Hi, We at the Telford Makerspace (https://TelfordMaker.space ) are looking to get 2 or 3 RepRaps (https://RepRap.org ) with which to run workshops. We decided on getting a couple of RepRap Huxley Duos (https://web.Archive.org/web/20160620213955/http://RepRapPro.com/documentatio... ), and materials and parts to build at least another Huxley Duo. Features of the Huxley Duo which appeal to us are:
• OSH and well-documented; • Cartesian-style filament printer; • dual-filament; • small and portable with a very sturdy frame; • cheap – 750£ will buy at least 3 of them; • repairable; interchangeable; modifyable; upgradable.
However, Andy D'Arcy Jewell and I could not find finer details such as nozzle diameter or print resolution, and when we were looking to buy one, we found that all of the links that we tried are dead or discontinued, i.e. we could not find /any/ live link to a current retailer of the Huxley Duo. The RepRap Project somewhat feels like a ghost town. We'd like to know: • Why did RepRap Ltd. close? • What happened to the RepRap Project and its community? • Where we can get RepRap Huxley Duos and their parts from? I notice that there's a fairly recent email to the list, the one announcing the 68th OSHUG meeting, that suggests that RepRap is still current without any hint of demise: At 2018-07-10Tue21:58:59+01, Andrew Back sent:
[…] Yet engineering hasn't worked with the power of self replication much, if at all, until now. This talk will be about the RepRap Project - an open-source project that has created humanity's first general-purpose self-replicating manufacturing machine. It will examine the likely social and economic impacts of self-replicating technology, and draw parallels with a twelve-thousand-year-old industry that uses natural self-replicating machines, the industry without which we would all starve: farming.
- Adrian Bowyer holds a first degree and a PhD in engineering from Imperial College. He was an academic engineer and mathematician at the University of Bath for 35 years, from where he retired in 2012 to become a director of RepRap Ltd., a company that sells RepRap machines and components, and that undertakes research and consultancy in RepRap-related projects. RepRap Ltd is an entirely open-source company, and all its designs, software and documentation are freely available to everyone. […]
The present tense implies that RepRap is still current. I sincerely hope so.
Best regards, James R. Haigh.
Hi.
(Active) RepRapLtd: https://reprapltd.com/
(Active) RepRapForums: https://reprap.org/forum/ The mass of different sub forums looks organised but the down side is post in a quiet place and your post will go unanswered.
Discussion from Bowyer about the closure of RepRapPro (used to sell machine kits through RS): https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?340,610436,830486#msg-830486
£750 for three machines is tight. You'll probably be relying on Arduino Mega and RAMPs for that rather than the more recent 32 bit controllers.Searching for amd reconditioning second hand might help. If determined to get new the your best shot will be searching for a bill of materials and collecting the parts yourself.
RepRapLtd may be able to put together bundles for you. They are very helpful.
I could have a look at how long it would take me to print the parts in white PLA. I'm tuning PETG but it is not ready yet.
Regards,
Wesley.
On Tue, 11 Dec 2018, 22:38 J. R. Haigh <JRHaigh+ML.OSHUG@runbox.com wrote:
Hi, We at the Telford Makerspace (https://TelfordMaker.space ) are looking to get 2 or 3 RepRaps (https://RepRap.org ) with which to run workshops. We decided on getting a couple of RepRap Huxley Duos ( https://web.Archive.org/web/20160620213955/http://RepRapPro.com/documentatio... ), and materials and parts to build at least another Huxley Duo. Features of the Huxley Duo which appeal to us are:
• OSH and well-documented; • Cartesian-style filament printer; • dual-filament; • small and portable with a very sturdy frame; • cheap – 750£ will buy at least 3 of them; • repairable; interchangeable; modifyable; upgradable.
However, Andy D'Arcy Jewell and I could not find finer detailssuch as nozzle diameter or print resolution, and when we were looking to buy one, we found that all of the links that we tried are dead or discontinued, i.e. we could not find /any/ live link to a current retailer of the Huxley Duo. The RepRap Project somewhat feels like a ghost town. We'd like to know: • Why did RepRap Ltd. close? • What happened to the RepRap Project and its community? • Where we can get RepRap Huxley Duos and their parts from? I notice that there's a fairly recent email to the list, the one announcing the 68th OSHUG meeting, that suggests that RepRap is still current without any hint of demise: At 2018-07-10Tue21:58:59+01, Andrew Back sent:
[…] Yet engineering hasn't worked with the power of self replication much,
if at all, until now. This talk will be about the RepRap Project - an open-source project that has created humanity's first general-purpose self-replicating manufacturing machine. It will examine the likely social and economic impacts of self-replicating technology, and draw parallels with a twelve-thousand-year-old industry that uses natural self-replicating machines, the industry without which we would all starve: farming.
