Long time, no post. It’s pretty quiet on the RRRF front. I’m spending most of my time these days working on the actual machine which is a nice change. =) Still wanna get going on kits, but I also want time to actually enjoy building cool robots. Anyway, here’s whats up:

New Product: CAPA Filament
I got some CAPA filament from the UK. This plastic is very rare in filament form, and will probably go quickly. Order yours now if you dont want to miss out. Buy it here.

Price Drop: Stepper Motor Driver
Holy cow! I managed to re-order a board before it was out of stock. Not only that, but its now $2.50 cheaper!!! Now only $5.00 / ea. This board will drive the motor above, very nicely. Buy it here.

Back in stock: HDPE
Finally managed to get another shipment in. Lugging around 100lbs of plastic from my work to the lab on the NYC subways sure isn’t fun, but its definitely worth it to help out the RepRap community. Buy it here.

Out of stock stuff:
The universal boards our out of stock, as well as the dc motor driver boards. Unfortunately this means both electronics kits are out of stock. They have both been re-ordered and will be back in stock next week. Also, we’re out of stock on extruder stuff, but hope to have that back in stock soon as well. Stay tuned!

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Well, I’m back from my holiday break. I kicked 2008 in with a bang, and I’m ready to start rocking and rolling in 2008. I have big plans and I think things are really going to be awesome in the new year. I finally get back to the lab tonight and I’ll ship out the orders that I got while I was away.

Here’s whats new:

Price Drop: PowerComms v1.3
I did a huge order, and now I’m passing on the savings to you. From $5.00 to $3.50. Good stuff.

Out of Stock: Stepper Motors
These guys sold out in like 4 days. I’m ordering another round. These guys sure are fun!

New Product: Skate Bearings
Skate bearings are used heavily in the McWire design and are just generally awesome and handy. Unfortunately they are kinda pricey through skate shops. I found a bulk supplier and now am proud to offer some high quality YAK ABEC-3 bearings. A pack of 8 costs $5.00. Pretty darn good price I’d say.

RRRF New Years Resolutions:

• Kits, kits, kits! I want electronics kits + components, full extruder kits, and the holy grail: full RepRap machine kit.
• Keep everything in stock. Not always possible, but I’m trying.
• Get 501.3(c) tax exemption. We’re registered as a non-profit, but we don’t have the tax exemption… yet. I filled out most of the paperwork and now just have to go over it with the Software Freedom lawyers.
• Lose 5 pounds. (shipping costs hurt, ya know?

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Wow. Things have been crazy around here. I finally got caught up on all the orders from the MAKE podcast. I’m very sorry to those whose order was delayed, but that order volume was unprecedented, and I just got swamped. I’ve changed the software around to take quantity into account, so it should only allow you to buy things that are in stock from now on out. Also, its still just a one-man operation, and that one man (me!!) works a full-time job on the side, lol. I love ya though!

Anyway, here is the major news this round:

Vacation Notice:

I’m leaving home for xmas vacation and the last day to place orders if you want them shipped out in 2007 is December 20th, by 9pm EST. If you dont order by then, I wont be able to ship it out in time. Sorry for the short notice. Cheers!

Stepper Motors now in stock!
We ordered a bunch (48) of stepper motors from Keling Technology, Inc. These bad-boys are some awesome dual shafted NEMA 23 stepper motors, perfect for either Darwin or McWire. They really rock hard. Good power output, 8 wires for many different potential configurations, etc, etc. They’re also cheap… only $25 /ea.
You can buy them here.

Darwin Molded Parts Coming
I’ve placed an order from Ian over at Bitsfrombytes.com for 10 sets of molded parts for Darwin. They should be here in about a month. Once those sell out, I’ll purchase more. Regardless, the parts you need to assemble a Darwin style RepRap are *on their way*!

McWire Cartesian Bot Kits Coming
The McWire design is an alternative design based on lasercut acrylic and pipes that is quite robust and easy to assemble. It is intended to be a RepStrap design you can use for a variety of awesome things. I’ll be finishing up and documenting the design in January, and I have a lasercutter lined up to get kits out.

