Erik's Blog: Discussing open source innovation, personal fabrication and a new and better world

[Presentation] 3D printing event, Eindhoven

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:47:49 +0100

Last week was the 3D printing event in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Ultimaker exhibited there together with about 20 other Ultimakers, shown by their proud operators (see this Ultimaker blog post). There were also RepRaps, milling machines and LeBigRep was printing on site with their HUGE printer. A lot of bioplastic was consumed!

At the event, I was asked to give the first presentation. Below are the slides and recorded video.

3D Printing Event: The Home run of 3D printing, Erik de Bruijn

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View it via direct streaming link or the event page at OpenWebCast.nl.

Software accelleration

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:25:42 +0200

Bernhard, an Ultimaker power-user at MetaLab Vienna, has gotten the Sprinter firmware working on an Ultimaker. Sprinter is written by Kliment and Caru, based on ~~Triffid Hunter's codebase, based on FiveD~~ [update]oops, it's based on the Tonokip firmware[/update]. It has undergone some serious rework over time.

Inspired by his impressive results, I've also experimented with this a bit more. The travel speeds you can get out of this are a little better. Without accelleration the max speeds are around 333 mm/s (FiveD firmware) and with accelleration they were up to 533mm/s (Sprinter firmware). Somehow the firmware doesn't seem to step the motors any faster. When you set the FiveD firmware at travel rates above 333 mm/s it actually goes slower than at 333mm/s. So somehow there's some microcontroller congestion or it's possibly a bug. The benefits of smooth acceleration are especially important for machines with a lot of moving mass. The Ultimaker isn't the most spectacular example for acceleration because it already can reach the high speeds without software acceleration. For the Ultimaker, the biggest benefits of Sprinter firmware are expected to result from an increased buffer size.

Anyway, to show you the speeds we're now talking about, this is the result:

With the help of Bernhard we finally made a few discoveries as to what causes a less smooth print at higher speeds (becoming noticeable at 70+ mm/s). When using ReplicatorG, the print results were not really much different, except when fillet is enabled in Skeinforge. Fillet is meant to smooth out sharp turns, but it turns out that it smooths out any kind of line segment also lines that nearly have the same orientation. Perhaps this behavior should be change with an angle limit. But Fillet causes the buffer to run dry because there are too many small pieces of G-Code that succeed each other in a very short amount of time. About every two visible segments, four lines of GCode are actually sent. This is, not coincidentally, also the firmware of the FiveD software.
All Sprinter prints were done from ReplicatorG, which now also has an Ultimaker Sprinter machine profile in the newly released ReplicatorG version at: http://software.ultimaker.com/. Note that: This Ultimaker release is not a fork of the normal ReplicatorG, it just undergoes some more testing and has the latest, tested Ultimaker drivers. All Ultimaker commits are publicly visible and offered for integration upstream.

3D printing from abundant sources: fusing sand into glass, powered by the sun

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 12:42:48 +0200

You should see this amazing solar powered 3D printer that sinters ordinary sand into glass. Both the source of energy and material are pretty much unlimited. I wonder if you could one day print entire sand castles, that you could actually live in! Of course we need to be able to 3D print those fresnel lenses out of sand... Plus we need to move the lens, not the castle (unless you're Mohammed). Perhaps that can be achieved in the way I proposed here.

Markus Kayser - Solar Sinter Project from Markus Kayser on Vimeo.

Given that with Ultimaker I've got my hands pretty much full. I figured I'd blog something short that I stumbled across (via Forrest Higgs!) that I've been fascinated about for a long time.

Ultimaker shipping & open sourced!

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Mon, 16 May 2011 09:45:08 +0200

Good news, everyone! Finally, the Ultimaker is shipping.

It took much more work that we had ever imagined, and we knew it would be hard to design a complete machine from scratch and also make it easier to assemble, have a larger build volume, be robust and reliable. I really believe we've nailed it! One of the important strengths are the incredibly fast and accurate parallel kinematics and the optimized print-volume to footprint ratio (inspired by Ilan Moyer's design of the MIT MediaLab). Also, the extruder allows for mid-build refilling of plastic or color changes (inspired by Wade's extruder design). The Z-stage now also has leveling screws so you can more easily make use of that huge build surface. In total it really makes for an easy to operate and fast 3D printer.
The Ultimaker has just started shipping, and since we promised to publish all design files as open hardware, we've just published them to Thingiverse.com. Of course, business-wise it seems like a big leap of faith to do this, but we are confident that it will turn out very well! So happy hacking! We think the Ultimaker is really a good start, but it needs your ideas to be great!

Ultimaker Map as of May 15th 2011. Blue are people in the pre-order, green have shipped!

Some pins are missing because the picture is only a snapshot, click to get the most recent map.... Feel free to add yourself!

CAD

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 12:24:13 +0200

I'm frequently wowed by progress in CAD software to become both more powerful and more easy to use. Still its good so see how great ideas took quite a lot of time to show up in programs that we use.

I was amazed when I first saw this video, especially the fact that it's still pretty high tech for CAD and that this was all developed on a system with less than 64k memory. They didn't have microcontrollers or computer screens yet, they used an transistors and oscilloscope...

Below is a more extensive coverage of Sketchpad, at 4 minutes the exiting part starts:

This video continues here, even showing 3D CAD:

Thoughts on copyright questions as 3D printing comes of age

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 22:18:00 +0200

Peter Hanna of Ars Technica wrote an article on copyright implications once 3D printing becomes more common. Surprisingly, when opening the article I saw a picture of myself (I had nothing to do with that, but I don't object, either )

The derivative of the Penrose triangle by Ulrich Schwanitz .

The article is an interesting read, with some good observations concerning a pending conflict about IP in 3D content. Also, the discussion that followed is very interesting to read. My favorite response is this one by Conner_36: "This damn internet thing... it causes so many problems.". Another, more elaborate response about stifling innovation by RikuoAmero really sums up much of why I think strong IP is bad. Also, I liked this response by hpsgrad:
"Equally to the point, 3D printing has the potential to create a totally different, post-modern mode of production. Why should we cripple this new new mode of production in an attempt to protect the current one?"

