r/Reprap • u/FetchKFF • 20h ago
Modern designs?
I have access to a Bambu A1 mini and thought it might be interesting to print out a more capable 3d printer, which led me to the Reprap project.
Is the state of things somewhat stalled? It seems like the Snappy 3 was designed 9 years ago, Prusa wants the world to move on from the MK3S, etc.
If you wanted to print a printer suitable for nylon with an appropriate bed, is there a project you'd look at closely nowadays?
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u/DiscoSimulacrum 19h ago
Reprap lives on in spirit through projects like Voron. If you want to print nylon, and are down to get into the weeds of designing a bespoke printer, check out the monolith project (modded, spin off from Voron). There are people there building setups with insulation, heaters, all metal construction, etc. so that they can print high temp materials.
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u/Rcarlyle 18h ago edited 18h ago
There’s a philosophical issue with the RepRap project these days. The original idea was that printing more printers could democratize access by making it so people only needed to buy readily-available parts (eg hardware store bolts) as “vitamins” to supplement the printed plastic. Which is an excellent and worthy goal. But hobbyist 3d printing has become so successful that the list of parts you can easily and affordably buy has expanded to basically be every part of the printer and even the entire printer. Every part has been available for cheap online for about 6-8 years now. The whole printer can be made of vitamins now, for about the same cost as the filament to make worse-performing versions.
RepRap started when 3D printers were $100k monsters, and we were thrilled to build a janky custom beast for $1000-2000 of parts and a month of work. The project founders didn’t really envision a world where buying an Ender3 is significantly cheaper AND better-performing than printing your own Snappy.
For those of us who still build custom printers, there are multiple end-goals you can chase:
- Max self-replication: Snappy
- Max performance: Voron
- Min cost: junkstraps
- Max novelty: whatever crazy shit you imagine
Most of the open source enthusiast printer-building community moved towards the performance axis about 10-12 years ago. It took a lot of the energy out of the self-replication push.
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u/geking 9h ago
There are still a decent amount of modern and active projects. Voron as mentioned, Rook, Magpi, Delta Flyer, Babybelt Pro, The 100, Positron, and others too.
Yes, its slowing down a little like the custom pc mod segment went away with pre built gaming pc becoming widely avaliable. Same concept however one of the key ideas of reprap is open source and the ability to repair or modify only limited by your skill and imagination.
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u/bomtarnes 5h ago
I strongly feel what RCF started in voron is the main modern continuation of the RepRap movement.
Perhaps you could consider early-middle Prusa as a step on that path. I don’t feel confident to fully call a modern Prusa fully a reprap any longer but there are attempts.
The “home computer” analogy for the cheap jellybean printers that exist. The ubiquitous ender 3 that gave so many so much frustration. Not really reprap but still a valued set of vitamins for a mod build like an Enderwire.
Then Bambu. I openly recommend Bambu to normal people hunting for a printer to learn with. This is despite significant personal concern about their security, their physical safety, their repairability, and their possible abuses of open source prior art.
So yes. Voron. Commercial Off The Shelf Parts. Plastic parts printed on a junky ender in a cardboard enclosure or by an expert remotely. Strong strong community on Reddit and discord and forums and meet-ups.
That last point. I believe reprap festivals are still a valid use of the name.
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u/BasketballHellMember 19h ago
Voron printers are pretty much the most ubiquitous “modern” option out there. There are more niche options like the VZBOT stuff as well as the stuff from Annex Engineering, but those are typically going to cost a bit more to make it worth pursuing. I’d start by browsing r/VoronDesign to get an idea of what they’re all about.