PCB + Component Kits Coming
One of the things I’d really like to accomplish in the new year is getting full electronic kits assembled. Kits that come with the PCB + all the components you need to assemble the kit… all for cheaper than you could buy them separately, except all from one place. (me!) No more buying PCB’s, digging up a bill of materials, and ordering the parts. (well, not like its that hard with parts.reprap.org, but still.)

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I’m looking for a machinist to make some of the parts for the extruder kit. More information is on the builders blog. I need your help in finding the best price… because it will help everyone!

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Wow. What an awesome vacation! I went to Florida with my girlfriend to relax with my friend Mike. While I was away, MAKE featured a podcast about RepRap!! That was really awesome, and I’m very glad they did that, but I got about 30 orders while I was 500+ miles away from the lab. I got back on Tuesday and sent out the first round of packages that next day.

Unfortunately, I was certainly not prepared for this type of response! The boards that Bre was documenting are the experimental ‘next generation’ boards that are based on Arduino. I only had the first order of them from the board fab, and not nearly enough to fill 30 orders. Also, there were some bugs in those first versions that I was working on. Consequently some of the orders will be delayed. However, not all is bad!!! The boards I am sending out now contain an improved stepper driver board that fixes some of the problems Bre had and is simplified a bit.

So, here’s where we’re at: I have placed orders for enough boards to cover all the orders I have currently received. This will take a max of 10 days. Once I get those boards, I will ship out the rest of the PCB orders immediately. Some of you ordered extruder kits, and I’ll be shipping those out as I complete them. I have pretty much everything I need for that, so those will get shipped out soon.

I hope people understand the delay, and keep in mind that this is currently a one-man operation, and I run the foundation in my spare time (I work 40 hours as a web developer during the day). Please bear with me as I slog through these orders and get everything back up to speed.

I promise I won’t post things onto the store until they are ready and fully stocked!

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Just wanted to let you know that I’ll be on vacation starting tomorrow for 5 days. I get back on Tuesday, Nov. 27th and I’ll be filling any orders the following day. When I get back, I plan to announce some really cool new products that alot of you have been waiting quite a while for. I’m personally very excited about it. If you’re clever, you can get them before anyone else does…

Happy Thanksgiving, eat lots of good food, and be merry!

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Just got a new shipment of the universal controller boards back in, and a bigger shipment is on its way. Hopefully this will last us until the next generation of boards are fully integrated into the project.

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Jeez… I haven’t posted here in a while. Sorry about that! A whole bunch of stuff has happened, mostly we’ve been working on the next generation of RepRap technology. Hopefully you’re keeping up to date with the project on both the builders and main RepRap blogs. I usually just post here to give updates on what is available on the RRRF store.

New Items

One of the new things I’ve been spending quite a lot of time on, are the prototypes for the next generation of RepRap electronics. These boards have been designed to work with the Arduino, an excellent open-source microcontroller project. The products listed below definitely all work, but keep in mind that the software to drive them has not been developed yet.

* DC Motor Driver Board v1.0

This board drives 2 DC motors at up to 750mA each. Perfect for driving an extruder motor, etc. You can easily interface it with your Arduino to do all sorts of other stuff as well. You can even use it to drive a small stepper motor!

* PWM Driver Board v1.0

This board takes a PWM signal and amplifies it with a TIP120. It can handle up to 5A per channel, you’ll need heatsinks though! Perfect for driving an extruder heater, fans, or solenoid. Or any other thing like that you can think up. Rad!

* Stepper Motor Driver Board v1.0

This board takes our current stepper controller board, removes the PIC, adds a L297 stepper controller chip, and simplifies the overall board. It has a few major improvements: half stepping, current chopping (much smoother stepper driving!), and a host of other improvements. You can probably even use this board with parallel port based CNC software, since it implements the very standard step/direction interface.

Coming Soon

* Cast Extruders

I finally got my extruder molds, and I’ve been spending the past couple weeks learning how to do castings well, as well as making a bunch of castings. There are only a few minor hurdles remaining, and then I’ll be ready to put these kits up on the store. Hopefully I’ll also be able to offer two versions as well: the offset design and the older, direct feed design. They will also be alot cheaper than the last stepper kits, which is definitely good news.