"Alternatively, you might be afraid that 3D-printing has the potential to make it too easy to make stuff, and that as a result, nobody would bother to create new, better, and genuinely creative things. Again, I think that this is absolutely insane. The thought that people would stop making stuff because it's too easy to make stuff is simply bizarre."

Through this blog I'd like to add some perspective the discussion. Copyright and patents are ONE answer to a bigger question: How do we structure the provisioning of goods in society? Obviously, there are other answers possible, but the law is very slow to change and historically, for intellectual property (IP), has only gone in the direction of being MORE restrictive.

It is important not to forget why society grants intellectual monopolies (a monopoly better covers what IP really is). While policymakers are influenced strongly by those who profit from intellectual monopolies, there used to be a valid reason for society to accept these artificial monopolies on replicating ideas and designs. The rationale used to be: if inventors would not have the profit driven incentive, these inventions would not be created. This dilemma is more and more becoming a false dilemma. I recommend watching Glyn Moody's talk on this subject [1] and, also, Benkler's "Wealth of Networks" [2] for a scientific treatment of this false dilemma. Today, innovation is becoming democratized, even more so by 3D printers and other digital fabrication technologies. Anyone with internet access and an idea can design an innovation and print it in 3D on an affordable machine such as an Ultimaker or have Shapeways or Ponoko make it for them. Because the design is digital, groups can collaboratively create better designs. Moreover, it scales better than an R&D department: in the RepRap community about 200 full time equivalents are spent, voluntarily, to make a better 3D printer that can print itself. These are already more man-hours worked than the biggest player in the 3D printer industry could afford. But the big difference is: the 200 FTE's in the RepRap community are contributed by thousands of different individuals instead of a small team that works full-time [3]. Creativity, and the innovation that flows from it, works best when a heterogenous population of passionate individuals interact. Moreover, a big group that can openly discuss problems has access to a much broader set of knowledge. This is the reason why communities such as Thingiverse works so well and why licenses that embrace the freedom to copy and derive are important for innovation to flourish. This is what is called social production, an alternative to firm and market based production. In social production public good aspect is preserved.

We've been led to believe we're dependent on those who invent and produce on our behalf, while at the same time the tools to invent and produce are increasingly within our reach. In many cases, the user has the potential to create a better product [4], because it can be tailored to his/her needs instead that of the average wishes of a market segment that has a profit expectation. In markets with varied needs, there is under-provisioning because the tools or rights to derive were not available (one example of "market failure"). Nowadays, preserving these freedoms becomes more important to stimulate innovation than to restrict the flow of knowledge in favor of exclusive right holders. Those who sit on their knowledge in order to exploit it, will never improve it as fast as those who share, interact and mingle their knowledge with others. The same goes for design knowledge and we're missing out on a lot of design improvements.

Most objects made by manufacturers were originally developed by users, but it is not apparent where manufacturers get their inspiration from. In many industries, there is a systemic bias to think manufacturers are in most cases the source of innovation [5]. In many cases the most appropriate role of manufacturers is that of actual manufacturing, not invention.

We need to reconsider the role of intellectual property and to identify and counter policy bias that is suboptimal in terms of provisioning of goods in society (see also [6]). The role of governments should always be to preserve the flow of knowledge, not to promote ownership and the right to exclude for the sake private profit. If ideas are abundant when protection is not offered, why do we want to create all this friction? The fashion industry is an example where virtually no protection is available [7]. Any disruptive technology has led to a battle between old industries that want to maintain their outdated business models. The problem is that they are organized in influencing policy and even public opinion (to copy is to steal!). We should not expect policymakers to fully understand the non-rival nature of digital goods until we use it to create increasingly valuable alternatives. The emerging field of collaborative free and open design is a great example to enlighten them (details are in [3]).

[1] Glyn Moody on Intellectual Monopolies at FSCONS 2011.
[2] Benkler, Y. The Wealth of Networks, Yale University Press, 2006: "By lowering the capital costs required for effective individual action, these technologies have allowed various provisioning problems to be structured in forms amenable to decentralized production based on social relations, rather than through markets or hierarchies."
[3] E. de Bruijn, On the viability of the Open Source Development model for the design of physical objects. 2010
[4] Chapter 5: "Users low cost innovation niches" PDF
[5] E. von Hippel, Sources of Innovation by Eric von Hippel - Oxford University Press, 1988
Download courtesy of Oxford University Press at http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www
[6] von Hippel, E. and Jong, J. P. J. D. (2010). Open, distributed and user-centered: Towards a paradigm shift in innovation policy
[7] http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html

Ultimaker available for pre-ordering!

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:19:05 +0200

The last few months have been very busy ones for us, we done quite some testing with the Ultimaker, started a company, searched for the right material suppliers, worked on our webshop and so on. We initially planned to start in December but the combination of starting a new company and developing an all new product took more time than we counted on.

As of today the Ultimaker is available for pre-order from our shop, yay! We will ship it in four to six weeks.

In addition to the many people who have contributed to the Ultimaker, we would especially like to thankÂ the participants of first and second Ultimaker workshop at the Utrecht Fablab Protospace for providing such a lot of feedback to us, it has been really helpfulÂ in making the Ultimaker a great product.

Update: Yes, we will also ship to the USA and yes, it runs on 110 V and 240 V (some people were asking) and yes, there are still some spots left in the pre-order!

Taking it a step further...

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 10:20:56 +0100

With your feedback, my cousin Gerald has taken the new stepper driver's design a step further. Click here to read more.

[NL] Video van de Ultimaker 3D printer

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 22:50:15 +0100

Ik was zojuist op "De wereld draait door" met onze Ultimaker!

Hier is de aflevering nogmaals te zien. Om 6 minuut 50 seconden begint het over Ultimaker en 3D printers:

Leuk om alle reacties te zien op Twitter!