- Adrian Bowyer holds a first degree and a PhD in engineering from
Imperial College. He was an academic engineer and mathematician at the University of Bath for 35 years, from where he retired in 2012 to become a director of RepRap Ltd., a company that sells RepRap machines and components, and that undertakes research and consultancy in RepRap-related projects. RepRap Ltd is an entirely open-source company, and all its designs, software and documentation are freely available to everyone. […]
The present tense implies that RepRap is still current. I sincerely hope so.
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. _______________________________________________ oshug mailing list oshug@oshug.org http://oshug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oshug
On 12/12/2018 06:17, Wesley Brooks wrote:
We at the Telford Makerspace (https://TelfordMaker.space ) are looking to get 2 or 3 RepRaps (https://RepRap.org ) with which to run workshops. We decided on getting a couple of RepRap Huxley Duos
Our local makerspace is a bit of a graveyard for 3DPs including a couple of original RepRap Mendels and some other obscure stuff. None of them are totally broken but most of them are unreliable and inconsistent. Regardless of whether the underlying designs are open or not we have found that there is a correlation between the price and reliability.
If all your members are happy to spend time fiddling to get good results then 3 machines could be a good option to get throughput. However, our makerspace has many members who are "makers" not "tool improvers" and therefore we find a queue for the best machine rather than people spending time fiddling around with the poorer machines.
The Hux is clearly a good machine so I'm not trying to put you off, I'm just describing our experience. Sorry it's doesn't really answer your question :)
I could help print some Hux PLA parts if you want.
Hi Jason,
At 2018-12-12Wed08:00:22+00, Jason Flynn G7OCD sent:
Our local makerspace is a bit of a graveyard for 3DPs including a couple of original RepRap Mendels and some other obscure stuff. None of them are totally broken but most of them are unreliable and inconsistent.
We haven't got the space or resources to be a graveyard of low-quality machines that aren't quite good enough for any job. As resin printing is not appropriate for the workshops, I was arguing for the better quality of the filament quality spectrum instead of seeking nonessential features such as multiheadedness or large build volume. I.e. the best quality that's not resin. I now understand that multiheadedness inherently decreases stability and speed by having more moving mass, and that at least 2 single-headed multifilament techniques are viable: multichromatic filament; and Bowden feed Y-joiners. So now my thoughts are along the lines of 2 high-quality Huxleys, and 4 of those Y-joiners (we could print those ourselves), giving the ability to print from 6 filaments simultaneously (3 and 3; 4 and 2; or 5 and 1) at the workshops.
Regardless of whether the underlying designs are open or not we have found that there is a correlation between the price and reliability.
I'm only willing to support an OSH design, partly because I want to be able to experiment with the design and give feedback. What sorts of variations of reliability are there in the nonprinted parts?
If all your members are happy to spend time fiddling to get good results then 3 machines could be a good option to get throughput. However, our makerspace has many members who are "makers" not "tool improvers" and therefore we find a queue for the best machine rather than people spending time fiddling around with the poorer machines.
I am a tool improver and believe that: A bad worker only blames their tools; a good worker also improves them. Nonetheless, after exerting effort to tediously tinker with settings and whatnot, I want top results, and I want repeatability such that I can share those top results with others. Others will most likely want good results with much less effort, so Andy, please take note.
The Hux is clearly a good machine so I'm not trying to put you off, I'm just describing our experience. Sorry it's doesn't really answer your question :)
What is your experience with nozzles narrower than 0.4mm? I'd like to try 0.2mm or 0.1mm if they exist. Has anyone tried putting multiple extruders with different nozzle diameters on the same machine? This would allow 2 filaments, as well as 2 resolutions/speeds.
I could help print some Hux PLA parts if you want.
Thank you also for the offer but at least 3 of us are pretty competent with PLA and should be able to print the printable parts ourselves.
Best regards, James R. Haigh.
Hi Wesley,
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.
