I'm not a patent lawyer, yet it seems to me thinking about *patents* in an *open source* hardware group is a really alien concept to me.
Best regards,
On Thu, 10 Jan 2019, 07:05 Wesley Brooks <wesbrooks@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
Repairing machines in the grave yard is similar to what is bring discussed in this thread:
https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,707941
Last year I replaced a control card from an Up + 2 (I think that was the name) with one of the latest 32 bit Duet cards, effectively rescuing a dead printer as the manufacturer wanted silly money for the board.
Issues with grave yard printers can include lacking safety shutdown relays, play in bearings, and sometimes dodgy choices in wiring gauge. Having said the latter I always edge on the side of caution there.
Discussing pattentable ideas on an open forum maybe problematic from the perspectives you discuss. I'm not sure how patents and Open Source Hardware can fit together.
E3D are working with some fine nozzles at the moment can't remember whether it was 0.15mm or finer.
I had recently set up my own compay called BURPS (Brewed Up Research Products and Services, suitably non specific so it didn't limit the field of work) Ltd to do some work with an institution that was starting an Additive Manufacturing course. Unfortunately while the course leader was really keen, the contract was foiled by the finance department at second draft.
I've two running modified Ormerods and a P3Steel in build in my personal collection and a second P3Steel that I hope to commission this week that is bought for the business. Needless to say all can help with project work. These are all currently 0.4mm E3D hot end systems with the first ormerod still running on the 0.5mm RepRapLtd hot end.
My vision for BURPS was to work with companies looking to use AM and help guide them through the initial learning curve or project ideas they are looking to develop. I'd recently considered contacting the local chamber for introductions to local engineering companies to offer local prototyping, but margins are really tight there with the big players in the game.
I'd be interested to discuss working with you further, and may be able to make use of contacts at a nearby university who are always looking for bite size chunks of work for student summer projects.
Company email address: burps.ltd@gmail.com
Wesley.
On 10 Jan 2019 01:33, "J. R. Haigh" JRHaigh+ML.OSHUG@runbox.com wrote:
Happy New Year, everyone, Let's make 2019 a better year for OSH, copyleft, software freedom, and life generally. Now that we've passed the mad business of December, I'm aiming to bring this discussion to some conclusion over the next few days.
At 2018-12-12Wed23:15:31+00, J. R. Haigh sent:
At 2018-12-12Wed06:17:43+00, Wesley Brooks sent:
(Active) RepRapLtd: https://reprapltd.com/ RepRapLtd may be able to put together bundles for you. They are very
helpful.
I've approached RepRap Limited about a custom design as well as the availability and use of finer nozzles. Understandably busy over Christmas, when I eventually got a reply about my custom design ideas, Adrian Bowyer admitted to my great disappointment that they've not the time to develop a new design, nor did he refer me to another OSH RepRap R&D company. However, he did give some useful advice and offer me to obtain a quote for finer nozzles, to which I've replied asking for a quote of a 0.25mm nozzle. In that most recent email, sent Tuesday, I've also started to fall-back to specifics about the Huxley Duos (shelving my custom design ideas), but am still awaiting reply. I tried to find a telephone number for RepRap Ltd. but none is listed on their Website's contact page. However, given that Andy of Telford Makerspace is prompting me to bring this discussion to conclusion by early next week, and seeing also that some of my own projects are on hold indefinitely until we get a significant improvement in print finess, I'm not waiting for RepRap Ltd.'s replies too long again before continuing this thread. My biggest remaining questions are: • What makes a good-quality RepRap? What makes a good-quality Huxley Duo? • If print quality and reliability is constrained by the nonprintable parts such as steppers, extruders, and nozzles then can old, unreliable RepRaps (such as those of the 3-D printer graveyard that Jason speaks of) be easily refurbished with better parts to improve their quality and reliability? • Does anyone have experience with 0.3mm, 0.25mm, or finer nozzle diameters? • Is it safe to talk about patentable ideas on a public mailing list? I.e., do ideas discussed on this list legally count as ‘published’ and therefore prior art? • Is there an active OSH RepRap R&D company with the time and interest to implement/pioneer some potentially game-changing improvements to Cartesian filament printing?
Best regards, James R. Haigh.
-- Wealth doesn't bring happiness, but poverty brings sadness. https://wiki.FSFE.org/Fellows/JRHaigh Sent from NixOS with Claws Mail, using email subaddressing as an alternative to error-prone heuristical spam filtering.
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