Just curious? If one buys the control board in 2024, Is this new open source machine actually something that people with a 3d printer can print and make their own working unit? Or are the motors and other hardware gonna require a 10,000 minimum order like the original maslow making DIY near impossible? How much money might be saved by DIY?
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DIY seldom saves money over something produced at scale, it lets you do it
differently.
the original maslo could not easily be reproduced exactly at first (the motors
are now more readily available), and the new maslow will also be non-trivial to
reproduce (the custom board, the injection molded parts that are stronger and
cheaper in volume than 3d printed parts for example), but like the original
version, with the code available, different people will create slighly different
machines that expand on it.
David Lang
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I am specifically asking if the motors will be able to be bought off amazon or aliexpress or similar in the $15 to $20 range instead of having to buy them from resellers like Makermade/Eastbay which apply a 3x markup to the cost? I hope so because my understanding is these motors do not have the encoders integrated which is the reason the original maslow motors were so hard to source. Sure, you could get similar motors for a lot less off aliexprss the but the encoders were different and thus a pain in the butt to use.
I built my own original one, it just worked out so much cheaper than getting one imported from the states plus the fun of the build, I’ve considered maybe doing the same for this but just don’t think a 3d print would survive for long so will probably purchase at end of year, just a pain with import duty then vat on top pushes the price up an extra £100 plus
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the Prototype is 3d printed, so it works, but yeah you’d need a 3d printer for sure to print parts if they break.
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Etnom the origianl motor manufacturer still has high minimum order requirements last time I checked, but that was 2 years ago.
i got mine from AliExpress yes slightly different with the encoded but i just had to play with setting till it was reading correctly
You can’t buy the exact motors, but I used these for prototyping and they worked:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RK8WR9W/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
They’re slightly slower, but it’s not a big deal.
The only filament I’ve found that is strong enough to handle the forces is this stuff (which is amazingly strong):
Generally I think it’s super doable to DIY one, but I think it’s probably going to cost more and be not as good as the kit. I think that there are good reasons to DIY one too though, especially if you want to change something about the design like make it different in some way. I’m around to bounce ideas off if you have any thoughts on what would or wouldn’t work well.
The main motivation for being open source isn’t so that people can DIY build them (because it’s pretty tough to do), but so that the idea can continue to evolve. I want to make it so that someone else who has an even better way to do things can take my idea and build on it.
I used to be into RC airplane photography and there was this guy in the forums there who had this wild idea for a four bladed helicopter (we called them quadcopters back then…now everyone calls them drones), but it was amazing to see how because he didn’t patent the idea it was able to grow and now there are a million companies selling them and they are super accessible. That’s really more of the trajectory that I’m going for, but at the same time I’m 100% in support of scratch building one and I’m down to help.
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I am in Kickstarter so have a unit ordered. but one thing I want to try is 3d printing onto a polycarbonate plexiglass sheet. I do not think this has been tried for a base. online it states that the two materials are compatible with each other. Would still provide a strong base. wonder what others think of the idea?
I think that it is a super interesting idea and I am curious to see the results.
There are some custom parts (motors with slightly longer than normal shafts) and
the 3d printed parts will be less rigid than the injection molded parts, so you
will have a hard time making exactly the same thing as what Bar is going to
ship.
That said, you will be able to get really close, and I expect some creative work
will be able to adjust from the stock parts to what you can readily purchase,
but it will take some tweaking and testing to get there.
I expect there will be a fair number of maslow4 like devices built, some to
handle larger routers (or other non-standard devices, lasers and plasma cutters
to name a couple off the top of my head), some to handle larger belt sizes, some
to replace the shaft sliding mechanism with something else that is more rigid,
etc, and some people building their own just to prove that they can (or because
they don’t want to wait for the next batch to be produced)
David Lang
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After Kickstarter backers have been taken care of, am looking forward to hopefully seeing a minimally viable Maslow kit that includes custom hardware but not printed/injected and readily available parts. Ready to drill holes in my garage floor slab anytime…
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We’re going to sell all the parts a-la-carte as replacement parts, so anything that you need should be available
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hstorically speaking the cost to buy replacement parts and trying to build it from scratch has been more expensive then just buying the kit. If you want to save some money your best bet is to get a used kit. There’s always people that buy it ,never assemble it and then sell for pennies on the dollars. or upgrade to a more expensive grantry machine.
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