Thank you. We were aware of RepRap Ltd. but they don't seem to list the Huxley, let alone the Huxley Duo. Their listing for 3D printers (https://RepRapLtd.com/product-category/3d-printers ) currently only has 3 items, of which all 3 are delta. However, having just had another look now, at https://RepRapLtd.com/shop I see “If there is an item you would like, but can't find, please get in touch.”, which suggests that actually they'll probably sell any RepRap design if asked. The first thing that I noticed when I looked at their homepage, today, was a thumbnail feature of an article about a filament Y joiner: https://RepRapLtd.com/filament-y I find this very interesting because I'd rather have a smaller, lighter extruder which can achieve a higher quality, rather than have a dual or tri extruder as Andy feels are a requirement for the workshops. Although I've suggested 2 techniques to Andy for how to make multicoloured parts without a special mixing extruder, one requires a hot air pen to join coloured parts (with a somewhat poorer colouring resolution like that of Lego, but nonetheless very colourful and with any number of filaments) and the other would have required a special pentachromatic filament, a sensor, and slicer awareness to use unwanted colours on fill, or other parts where the colour does not matter. Today, when looking for the Huxley Duo review forum post I mention below, I accidentally found another forum post (https://aniwaa.com/blog/multicolor-3d-printer-filament ) which indicates that filament very similar to what I describe already exists! Furthermore, it goes on to explain and excellent idea: custom colouring with permanent markers!!! This makes me wonder whether the best multicolour mechanism is to have actuated permanent markers on the Bowden feed. There would be a bit of a delay, but the slicers would merely have to set the colour while its printing the skirt, brim, or raft, and just always actuate each pen early by however long the Bowden cable is. Obviously dithering could be used to create gradients. Having noticed yesterday a key feature of the Huxley “The MiniMendel uses a bowden-extruder that has less moving mass and thus higher speed due to the stepper not being on the print-head.” (https://RepRap.org/wiki/Huxley#Extruder ), thinking about that today in conjunction with the filament Y, I realise also that dual or tri heads are going to have an inherent stability penalty just for the additional moving mass!! So I'm going to say that as long as the machine can reliably print colour by some technique then it does not need to be a Duo, else we may decide to not have all 3 be the exact same model.
(Active) RepRapForums: https://reprap.org/forum/ The mass of different sub forums looks organised but the down side is post in a quiet place and your post will go unanswered.
I'm no fan of posting to Web-based forums, preferring wikis or email, so I'll leave that to my TFMS peers.
Discussion from Bowyer about the closure of RepRapPro (used to sell machine kits through RS): https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?340,610436,830486#msg-830486
Thank you very much! That answers all of my questions about what happened, and also introduces me to the legal mechanism of how an LTD company can ensure that it remains committed to its original mission persistently, through the use of clauses in its Memorandum of Association which define special ‘Ordinary B’ shares with the power to assert the commitment to the original mission. I like that. Perhaps I could submit some wiki edits to RepRap.org in the coming months, especially where I see dead links or other missing information. I'd also like to document my colouring techniques mentioned above, as well as other techniques.
£750 for three machines is tight. You'll probably be relying on Arduino Mega and RAMPs for that rather than the more recent 32 bit controllers.Searching for amd reconditioning second hand might help. If determined to get new then your best shot will be searching for a bill of materials and collecting the parts yourself.
The budget that we've decided for the printers is 750£, but we weren't sure whether we would buy 2 or 3. Andy tells me that prices across the market have plummetted this year, and the Huxley and Huxley Duo appear to have been around for a few years. Last week, I found a 4-year-old price for a Huxley Duo of 290£ on a review forum that came up in a search (http://forum.reprapdiscount.com/threads/introducing-our-new-reprappro-huxley... ), or 237.5£ for a hardware kit of nonprintable parts, so thought that it would be reasonable to expect to get 3 for 750£ 4 years on. 2×290£ + 237.5£ = 817.5£; 290£ + 2×237.5£ = 765£; 3×237.5£ = 712.5£. The decision is complicated slightly by the need to strike a compromise between what is most appropriate for the workshops and the desires of the existing makerspace members. Some aspects align, particularly the size: for the workshops they need to be small and portable; for the makerspace, all of the items that I'm aware have been printed on the Wanhao Duplicator i3 that we currently have are well within the build volume of the Huxley. The largest that I'm aware of were a couple of 10cm×10cm cylindrical beakers which I printed to demonstrate watertightness, and each took about 2 and a half hours to print even though they were just 1mm thick (as measured with a caliper). I'm not sure how much the size contributes to the cost, but we'd rather have a smaller, better-quality machine than a large machine which is too wobbly for small parts. Furthermore, we have participatory overlap with 2 local repair cafés (Shrewsbury and Oakengates) which have a keen demand for small, precise, custom parts. Andy and I didn't manage to successfully print a small replacement involute gear after several attempts of tweaking settings – the teeth were too blunt to mesh. If we could find a Cartesian filament printer which is a bit more precise then I'd be willing to augment the budget with my own money for a Huxley-like model which is more precise.
