Anyone up for making one?

I'm moving into a house on 1 May, which will provide more room for work on this, and possibly for some group work. In the meantime, I'll probably start on bits and pieces.

At any rate, once I DO make one, I intend to start producing parts for another one. From what I've read, the bits and bobs for one cost about $500. I have no idea how they arrived at that number- it seems high to me. At any rate, since most of the parts for mine will be, ah, "acquired" from my employer's scrap bin, I'm thinking it'll cost substantially less.

http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome

Sounds fun.

Yes... yes, it certainly does.

I met Nick at NYC resistor who was working on putting one together while I was there. It looks pretty great and it also looks like there will be loads of improvements in the future.

There is a map of people around the world who currently have rep-raps some where on the site, perhaps someone in the area has one that you can look at.

...and here it is.

I browsed around the RepRap site a bit. Where do you start?

I've browsed around their site a lot, and I have the same question.

Especially considering the fact that I'm trying to start from scratch- I have access to a decent machine shop and I would like to start making parts, but I can't find a good description!

You'd think someone would have put up a "getting started" package for people in my situation: a single zip file with a BoM divided into three neat categories (electronics, mechanical parts you need to make, and mechanical parts you need to buy), the firmware and software you need to run the machine once you get it started (or the download sites for those), and a nice set of prints detailing the parts (either in .pdf format or SketchUp, or both).

But noooooo...

I guess I'll just have to dig up all that crap, box it up and put it on their site. Bah.

I bet if you were to put something like that together, you'd buy yourself a lot of goodwill from interested makers all over the world.

No doubt. Their documentation sucks- possibly the worst I've ever seen.

I think I might just...

A RepRap has been on my to-do list for a few years now. As a busy person, I have also kind of been waiting on the sidelines for the documentation and infrastructure to improve. It has to some degree, but as you point out uptownmaker, still leaves something to be desired. From my latest readings, there is a maker in Canada (Wade Bortz) who has started selling "child" parts for the mechanicals printed from his complete RepRap on the forums. He might be a good place to start. There are also machined kits you can buy for the mechanicals, but if you want to make your own parts you might need to dig pretty deep into the miasma as you have noticed.

If you get going on this, keep us posted. I am interested in building/helping on a RepRap or similar.

-Jon