his customers... In the words of James T Kirk " RRRRRIIIIIICCCCKKKK!!!!!!!!".  


Anyway, now that I got that off my chest.  That's a freaking nice kit for $825.  Self aligning brass bushings, 1.75 filament, HUGE 200x200 build area, Ramps electronics, floating Z motors to get rid of Z wobble, spring tensioned Z nuts to alleviate Z binding...  That's one mean looking machine.


God you would think this guy pays attention to what the RepRap folks want and builds it or something.


Conclusion:


Ahead on the RP, need to list, anyone want a set of Prusa RP parts for $100 plus shipping to anywhere in the world?. guess I have to get the Mendel going to print the replacement part for the Makerbot.  Unfortunately a day of soldering... yay.

Arcol's mean little hot end

 http://koti.kapsi.fi/~kliment/photos/commissions/hotend/mountinstructions/IMG_4612.JPG 
photo from Kliment of Prusa / #reprap fame

Arcol, of the http://blog.arcol.hu/ blog and the Planet RepRap feed (the more selective version of my RepRap Google feed) has a new hot end he has came out with.  As you can tell it's loosely based on the BfB Rapman nozzle, but he has took the design and took it into open source overdrive.  He has some prettier pictures out there (go looking though Kliment's website) but there is something about the look of a used nozzle that just feels more honest.

Per Kliment, who is the owner of this example, the brass get's warm, and the 4 hex spacers stay cool to the touch.  This makes it a MUCH cooler nozzle than the Stock Mk5 and BfB Rapman nozzle sets.  With it's benign thermal characteristics, and captured PFTE design, it should give trouble free service in what ever bot you decide to marry it to.

Arcol is in the process of setting up a web store, but if you want one of these he is asking 69 euro ($95), which puts his hot end right in the middle of the pack on price point.  He has mounts for Brutstruder, Mk5, Mk4, BfB Rapman, Prusa Mendel, and Sells Mendel  (Sells Mendel requires a altered X carriage).  Until he get's his store up and going you can find him in the #reprap IRC or email him at order[at)arcol.hu.

Anyway I am a sucker for Steam Punk, and that my friends is a Steam Punk beauty of a hot end.  I wish Arcol well, and it's nice to see we have a growing group of developers that are strongly aligning themselves with the RepRap organization.

18 day RepRap Marathon

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2732/4251453506_9281900f25.jpg

A experiment in self funded exponential replication.

For the next 18 days, it's just going to be me and my RepRap hobby.  It's something I have wanted to do since I first read about RepRap 2 years ago, and finally I have the time to do it (Use it or loose it vacation days, got to love them :) ).  This will be an experiment in how exponential growth works in the real world of RepRap. 

To keep myself honest, I am going do to 1 blog post each day telling about the progress i have made toward my goal, and what I have learned.  It should be interesting considering my pension for doing stupid things and telling the world about it. :)

I go into this project with

1 95% completed Prusa Mendel

1 50% complete set of Prusa RP parts set to SAE fasteners
1 100% at this time operating MB Cupcake (with DC gearmotor, so let's see if it holds out)
1 1 set of the Makergear Stepper extruder kit to replace my DC gearmotor if it dies
2 Set of screws, smooth , and threaded for Imperial Prusa Mendel
1 Set of screws, smooth, and threaded for Metric Prusa Mendel
2 sets of PEEK barriers from Makergear
2 NEMA 17 stepper motors (two different makes, so must me by X & Y)

My goal is to by the end of the 18 days have enough money coming in from RP parts sells, and enough experience with the Prusa Mendel Design that I can reach exponential growth (If only mathematically for a few days).

I am going to set a lofty goal, 6 new printers in 18 days, all funded via selling RP parts online.  I feel I can use what I have already because besides my Cupcake I got 14 months ago, everything else has been paid for by selling RP Parts.