@janubels9641: Vanavond vol bewondering in #dwdd naar de 3D printer gekeken. Wauw.
@aubeen: @nietbeschikbaar 3d printen nu echt mainstream. #dwdd
@marcelsjoers: Zo'n 3d-printer #dwdd is wel iets voor #ergotherapie. "Handgreep om veilig te douchen? Aangepast bestek." Printen we even
@Tsjomme: Ik zou een 3D-printer printen met die 3D-printer. #dwdd
@Beun: Toch een soort "Replicator" avant la lettre RT @ErikDeBruijn Nice, just presented the http://ultimaker.com 3D printer on #DWDD @Ultimaker
Toch een soort "Replicator" avant la lettre RT @ErikDeBruijn Nice, just presented the http://ultimaker.com 3D printer on #DWDD @Ultimaker
@elmine: @ErikDeBruijn Erg cool
@tbuser: Wow Ultimaker is fast 325mm/s at 60 MPH? RT @Ultimaker: Printing in the car! Streamed video
@ErikDeBruijn Ultiem hebbeding voor architecten en -studenten! Maquettes maken was nog nooit zo leuk! #wilgraagtesten #kannietwachten

Wouter Dammers, jurist bij SOLV is gespecialiseerd op het gebied van intellectueel eigendom en open source. Hij schreef naar aanleiding van de uitzending een interessant artikel dat dieper op deze aspecten in gaat. Voor de geinteresseerde: Mijn master's thesis (PDF, ook op Scribd) behandelt overigens ook het eerste gebruik van de open source ontwikkelmethode voor fysieke spullen en de potentie hiervan.

Een kort stukje uit mijn aanbevelingen:
"It appears that this case is an economically signiï¬cant example of an alternative modality of production, beyond the software industry, that fundamentally inverts the use of intellectual property rights, while at the same time exhibiting increased the level of innovation based on a heterogenous set of motivations and collaborative behaviors. This stresses the need to reconsider the role of intellectual property and to identify and counter policy bias that is suboptimal in terms of provisioning of goods in society (von Hippel and Jong, 2010)."
"The ... substantial presence of intrinsically driven contributors can yield more creative results. If the open design phenomenon becomes more prominent, it could be accompanied by a more substantial share of enjoyed activities that contribute to peopleâ€™s quality of life. Moreover, the studied case demonstrates that these results can be effectively combined through online collaboration into a competitive system that is better-suited for these users than could be acquired in the marketplace (in this case, low-cost, tinkerer-friendly 3D printers). This means that many additional â€“ more creative and innovative â€“ solutions are developed than would otherwise result from market or hierarchy-based production modalities"

In het kort: ook voor fysieke spullen is het belangrijk om de open source methode als significant fenomeen te onderkennen, omdat het de potentie heeft om betere resultaten te leveren dan die door een marktgebaseerde aanpak waarbij vaak beperkingen toegepast worden op gebied van intellectueel eigendom.

Binnenkort beschikbaar! Via onze blog gaan we binnenkort een aankondiging doen dat je kunt bestellen!

One small step... (RFC)

nospam@example.com (Gerald Ebberink) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 11:08:17 +0100

First of all I would like to introduce myself.

The current PCB layout, click on it for a larger version.

My name is Gerald Ebberink and I am a first cousin of Erik.
During my last birthday Erik and I were talking, and the RepRap came up. He told me about the capabilities and the challenges which were there for both the RepRap and the Ultimaker.
Being an engineer by trade, these kind of problems stay in your mind.

A few days later I received some spam mail from ST Microelectronics promoting their L6470 dSpin [1] controller.
Some clicks were made in my head, some e-mails went up and down the interwebs to Erik and pronto I was designing a PCB (my first PCB in several years).

So why is this L6470 IC so interesting? Well, it is an fully integrated steppermotor driver / controller which talks a language known to most microcontrollers, called SPI (serial periphial interface).
Via this interface you can tell it, amongst other things, to go X (micro-)steps in direction Y with speed profile Z. As you can imagine, this makes controlling a steppermotor a lot easier than it is now and saves a lot of interrupt handling and context switching in the main microcontroller of your machine. Also, it does microstepping at a 1/128 step resolution, allowing for an even more silent operation than the 16th step of the Pololu drivers.
Also at less than 8 dollars a chip it is quite cheap for the functionality it provides.

So I designed a schematic [2] and a PCB [3] to make use of the full capabilities of this small chip.

The current schematic, click on it to enlarge.

One of these problems was that the speed of production was limited by the fact that the controller was not capable of controlling the steppermotors at the speeds that the mechanics allow for.
During the design process I ran into several problems. As Eagle CAD was the defacto standard in the RepRap community it met me with some nice challenges:

I like to put different functionality on different sheets in the schematic, being limitied to only one I had to cram a lot into a single A4, which means that it does not look as tidy as I would have liked.
The device, package and symbol of the L6470 did not exist. So I created them and updated the RepRap Eagle library [4].
- During this proces I found that Eagle cannot deal with Exposed-PADS. To circumvent this I drew a stop polygon in its place and then use a polygon during the PCB layout to fill it with the appropiate (GND) signal
The autorouter isn't capable of the complexities in the board. So I had to route all the signals by hand. A Design Rule Check (DRC) with the capabilities of The PCB Shop comes up with no errors.

Now that I've designed a first version of the PCB I would like to ask for your comments (it's an RFC!).
As any engineer knows, nobody is perfect. So I will have some things I did not see, or have done some thinking which is not straight. This means that I would like to have as much feedback as I can possibly can have.
One source of this feedback is this blog.

Critisim and ideas I already have myself:

1. From the center the top-left part is pretty empty, the board could be more compact.
2. Get rid of the daisy chaining capabilities, this would get rid of a connector and the jumper array, make the other connector more compact and would get rid of the multiplexing electronics. probably shrinking the board size
quite considerably.
3. Erik proposed to use a "PCI card style" board edge connector, this has not been implemented.

