Reprap Incarnation 3

New Reprap appeareth

they’re also now able to draw their own circuit-boards

as seen working here

RepRap Mendel with Pololu Electronics from Adrian Bowyer on Vimeo.

Mini-Mendel here

It seems to me that there’s this parallel evolution between Repraps proper, and for-sale variants. What I’d like to see is some serious Superficial-Design thrown into the mix. Does that take money? Maybe… maybe not – but what we’re talking about is “packaging”, and packaging belongs to the scarcity economy. Similar to flowers. Not enough bees to go round, so flowers get flowerier. It’s not so much that you need money to do the design, than that it helps to be in an attention-needing arena to provide the motivation to do it.

I know that’s not what repraps are about – it’s not what they’re “for” – but the future needs to look futuristic for the meme to really fly.

If they need a finance-boost, I think there’s an overlap in the technologies they’re producing here, and low-end DSLR camera accessories – eg: pocket-dollies etc… which currently cost hundreds of quid – for basic sliding bearings and motor-controls etc.

I kindof have a foot in both worlds now – there is a mega-revolution underway – in that the price of movie-capable cameras has rapidly gone from about $200k to $800… and they’re smaller and lighter, and we haven’t quite figured out the ergonomics yet – but right now, the prices being charged for camera accessories are extortionate… the prices are still based on the “precious” end of the market, where everything has to be a $2000 Zeiss. There’s now a mega-market below that and it’s not being catered to.

And there’s an overlap with reprap technology.