I could have a look at how long it would take me to print the parts in white PLA. I'm tuning PETG but it is not ready yet.
We do actually have the ability to print PLA at the makerspace already, on a Wanhao Duplicator i3 lent to us by a local supplier of filament, 3D Printz Ltd., but thanks for the offer. And thanks once again for the advice above.
Best regards, James R. Haigh. P.s.: In writing this email, I realise that I had muddled RepRap Ltd. with RepRapPro Ltd. in my previous email:
• Why did RepRap[Pro] Ltd. close?
Sorry, I meant RepRapPro Ltd.. Nonetheless, you already answered as if I had not made that mistake, so thank you. I now understand (from the forum post from Bowyer that you referred to) that RepRap Ltd. is/was a parent company of RepRapPro Ltd., along with eMaker Ltd..
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.
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.
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.
oshug mailing list oshug@oshug.org http://oshug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oshug
oshug mailing list oshug@oshug.org http://oshug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oshug
Unless there's an explicit, non-exclusive patent grant, then I believe patents are toxic to open source *anything*.
On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 7:16 AM Perry Ismangil perry@teluu.com wrote:
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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On 10/01/2019 07:11, Perry Ismangil wrote:
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.
Whilst not compatible with everyones views, it could be used to license to non-profits and non-agressives only, to ensure big-corps don't stifle the little guys. Openness isn't the only way to make the world a better place and preventing use of an idea that leads to injury/persecution has to be a good thing.
It's also a very explicit way of ensuring the idea is published as patent offices often miss minor publications (e.g. unless a mailing list has indexed/searchable archives it would probably not be seen) and once a patent is granted it takes a huge effort to overturn. Better publish this way and then grant open use.
Hi Jason,
At 2019-01-10Thu07:47:05+00, Jason Flynn G7OCD sent:
[…] It's also a very explicit way of ensuring the idea is published as patent offices often miss minor publications (e.g. unless a mailing list has indexed/searchable archives it would probably not be seen) and once a patent is granted it takes a huge effort to overturn. Better publish this way and then grant open use.
The night before last (Friday night), I coïncidentally found an article of great relevance by Andrew Huang (Bunnie); when checking back through my emails for something else, I saw an email from 2018-12-27Thu with subjectline “You Can’t Opt Out of the Patent System” on my local LUG that I'd marked/starred but hadn't got round to opening, until Friday night. https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5421 (quoted below for the record and my own email searchability) I was very pleased to find that it is of perfect relevance to this discussion, and that I'm not the only one who perceives serious danger for OSH – indeed there are examples to back this up – and it highlights the gross asymmetry of filing versus overturning that you mention with actual figures which clearly show that the patent system is brutally rigged against individuals. That they have no obligation to even bother with minor publications, let alone it being accidental, I'm glad that I took the precaution to think about how I proceed with publishing patentable ideas. However, I don't immediately see how Patent Pandas (https://PatentPandas.org ) is a solution, other than to highlight the problem and call for a solution. I was also shocked to see a comment about the impact of patents on bees, requiring an effort against them (OpenSourceBees.org).
Best regards, James R. Haigh. P.s.: I'm still thinking about your other comments.
Hi Perry,
At 2019-01-10Thu07:11:09+00, Perry Ismangil sent:
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.
I too am not a patent lawyer, but we are all citizens of a society which unfortunately practises patent law. A group which does not agree with the law is not above the law or immune to it, so to not even *think* about it is to bury one's head in the sand! Having said that, I should clarify that the patent worries that I fear are that some non-OSH supporter sees my ideas, patents them, and then makes them proprietary. I've no intention of patenting my own ideas unless it turn-out to be (with free/open licensing) the only way to ensure that the ideas are not made proprietary by someone else. I hope that this is not necessary, though, because (A) I do not know how to file patents, and apparently it's not easy, and (B) I'd be financially supporting and popularising a system that I despise. Perhaps there's some 3rd-party prior art registration service run by a nonprofit. That would give me the confidence to discuss my ideas openly having registered them as prior art. My ideas are not necessarily game-changing or even useful, but when you see ‘patent pending’ or other mentions of patents on such simple products as plastic food tubs and whatnot, it's a reminder that there are people out there who are aggressively trying to patent stuff that we wouldn't even consider patentable, let alone our more interesting ideas.