[1] www.st.com/internet/analog/product/248592.jsp?wt.mc_id=enews_jan11_dspin
[2] www.reprap.org/wiki/File:GE_stepper_version_0.8b.sch
[3] www.reprap.org/wiki/File:GE_stepper_version_0.8b.brd
[4] www.reprap.org/wiki/File:Reprap.lbr#file

Ultimaker at BOTACON 0, New York

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 17:45:18 +0100

Photo by John Abella

I took my Ultimaker to BOTACON 0 (the first BOTACON of, Iâ€™m sure, many BOTACONâ€™s to come!). There, I was giving a talk on the collaborative ecosystem that is emerging around digital fabrication. Bre Pettis and his Makerbot colleagues have given me ample opportunity to demonstrate the Ultimaker, which many people were seriously impressed by.

Read more here... (sorry, the Ultimaker blog is not in the blog-of-blogs yet!)

FSCONS 2010 & Graduation & Ultimaker!

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 10:17:08 +0100

So much is happening, that I hardly have time to blog it all! In the meantime I've finished my thesis, presented at FSCONS and graduated! And if that wasn't enough, last week I demo'ed for two days promoting the technological-studies at the "Career Day" (or rather, promoting having your own DIY-tech project where you learn even faster!), had a few newspaper interviews while spending virtually all my spare time on the Ultimaker (mostly working on the 5D interpreter support for ReplicatorG). We will have an Ultimaker announcement coming up, real soon now^TM!

FSCONS 2010

Below are the slides of my presentation at FSCONS in Gotherburg, Sweden (description of the talk, here). It was one of those special events where there was a lot of variety in the people attending, but still they all had a special thing for free and open source software. In all, it was really well arranged and for me it was a great opportunity to talk about open source hardware and the role of personal fabricators while at the same time allowing me to practice for my thesis' defense the monday afterwards. Moreover, I had a really nice time with Johan Söderberg and his friends, staying at his place, for too few days, really! (Gotherburg in 20 minutes!)

RepRap: open source 3D printing @ FSCONS 2010

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Graduation!

On the 9th of November I graduated!

These were the slides of the defense presentation, it refers to the notion of public goods which open source communities often create, and how they provide an alternative to for-profit dominant ecosystems.

Erik's Master's Defense

View more presentations from Erik de Bruijn.

The thesis was awarded a 9 out of 10, which is very rarely given. Moreover, Prof. O'Callaghan told me it was the best written thesis he had seen in the 13 years as a professor at the University! That's probably the best kind of recognition I could hope for for this work! It wasn't an easy job, at all, but this makes me look back at it with satisfaction. Of course I have all of the RepRap & Makerbot community to thank for, because the survey allowed me to substantiate my claims (statistical significance)! I won't forget this! Adrian told me it was the first serious research project done on the RepRap project. It will definitely not be the last!

The PDF of the thesis can be found here.

Now, on to the next adventure:

From Ultimaker Protobox

Merry christmas!!

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 19:44:10 +0100

Photo: A christmas tree designed by Paulloricca and printed on the Ultimaker 3D printer in biodegradable PLA.

Viability of OSHW: lessons learned from RepRap

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 23:14:06 +0100

Hi everyone,

Some people have been asking for a copy of the PDF of my RepRap research. Perhaps you didn't find a link to it while you were in fact interested in reading it (if not, feel free to ignore this ). If you had a look at it, I'd love to hear your feedback.

On the viability of the open source development model for the design of physical objects: Lessons learned f...
Full-screen (scribd) or PDF.

ReplicatorG's build volume

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 12:26:03 +0200

Update: Phooky merged this improvement into the official branch, thanks!!

There was an issue with ReplicatorG posted a while ago:

The stl preview pane seems to be fixed at 10cm x 10cm x 10cm. This may not correspond to the build volume of the machine the user has selected, e.g. reprap mendel using makerbot firmware, or self-built or prototype makerbots with non-standard dimensions. It would make sense to obtain these dimensions from entries in the machines.xml (I am guessing that a new axis attribute would be needed, as the definition of the existing length attribute sounds like it may not correspond to the actual buildable length on that axis).

For RepRaps and Ultimakers a 10x10x10 build volume in the preview isn't the right size (Mendel's is about 20x20x14 and the Ultimaker is closer to 21x21x21). Not knowing Java very well it took me half a day, but I fixed it! It was fairly complicated to get this working, because the machine was initialized after the preview panel. Now the preview panel has a refresh feature which is called upon the loading of a machine and is fed the BuildVolumes objects. The BuildVolumes object currently contains a very simple model of the machine's volume (a 3D block), but there's room for adding cutouts and keep-out zones (e.g. nozzle cleaning brushes) that can also be displayed. With multiple printheads, while your axes can still move a long length, the build volume that both can reach becomes smaller. So in the future the axes lengths are overridden by a BuildVolume element in the XML config.

This is the commit and here is a linux and a windows release. Mind: it's not really ReplicatorG-0021 as the filename suggests, and it doesn't contain a skeinforge profile for 5D printing (yet). If someone can send in a good Vanilla Skeinforge profile for the Mendel (5D), I can include that in subsequent releases.

Note: When trying this, make sure to overwrite or update your machines.xml (in ~/.replicatorg/ or Documents and settings\[username]\.replicatorg\)!

RepRap and ReplicatorG-5D

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 11:33:03 +0200

Some things are just no fun, and in a project driven by volunteers, these parts tend to be neglected. Making things user friendly doesn't help yourself, because when you get to the point where you can improve it, the improvement is of no use to you any more. If you're going to sell the machine, you're going to do a bit more in making it user friendly. With a healthy bit of altruism and effects of peer recognition the problem is migitated to some extent. Especially if you look at projects like Ubuntu: lots of people are passionate to help make "Linux for Human Beings". But in the RepRap project, the software isn't as user friendly as it should be!

I've been tempted to work mostly on cutting edge work, experimenting with the Bowden cable, reversing the extruder, combatting backlash, working on the then-beta Mini-Mendel, different extruder designs and most recently, an entirely new machine: the Ultimaker. However, more recently I'm focusing in making things a bit easier to use. In effect I've made a ReplicatorG fork (which will be merge with the official version) that includes a RepRap 5D driver that talks nicely with 5D firmware. Because of the integration of the newer Skeinforge (currently 31) (which I had hacked into ReplicatorG-0019, too) you can have Skeinforge generate the E codes too. This means ReplicatorG is now fully usable for the RepRap. I've done some work on detecting temperature feedback and some other things, such as filtering out unwanted M-codes that will cause the firmware to throw up
The 5D fork is temporarily, Adam Mayer will integrate the driver into the main branch. But I wanted to have some testing by others before it's merged.