The "Plan" assumes that I will not have the Prusa printing parts until Friday, that the Makerbot holds out for 18 days at a 20+ hour printing pace (We will see), that I will at no point have more than 2 printers functioning at one time, and that I have a quick turn over on the Prusa Mendel RP sets.

To this end all RP parts sold from this project will be only $100 ($50 less than the going rate), so that they go quickly.  All parts will come with a certificate stating how what number replication it is for me, and what machine made it.

My "base" build will be as follows
$50 4 http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/28M056/55/Lin-Engineering-4118M-02-07RO-bipolar-stepper-motor 63 oz-inch stepper motors
$220 1 http://ultimachine.com/content/ramps-pre-assembled-kit Ramps Electronics and 4 connectors for motors
$165 http://www.makergear.com/products/plastruder 1 plastruder kit from Makergear, if they are out of stock I will just get 1 more stepper motor and $87 http://www.makergear.com/products/operators-pack an operators pack and mount
$40 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110538227436&ssPageName=ADME:B:WNAFP:US:1123 a 20A power supply
$35 http://www.mcmaster.com/#9368T115 12 brass bushings, and http://www.mcmaster.com/#7959K24 8 foot of .2" xl 1/4 inch wide belting.
$50 Local fastener store all the Tool & threaded rod and fasteners.

So $560 that's the simplest, easiest way to build a Prusa, I could cut that by $200, and likely will if it seems practical, but considering I am going to be printing 20+ hours a day, I might not want to get into complicated soldiering :)

I go into this project with $600 from selling RP parts, so on Monday I will order 1 of everything I need for Prusa2

So for the 18 day run, this is my "plan"
1. Finish partial set, and 1 more for getting ahead on Prusa Mechanicals
All components for 2nd Prusa ordered
2. Sell 1 Prusa Set ($100)Altronics
3. Sell 1 Prusa Set ($100)Ebay Power supply
4. Sell 1 Prusa Set ($100)electronics
5. Sell 1 Prusa Set ($100)belts/bushings
6. Sell 1 Prusa Set ($100)Hot end
All components for 3rd Prusa ordered
7. Sell 1 Prusa Set ($100)Alltronics
8. Sell 1 Prusa Set ($100)Ebay
2nd Printer online
9. Sell 2 Prusa Set ($200)Electronics
10. Sell 2 Prusa Set ($200)belts/bushings/hotend
All componetns for 4th Prusa ordered
11. Sell 2 Prusa Set ($200)Electornics
12. Sell 2 Prusa Set ($200)Motors/Hot End
13. Sell 2 Prusa Set ($200)belts/bushings/powersupply
All components for 5th Prusa ordered
14. Sell 2 Prusa Set ($200)Electronics
15. Sell 2 Prusa Set ($200)Motors/Hot End
16. Sell 2 Prusa Set ($200)belts/bushings/powersupply
All components for 6h Prusa ordered
17. Sell 2 Prusa Set ($200)Electronics
18. Sell 2 Prusa Set ($200)motors/Hot end
All components for 7th Prusa but hot end belts and bushings ordered

That would mean that in 18 days I could supply the world with 27 new Prusa Mendels, and they would return the favor by giving me 6 1/2 back.  of course there are a lot of ways this could not work out.

-My MB loves to eat DC gearmotors, if this happens before I get Prusa1 up and going the Geared Stepper falls into the critical path.
-The parts could not sell, but I think at 1/3 less than the going rate I shouldn't have an issue with that.
-It could take more than a week to get Prusa1 up and going (All I need to do it put the build plate & hot end on, calibrate, and I am good).  Not likely, but with the help of #reprap in IRC I think I will have no issues
-The Great Gremlin, we don’t' talk about him, but Makergear and Prusa designs are mostly Gremlin resistant.

Next post tomorrow evening.  I made Day 1 pretty easy considering I work 14 hour days on the weekend, and those days are hard.  Wish me luck, and if you see me in #RepRap tell me to print faster. :)

Still Extruding