Best regards, James R. Haigh.
On Thu, 10 Jan 2019, 20:21 J. R. Haigh <JRHaigh+ML.OSHUG@runbox.com wrote:
Having said that, I should clarify that the patent worries that Ifear are that some non-OSH supporter sees my ideas, patents them, and then makes them proprietary. I've no intention of patenting my own ideas unless it turn-out to be (with free/open licensing) the only way to ensure that the ideas are not made proprietary by someone else.
Thanks for the clarification James, I apologise for getting the wrong end of the stick!
Over the years I've heard of various prior art registry/crowdsourcing effort, nothing seems to stick around though.
Thank you.
Best regards,
Hi Perry,
At 2019-01-10Thu20:43:06+00, Perry Ismangil sent:
On Thu, 10 Jan 2019, 20:21 J. R. Haigh <JRHaigh+ML.OSHUG@runbox.com wrote:
Having said that, I should clarify that the patent worries that I fear are that some non-OSH supporter sees my ideas, patents them, and then makes them proprietary. I've no intention of patenting my own ideas unless it turn-out to be (with free/open licensing) the only way to ensure that the ideas are not made proprietary by someone else.
Thanks for the clarification James, I apologise for getting the wrong end of the stick!
Thanks. I'm glad that we're on the same page now. A related patent worry is when someone else patents a critical extension of your free/open idea. A notable example is that, while Alexander Fleming, Howard Florey, and Ernst Boris Chain left penicillin unpatented for the good of the people, they struggled to produce enough penicillin to treat the first few patients in 1941 and, in 1945, the process for its mass manufacture on a commercial scale was patented by Andrew Jackson Moyer. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin#History ) I interpret this as a strong argument for both patent abolition and patentleft. However, while patent abolition is unlikely to happen soon, patentleft has the unfortunate side-effect of financially-supporting the patent system.
Over the years I've heard of various prior art registry/crowdsourcing effort, nothing seems to stick around though.
Anything current? Anything current that is nonprofit or otherwise constitutionally-bound to their mission? I was approached by a software patent pooling scheme a few years ago which I declined to participate in because it was run by a private company with no constitutional commitment to keep the patent pool for the good of the community. I don't have any patents, and in that case they were only offering me protection, but nonetheless when I asked them why they were not a nonprofit and their response was that they wanted to keep their options open, it didn't feel right. I think for such a community effort to stick around it has to be nonprofit, or at least be constitutionally-bound, because all too often companies capture the interests of a community and then exploit it for profit in a manner which damages the community. If that patent pool had been nonprofit then I'd have joined without hesitation, especially if their mission was to make the patent system irrelevant.
Best regards, James R. Haigh.
Hi Wesley,
At 2019-01-10Thu07:05:09+00, Wesley Brooks sent:
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.
That's very interesting and reässuring that there's a lot of scope to revive machines. I'm more thinking about what happens a year or more down the line when the probably new printers we get now are considered unreliable later.
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.
I'm not looking to get them to fit together, rather to safely avoid patent troubles without supporting the patent system. Some kind of nonprofit prior art registration and advice service would give me the confidence to discuss ideas which I fear others would patent and make proprietary.
E3D are working with some fine nozzles at the moment can't remember whether it was 0.15mm or finer.
Interesting. I've decided to gain competency with 0.25mm before trying 0.2mm or finer. Such an increase in finess from 0.4mm should be sufficient for a lot of what I want to do, so I might as well focus on that first.
I had recently set up my own company 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. […] 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.
Oh nice! Do you have any constitutional commitment to OSH, like RepRapPro Limited as explained in Adrian's closing post that you linked to in your previous email? (Btw., I've assumed that RepRap Limited also has constitutional commitment to OSH but don't see any mention of Memorandum of Association on their About page. Can anyone confirm this?) Being nonspecific, I suppose that you'd also consider brewed-up research outside of the field of additive manufacturing. I have ideas that I'd like to make into OSH projects across various fields.
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.
Thank you. Although I don't know much about you and BURPS Limited, what you've said so far does seem interesting for various projects. Which university are you near?
Company email address: burps.ltd@gmail.com
Thank you. Do you have a Website? What events might I be able to meet you at?
Best regards, James R. Haigh.
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andy d'arcy jewell -
J. R. Haigh -
Jason Flynn G7OCD -
Perry Ismangil -
Wesley Brooks