Release files are here: http://replicatorg.erikdebruijn.nl/.

Another thing I did: For new Windows installations, ReplicatorG and Skeinforge are going to become easier to install. I've figured out how to make it an EXE that is only dependent on the Python DLL which can be distributed along with it. This makes it stand-alone, so you don't have to first install the Python programming language to be able to just do printing. Not everyone should have to do that. Installing the FTDI driver is enough of a head-ache. This is not included in the main release yet, as I need to automate the process of building the distribution some more, and it needs to be built from windows (read: in need to install Cygwin and SSHd).

My ReplicatorG branch also contains my progress bar patch. You'll be able to see how far it is, also how many layers are filled, etc. The ETA of the ETA isn't know yet, but I'll add that at some point too.

I must be honest with you guys: I'm encouraged to do this now, because the Ultimaker is already so much easier to assemble, software has become the hardest part. I deliberately chose to base everything on the RepRap code and not fork things (merging changes upstream) any more than needed so that the whole community benefits from it and to prevent duplication of effort. It also helps me feel more responsible for making RepRap and Ultimaker easier. The Ultimaker electronics (will) use the RepRap firmware, so you'll be able to use it in RepRap's too.

Given that the community is already very big and doubling rapidly, the value of these incremental usability improvements is HUGE. So I hope this encourages you to do the same!!

[NL] RepRap en FabLabs op Labyrint (van de VPRO)

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 19:25:15 +0200

Vanavond was er bij de VPRO een item op Labyrint met als onderwerp: "Alles is maakbaar!"

Van FabLab.nl:

...besteedt hetÂ wetenschapsprogramma Labyrint (VPRO/NTR) aandacht aan de technologie van 3D printen. Er zijn o.a. opnames gemaakt in het Utrechtse FabLab, Protospace. De uitzending is om 21:25 op Nederland 2.

Na de uitzending kan iedereen via Twitter en chat live meepraten met de redactie en onderzoekers. Tijdens die live twitter-sessie is er een video stream op Labyrint.nl te volgen.

Dit is de teaser, waar Joris van Protospace uitlegt hoe â€˜alles is maakbaarâ€™ in elkaar steekt.

Promo Labyrint: 'Alles is maakbaar' from VPRO on Vimeo.

En hier vind je achtergrondinformatie en een interviewtje met mij over de RepRap.

Update: hier is het item:

Bekijk de video in andere formaten.

[NL] 3D printen op de Night of the Nerds!

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 12:54:59 +0200

[This article is in Dutch, but you can Google Translate it (click)]

De Night of the Nerds was een groot succes! Deze werd gehouden in het Technologiemuseum NEMO in Amsterdam.

Foto: (c) Night of the Nerds

Met name ook de opkomst van veel meiden was opvallend en het stereotype 'nerd' was ook niet van toepassing, of in ieder geval had het zeker geen negatieve connotatie! Heel het "NEMO" liep over van de jongeren die iets met technologie hebben, of die gewoon lekker nieuwsgierig zijn!

Samen met David Lemereis gaf ik een presentatie over 3D printing, mijn deel ging over hoe bereikbaar 3D printing nu al is! Vlak voor ons praatje stroomde de zaal helemaal vol. Verder heb ik de hele avond m'n Ultimaker laten draaien en waren er twee van mijn RepRaps te bewonderen (Huxley en Darwin). Al met al een erg gave avond op een super evenement!

Naar aanleiding van het evenement is er ook een leuk interview beschikbaar.

Open Letter to Google (Sketchup)

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 10:01:25 +0200

Update: Google responded on my blog! To read it, click here.

Below is my open letter to the Google SketchUp team, aimed at Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist and John Bacus, the Product Manager for SketchUp. I'm writing an open letter for various reasons. My research on communities, open source and distributed innovation shows how important the whole ecosystem is. It also shows that it's not just about the number of 3D printers installed but also the community, infrastructure and the accessibility of the whole experience. Another reason is seeing Aidan and John's presentation (see the video embedded below!), which verbalizes very well what SketchUp is all about: "3D for everyone". John and Aidan's explicitly recognize the value of physical models to 3D modeling and vice versa. That indeed makes it into an "awesome" experience to which few people could say no. I actually believe they might be susceptible to my moral bribery to practice what they preach (to the full extent, they already do a great job with SketchUp). If this could stimulate (and benefit from!) the democratization of innovation and decentralized manufacturing, that would have a profound positive impact on society and our planet. Feel free to underwrite my letter or join the discussion! I'll send it via e-mail too after getting a few days' of feedback from the community.

Keynote Speech: If a Picture's Worth a Thousand Words, What's a 3D Model Worth? from i.materialise on Vimeo.

Hi John and Aidan,

I'm a real fan of the work you're doing with SketchUp. It is by far the most accessible CAD package, with a very impressive feature set.
I've watched your presentation at the i.Materialise conference with much interest, especially because I'm part of, and promoting the RepRap project (and several spin-off projects). You're probably aware of these fabber projects, but perhaps not of their extent and growth rate. As you know software adoption can be massive (e.g. SketchUp as a perfect example). Likewise, the adoption rate of RepRap machines is also impressive and unlike anything I've seen in the physical world: the community has been doubling every ~ 6 months, which means that it grows hundred-fold in just 40 months! It has had this remarkable growth for 4 years now and on a log-graph it shows a remarkably steady exponential growth rate. Today, there are tens of thousands people with their own, or even several 3D printers in their homes. These people are enabling each other to share fixes to physical real-world problems and to innovate with all physical things they care about, To learn to go from thought to object... These are critical skills for this century, and people enjoy learning them. The quantity of 3D printer-adopters today isn't nearly as impressive as the quantity of tomorrow. And today there are already about as many open source 3D printers in the hands of amateurs, as there are commercial 3D printer units sold, ever (based on industry figures from Wohlers report 2009). This industry took 20 years to develop with - more or less - linear growth rates (while standing still during recessions), and - below the radar - it doubled because of amateurs [1]. They want to learn (from our innate striving for competence), have problems to fix (taps into our desire for autonomy) and find the project meaningful (strong drive for purpose driven people). You and your colleagues at Google seem to have a great understanding of the cognitive surplus (borrowing the phrase from Clay Shirky's book [2]) and how to harness it (e.g. aggregating 3D contributions in Google Earth) and how immense a societal value this could create. I'd love to see you take it a step further.

