This document discusses open source self-replicating 3D printers. It provides a brief history of RepRap 3D printers, from the first printed part in 2006 to models like the Darwin in 2008, Mendel in 2009, and Huxley and Prusa Mendel in 2010. It highlights some unique aspects of RepRap like its role as an educational platform, its status as a living organism that continuously evolves, and its open source nature which allows the community to modify and improve designs.

1. Open Source self-replicating 3D printer
Josef Průša
josefprusa.cz
@josefprusa
Sunday, September 18, 11

2. What is 3D printer?
Just in case ;-) You can recreate your 3D
ideas in real life
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3. Sunday, September 18, 11

4. Simplified principle
Cartesian robot + Extruder
Z
+
X
Y
= 3D printer
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5. How does 3D printer work?
Y
X
2D + 2D + 2D + 2D + 2D = ?????
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6. How does 3D printer work?
Z
X
Y
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7. 240 whistles for TEDxPrague 300 more to go
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8. “History”
• 2005 - Founded by Dr Adrian Bowyer at
the University of Bath
• 2006 - First part printed
• 2008 - RepRap Darwin
• 2009 - RepRap Mendel (Makerbot was
born)
• 2010 - Huxley, Prusa Mendel
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9. 2006 first printed part
• Chicken and egg
problem
photo by Vik Oliver
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10. 2008 Darwin
• First printer released
• Big, bulky, hard to
assemble
• But it worked!!
photo by Adrian Bowyer
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11. 2009 Mendel
• Smaller
• Faster
• Faster to replicate
This year Makerbot was founded and did ship first kit.
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12. 2010 Huxley
• Even smaller
• Still PITA to
assemble
• Smaller build area
photo by Erik De Bruijn
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13. 2010 Prusa
• Almost no bearings,
using PRINTED
alternatives
• Build time reduced to
few days for newbies
• Half replication time
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14. Whats unique about
RepRap
• You get education Each of these unique
things can be for good or
bad of the project
• It’s living organism
• It’s Open Open Hardware (O²H)
• It’s a platform for your projects
• RepRap community is unbyuable
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15. Education
• lots of stuff to learn before build
• when done you can try out your ideas
immediately
• you basically became punk engineer :-)
• my story
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16. My story
• I joined community exactly 2 years ago
• I created Prusa Mendel version 1 year ago
1 year
• Now I’m writing book for O’reilly
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17. Whats unique about
RepRap
• You get education Each of these unique
things can be for good or
bad of the project
• It’s living organism
• It’s Open Open Hardware (O²H)
• It’s a platform for your projects
• RepRap community is unbyuable
Sunday, September 18, 11

18. Living thing
• Nobody is in charge in RepRap
• There is no stable point(company?) from
which community grows
• Everybody can do whatever he wants, and
evolution/community decides what is used
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19. Number of printers
• Nobody really knows, most of the printers
are crowd-sourced
• Erik de Bruijn estimated in his thesis
between 3872 and 4840 people in the
community (October 2010)
• But what we know for sure, community
grows exponentially!!
Sunday, September 18, 11

20. Whats unique about
RepRap
• You get education Each of these unique
things can be for good or
bad of the project
• It’s living organism
• It’s Open Open Hardware (O²H)
• It’s a platform for your projects
• RepRap community is unbyuable
Sunday, September 18, 11

21. O²H
TM :-P
• Not only that we share source you can
modify, as there is no central authority, you
can actually change the face of project
• We are OPEN to accept OPEN source
HARDWARE.
Sunday, September 18, 11

22. Whats unique about
RepRap
• You get education Each of these unique
things can be for good or
bad of the project
• It’s living organism
• It’s Open Open Hardware (O²H)
• It’s a platform for your projects
• RepRap community is unbyuable
Sunday, September 18, 11

23. Platform
It’s easy to use RepRap as platform, because
community thinks about it as platform. That
means, that you have lots of support
for making modifications.
We don’t only want to print, but we also want
to evolve/invent.
• Metal printing
• Transistor printing
• Dual head extrusion
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24. by Rhys Jones
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25. http://mrkimrobotics.com/
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26. Multi-material in may 2010
http://ifeelbeta.de
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27. Traps of the project
• Always ask the community before you buy full kit
from company.
• Only support you get is from community, so
amount of support is multiplied by factor how nice
you act with community.
• Ask on IRC (Hint: write “trap?” and you’ll get the
latest traps)
• Don’t go for the most barebones ($300) but
instead build state of the art ($600). RepRaps point
isn’t to be cheaper alternative of RepRap.
• If you buy RepRap from some company, judge
company not the project.
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28. Reward
• If you are willing to spend some time on
learning about printers.You can print as
well or better them commercial printer ;-)
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29. Follow me on twitter @josefprusa
And visit 3D printing tent!
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