* McWire Cartesian Bot

I have done quite a bit of building and testing on the McWire design, and have hopefully solved the remaining design hurdles. If all goes well, I’ll be sending the design to get lasercut here in a month or so, and will have that up and available for purchase shortly afterwards. I’m very happy with this design so far. Its easy to assemble, easy to disassemble, reliable, and looks both steampunk and futuristic at the same time. Yay!

* Kits

I’ve been looking into what it takes to make kits, specifically how much time it takes, and if its worth it to make kits. I’ve decided that its definitely a good idea, and that it would save people money, make it a lot easier for people to get involved with RepRap, and just generally make the whole process a lot better. I plan on starting by making kits of the new electronics boards, extruder kits, and then hopefully cartesian bot kits. From there, its a simple matter of creating a mega-kit that is just a collection of those 3 kits. Once we have that you’ll be able to order a RepRap kit and assemble it over the course of a weekend. Awesome!!!

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Its been a few weeks since my last post. Sorry about being so sporadic. Summer has been winding down, which means not as much time as I’d like for the project, but also means that I’ll have a lot more time for the project coming up this fall and winter. I’m expecting some very good and cool things to happen in the coming months, and I’m very excited. First off, a quick update on what is new with the RRRF store.

Heater Barrels
I recently got 10 new drilled heater barrels in stock. Same pricing, etc. All you have to do is apply the JBWeld, nichrome, and you’re good to go.

PTFE Thermal Barriers
The other part of the equation here, I have about 50 drilled / tapped thermal barriers in stock now.

PowerComms v1.3.0 (beta)
This is a new product! We’re offering the beta version for free to people who want to help use test / document it. We developed a new version of the serial comms board that has more LED’s to help people debug their connection, as well as some other minor improvements. All we ask is that you pay for shipping (well, that and test it and/or contribute to the documentation). Once all goes well, we’ll begin to offer this board instead of the current PowerComms v1.2.1 board in the store. Yay progress!

Okay, now for the upcoming stuff:

Extruder Kits
As we speak, Adrian Bowyer is creating the molds for the extruder parts, and he will be shipping those to Luis Freeman, who will be making cast acrylic extruder parts. We will then be able to offer those to you on the store for a much lower price than the CNC cut aluminum extruder kits. A price has not been set yet, but we’re probably looking at somewhere between $40-$60 for the same kit as before. Once he gets the molds in a week or two, he’ll begin to produce the kits and send them to me as he makes them.

McWire Cartesian Bot
As many of you know, we face the chicken/egg dilemma: how do you print out parts for a RepRap machine when we’re still researching it, and haven’t perfected the art of 3D printing. Currently, the only path that is available is either a commercial machine, or to build your own. Recently, a cool, easy to make design was posted on Instructables. That design is very adaptable to both being made at home, as well as lasercut manufacture. I’ve ordered a test run of parts, and if all goes well, then I’ll order a larger run of parts that we can offer as a kit to those seeking a middle ground solution. The lasercut parts will probably run $100 - $125, depending on the size of the order, and some other variables.

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One of the problems that has plagued me from the beginning when running the store, was the fact that it was hard to determine shipping. For small orders, like PCB’s, nichrome wire, etc. it is possible to use a flat-rate envelope and provide very cheap service. For other items, like 5lb HDPE coils, it was a problem because I would have to use more expensive shipping options. With international orders, its an even bigger deal, because shipping can sometimes be $50-$60 per order if its heavy enough. That means bugging people to send over more money after they’ve already paid. I’m sure you can guess how easy that is. =)

Anywho, I found this awesome module for the OSCommerce shopping cart we use that does automatic USPS rate calculations based on weight. This means that international orders will now have a completely accurate shipping total, as well as domestic orders being accurate as well. This will result in lower rates all around, as I wont have to guesstimate shipping costs, and everything will be up-front on the checkout screen (honesty is the best policy.) This also may lead to cheaper shipping rates for some orders. With the way it was happening before, it was a flat rate, but now for light orders, the rate will be more accurate, and thus lower.

Yay!

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