I've done work in systems dynamics, and feedback loops and variables like the amount of models out there. The variable "accessibility of 3D modeling software" is just as important as affordable ($ 2K or lower), OK-quality printers. Right now, SketchUp's newly introduced solid features are critical improvements that makes SketchUp perfect for 3D printing, just like you mentioned in your talk. Yet it is only part of the SketchUp Pro 8 package which is quite expensive. Even more expensive than many people's 3D printers. I think the RepRap community can, and will, create value for the whole 3D ecosystem, by creating printable models, finding business models to keep doing what they're passionate about (at which point they could afford a license), post online tutorials showing how easy and powerful SketchUp really is, etc. etc. Plus, as you said in your presentation, making 3D models is awesome, but making stuff from your 3D model is REALLY awesome!

On behalf of the whole 3D community, I'd like to ask you to introduce the solid features for users of the free version, too.

Erik de Bruijn
RepRap enthusiast and ambassador
Open source entrepreneur

Notes and references:
[1] Self-replicating devices: the statistics - http://blog.erikdebruijn.nl/archives/145-Self-replicating-devices-the-statistics.html
[1] When I say "Amateurs" I mean amateur in the original sense of the word: those who are passionate about something.
[2] Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age - http://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Surplus-Creativity-Generosity-Connected/dp/1594202532
More about myself: http://www.google.com/profiles/erikdebruijn1#about

[FIY] Fab It Yourself: Adapters & consumer lock-in

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:55:22 +0200

In the RepRap community, you can observe several interesting applications of domestic manufacturing.

A manufacturer will probably not make their product compatible with competing products. But what if you still want this? How cool would it be to mix anything together!

DuploBrio by Zydac

3D printable adapters allow you to combine two different systems, so what? While this looks like a childish example, the development of the availability of downloadable, adapters can have significant ramifications in industries where creating technological lock-in is common practice. Especially the dominant manufacturers in a market do this often. But since you're legally allowed to make parts that mate with proprietary parts [1] this will require companies to focus on the real-value adding features instead of finding ways to reinforce technological dependence that is not rooted in the value of the product but the lack of interoperability. First movers of creating interoperability will create a benefit perceived by their customers that soon becomes the standard. Those who choose to follow because they didn't see it coming will loose customers to the pioneers. Eventually, the whole industry is better of when competition is centered around real innovation and when customers have more choices. And if companies don't offer the adapters themselves, the users of these products can more and more easily self-manufacture them. The question is, do you want it to be a deliberate choice (and as a bonus: a good long term value enhancing strategy) or not.
Being able to quickly combine different products' modules is also a good way to stimulate user invention, with its beneficial societal effects [1]. Not to mention the environmental benefit of enabling reuse of parts from products with lost, broken or missing parts, which enabling self-repair by individuals. Of course sharing designs is important, but it only needs to take a few minutes, and enables you to get feedback or see other people improve your design to a new level! Thousands of objects are already shared in this way (mostly open source) on Thingiverse.com.

It is not uncommon for suppliers not to want to supply replacement parts: it cannibalizes on their sales of the complete products while it is frequently not a profitable business because the logistics are very unfavorable. The reality is: Suppliers usually don't end up making money of of replacement parts. If they do it at all, it usually is to prevent damage to their reputation and brand value. Supplying small quantities of many different parts to many different destinations is expensive. Plus, you usually end up manufacturing many parts that will not be used, because it was hard to determine which ones will break and which ones won't. Because you have to speculate which parts to produce in which quantities, this creates the problem of under- or overstocking parts that need to be stored and collect dust somewhere until the stocks either run out or become obsolete without being used, ever. Apart from this being a huge waste, these are costs that add to the bottom line price of the products.

Replacing It Yourself: broken rod caps for a garden parasol, by myself. The little caps were not sold separately from the (quite expensive) parasol.

Fixing a (vintage) camera. By Wizard23

A printed replacement tread mill safety clip. Now you have no excuses anymore for not using it! Thing:3362 on Thingiverse by mctrivia

Moreover, it's hard to supply a whole variety of parts for a product to fit in many different settings. Tony Buser had a part that wore down, but it never was really perfect for him:

"The handle part of my one screen door kind of wore down and the tip chipped off. Consequently, it wouldn't stay shut. Particularly since I put the screens in for spring and when one of my cats pushed against it to look outside - the door would pop open. So I figured if the latch part was longer, it would catch better. So I designed a replacement, printed it, and now it stays shut securely."

The new part in use!

Tony printed a new and better door latch after the old one wore down.

You could imagine that in the future manufacturers will supply digital 3D models of replacement parts as a service, so that you'll be sure to be able to fix it at low cost if needed. It enhances the value of the product and will not burden them (nor the environment) with production of spares in advance in the wrong quantities.
To some extend they won't need to, because especially for those parts that break frequently there tends to be someone that shared a replacement that he/she designed for himself. You just need to download an print it. And use it, of course.

If we don't want, more affordable, interoperable, reliable, better-fitting, sustainable and more innovative products, we don't need 3D printers. But I think we do...

References:
[1] See this paper on the legal implications of widespread 3D printing capabilities.
[2] ï»¿1. Henkel J, von Hippel E. Welfare Implications of User Innovation. The Journal of Technology Transfer. 2004;30(1-2):73-87. Available at: http://www.springerlink.com/openurl.asp?id=doi:10.1007/s10961-004-4359-6.

Wedding slideshow

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:36:20 +0200

Our wedding day was really unforgettably beautiful:

Below is my original post about "the making of the cake topper". It stood there perfectly because my best friends made a gorgeous cake (such a great surprise, and it tasted great too!).

For "The making of the 3D printed open source wedding Cake Topper", see this blog post.

RepRap @ FAB6: Slides available

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:21:17 +0200

The slides of our joint talk are now available. First up are Rhys Jones and Adrian Bowyer, the third section is my part:

RepRap @ FAB6 International Conference, Amsterdam

View more presentations from Erik de Bruijn.

You can also download the original OpenOffice generated .ppt file from here.

For some more details on the analysis, see my previous post: "Self-replicating devices: the statistics"
I don't think that a recording of the talk was stored but if I'm wrong, please tell me where to find it!

Self-replicating devices: the statistics

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:13:51 +0200

Today was our talk on RepRap at the FAB6 conference in Amsterdam at the Royal Academy of the Arts and Sciences. Rhys Jones introduced RepRap and showed his latest developments in multiple materials. Adrian Bowyer talked about the legal implications of widespread adoption of fabrication technology. My part was about community dynamics and growth. In an earlier talk, Bre Pettis had showed, through many examples, the amazing things people are doing with 3D printers like their Makerbot and how they're sharing them via Thingiverse. I built my talk on his great description of this open source community that innovates as a side-product of doing what they're passionate about. Especially I first published the statistics that were based on the input from the RepRap survey which so many RepRappers had diligently contributed to.

One of the question of the RepRap survey was about when an operator had joined the community. The RepRap survey was an effort to learn about the adoption, creation and diffusion of innovations produced by user/developers. The study was done in conjunction with prof. Eric von Hippel (MIT Sloan School of Management, USA) and Jeroen de Jong (Erasmus University, EIM). The study is also a part of my master's thesis on the viability of the open source development model for physical objects, in other words, the future of Open Source Hardware.

[Update] The slides from the presentation are available now:

RepRap @ FAB6 International Conference, Amsterdam

View more presentations from Erik de Bruijn.

OpenOffice source file: RepRap.ppt
[/update]

Disclaimer: the findings are preliminary results!

As shown in figure 1 (see below), most of the people who get involved the project and that adopt the technology have done so fairly recently. The adoption rate increases so fast that new adopters outnumber all previous adopters that had joined more than 6 months ago.

Since a significant proportion of the whole community is sampled (estimated between 10 to 20%), it is probably representative. It also hold another powerful message. An attempt to measure the size of the community is prone to be outdated when analysis of the collected data is completed. Yet, especially in the long run, the precise size is far less important than its growth rate.
What this figure also shows is that the community can attract new participants. Obviously this type of growth creates the challenge to integrate the efforts of a growing amount of individuals.

Figure 1: Exponential growth of the sample. Note that the actual population is expected to be much larger (possibly by a factor of 10).

Figure 2: Exponential growth of RepRap's user base that is building or operating RepRap machines, on a logarithmic scale.

The doubling period of the amount of transistors that characterizes Moore's law, is 2 years. Moore's growth symbolizes one of the primary drivers of the digital revolution. It's the reasons why today, we are all carrying phones in our pockets with the computational power and capabilities of yesterday's PC. In a similar way, the trend towards better access to fabrication capacity is a driver for another revolution in the making: the digital fabrication revolution. With many participants that innovate 3D printing technology, 3D printers will become cheaper, more precise and introduce more capabilities like printing smart digital materials and a higher fraction of self-replication. With the technology becoming more appealing, more people will adopt them. For the open source machines, each user is also a potential developer and has an incentive to improve his machine in a way that he/she can. Solutions that are developed that can be produced with digital fabricators can easily be shared and developed collaboratively, allowing a great future for open hardware and its potential to generate civic value.

If the trend would go on uninhibited or even speed up more, it will not take long until there will be personal fabricators in most people's homes. The tools of production are about the be democratized!

Some notes about the numbers:

Makerbot and RapMan operators were included (many of them using these machines to make a RepRap Mendel)
The average operator has 1.5 different types of machines. In principle people with 4 printers of the same Model will count as 1 operator.
On the left side of the logarithmic scale the graph is easily distorted even by small variations.
Even if the estimates are an order of magnitude too smaller in reality, I would be off only by 20 months. The correct, complete entries that were sample constitutes the absolute minimum size of the population. Even based on this estimate, extrapolating the trend for a few years it will still be a pretty significant community.

I wanted to get this information out as many people have been curious. There is more coming in the form of my master's thesis, but I will try to add another update to my blog as well.

Another non-printed part less

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 23:32:05 +0200

I just made a serendipitous discovery:
I printed a very narrowly fitting freely rotating Bowden coupling and it had such a good grip on the PTFE that I printed another with just a little more contact area. You don't need the nut anymore for the Bowden cable!
I had been looking for push to fit couplings ever since Charles Pax showed me how good they fit to 1/8" PTFE cables. Now it appears that they are definitely printable!

A push-to-fit bowden cable coupling. You can mount it on the the hot end of your extruder or to the drive mechanism of the extruder.

Find the part on Thingiverse here!

The current push to fit coupling can be removed sideways. If you pull it sideways at the top first, you can pull it out with the plastic filament inside. It's a huge benefit to not have to pull back the plastic first.

A variant with a clip that you can pinch with your fingers would perhaps be even better, but this one is so simple and very functional and it hardly takes up any space.

I also included a cable to cable coupling, you just put in two cables sideways.

When done correctly, this type of friction from printed parts could be used for the extruder drive mechanism too, replacing the metal pinch-wheels that we currently use. In any case it can already withstand more than the force the force that the filament is driven with, and that's with ultra-slippery PTFE!

It would also allow us to print fasteners! Though perhaps a simple plug and a cam mechanism will better do the trick. And if you get a similar friction fit on the filament itself, you can start ysing that as structural material too (with some creep, but you could re-tension things once in a while).

Which other non-printed parts can we eliminate by a superior (I'd like to think this is an improved part, but only time will tell) printed alternative?Â

Before, you needed this version with a nut threaded onto the PTFE tube at each end.

You can find more details on the Bowden extruder here. Search for the most recent implementations with this link.

[RepRap] NL: Energie en grondstoffenefficiÃ«ntie

nospam@example.com (Erik de Bruijn) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:13:22 +0200

[update] Inmiddels heeft een filantroop zich aangemeld en is er nu $100.000 prijzengeld beschikbaar voor een (sterk) verbeterde RepRap (volledig in lijn met mijn voorstel)! Meer info... [/update]

Dit is een open oproep voor sponsoring.

Ik werk in een project om een 3D fabricagemethode beschikbaar te maken voor iedereen (The RepRap Project). Om het te zien als slechts een fabricagemethode is een understatement. Het is de wens en doelstelling om:

Terug te gaan naar een balans waarin weer een symbiose met de natuur kan ontstaan.
Deze balans wordt gezocht in productie van onschadelijke producten maar ook onschadelijk productiekapitaal, eliminatie van transport, etc.

Eindgebruikers weer autonomie bieden door zelf spullen te kunnen ontwerpen en fabriceren.
Dit bied speciale mogelijkheden omdat bedrijven produceren om winst te maken en niet in de eerste instantie het beste product te leveren. Vanuit dit paradigma wordt vaak een (bewust) inferieur product gemaakt. Veelgebruikte methoden van fabrikanten zoals het creÃ«eren van een 'lock-in' op het product of de 'consumables' zoals papier en inkt, kunnen omzeild worden. Ook ingebouwde veroudering, en het introduceren van producten met uitgeschakelde features zal minder goed werken. StrategieÃ«n op basis van exclusiviteit (hoog prijssegment) zullen ook minder goed werken.

De RepRap en afgeleide projecten zullen een explosie van creativiteit en innovativiteit betekenen.
Productiecapaciteit wordt gedemocratiseerd en geglobaliseerd. Iemand in Azie kan ontwerpen maken voor iemand in Europa.

In de derde wereld en in moeilijk bereikbare gebieden is het heel fijn om een apparaat te hebben om ieder gewenst voorwerp zelf te kunnen produceren.
Een belangrijk bijkomend voordeel is dat een RepRap per product nagenoeg geen menselijke arbeid vereist. Hoogwaardige productie bied de derde wereld een weg naar betere welvaart een een sterkere lokale economie. We zorgen met de RepRap voor een afname in afhankelijkheid van relatief dure en beperkte import.

Het bieden van een mogelijkheid om veel te leren.
Momenteel is de RepRap printer met enige begeleiding te bouwen door een zeventienjarig kind. Vanaf het moment dat die af is, kan een kind zelf maken wat hij wil en uitvindingen delen met de wereld en meewerken aan uitvindingen van anderen. Belangrijke vaardigheden zoals lezen en schrijven zou aangevuld mogen worden met het oplossen van problemen met eigen uitvindingen. Scholen hebben al interesse getoond voor RepRaps. [Update]Inmiddels (2010) zijn ze sterk in trek bij scholen en wordt de RepRap variant "Makerbot" zelfs weggegeven aan scholen![/Update]

Waarschijnlijk bent u het met mij eens dat dit nobele doelstellingen zijn. Toch verzeker ik u dat wij niet alleen spreken maar er hard mee aan het werk zijn en continue successen boeken. Ik ben dan ook nooit van mening geweest dat de doelstellingen onredelijk of te ambitieus zijn, slechts dat het doorzettingsvermogen, tijd en geld van een grote groep vrijwilligers eist. Deze ondersteundende groep is groeiende en stop met name veel tijd en nieuwe vaardigheden in het project (zeer multidisciplinair). Ik zal het punt over de ecologische balans nog verder toelichten.

Onze doelstelling is om RepRappers (mensen met een RepRap machine) de mogelijkheid te bieden milieuvriendelijker te produceren dan via traditionele methoden mogelijk is. Twee plastics waar wij mee werken zijn PLA (polylactic acid) en polymorph. Beide zijn biologisch afbreekbaar, en polylactic acid is te maken door lactose te fermenteren. Zie ook het paar sandalen in de afbeelding.

Biodegradable shoes printed on a RepRap

Concreet ben ik van plan twee wedstrijden uit te schrijven. EÃ©n prijs kan gewonnen worden door het ontwikkelen van een doordachte methode om materialen (in de eerste instantie plastics) uit huis-, tuin- en keukengebruik te kunnen hergebruiken als waardevolle productiebouwstoffen.
De andere prijs kan gewonnen worden door het ontwikkelen van een goede, eenvoudig uit te voeren methode, waarmee biologisch afbreekbare plastics geproduceerd kunnen worden op basis van zetmeel of lactose. De technieken bestaan, maar het vinden van een goed werkende methode die voor een 'leek' toepasbaar is, is nog best een uitdaging.

De prijs is geld van mij en andere sponsors (leden en overige mensen die achter onze doelstellingen staan) en kortingen op benodigdheden (zoals electronica) om de machine verder te verspreiden. Ook dient de prijs om gemaakte kosten te vergoeden. Vanaf dat moment heeft iedereen met een RepRap niet alleen gratis productiemateriaal, maar heeft het ook een afvalreductie als gevolg. Bovendien kan alles wat gemaakt wordt oneindig gerecycled worden. Voor polymeren bestaat deze mogelijkheid al lang, maar worden in de praktijk vrijwel alle plastics verbrand of gestort.

Ik ben met andere actieve leden in discussie wat de precieze criterea moeten zijn zodat we creativiteit minimaal beperken maar dat het toch resulteert in een globale reductie van schadelijk afval. Zelf ben ik, hoewel ik ook al veel tijd en geld in het project investeer, bereid om enkele honderden euro's extra als prijzengeld aan te bieden. Misschien vind u het interessant om zich bij dit initiatief aan te sluiten?

Verdere informatie is te vinden in de attachment en op de volgende internetpagina's:

RepRap Project Homepage
RepRap Main Blog
RepRap Gebruikers/Ontwikkelaars Blog