Re: Makerbot Assembly Day

[Jeff Crews]

Tushar et al: I will contact Neil Underwood (repraplogphase.com) to see if he is interested. I think the Geomagics guys would like to talk to him as well. (Hello, Neil! read below.) Oh, and I'll forward this to the techshopmakerbotgroupies google group to scare up any others who might be interested. (cc to Neil and the google.) Jeff C --- On Mon, 3/21/11, Tushar Mahale <tushar...@gmail.com> wrote: From: Tushar Mahale <tushar...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Makerbot Assembly To: "Jeff Crews" <cruz...@yahoo.com> Cc: "drew" <drewne...@gmail.com>, "otto" <otto.ham...@gmail.com>, mbr...@employees.org, "Bill Culverhouse" <bill.cul...@gmail.com> Date: Monday, March 21, 2011, 12:54 PM Local Brothers   Let me know by today 5pm what works. I think thursday would be better. Also let people in Greeensboro Fayetville etc, know about this in case they are interested. Is there a makerbot newsletter for NC that we could use for advertising this event.   Tushar On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 12:47 PM, Jeff Crews <cruz...@yahoo.com> wrote: Thurs would be fine with me; I am cc'ing all the other local 'botters. What do you all think? Wed or Thurs? AFAIK there are no local MB dealers; everything is online. Give it a few years and Thingomatic MKIII might be at Target. JC --- On Mon, 3/21/11, Tushar Mahale <tushar...@gmail.com> wrote: From: Tushar Mahale <tushar...@gmail.com> Subject: Makerbot Assembly To: "Jeff Crews" <cruz...@yahoo.com>, "Jason Low" <jc...@ncsu.edu> Date: Monday, March 21, 2011, 12:31 PM Jeff   Jason has suggested doing the "Build your own MakerBot" (3D Printers) workshop at 5:30pm on either Wednsday or Thursday of this week (he will bring an additional makerbot with him). I would personally prefer doing it on Thursday as it would give enough time to get the word out. We should not need any tools other than laptops, screw drivers, hex wrenches and some soldering guns. We have most of these tools (except laptops) on board but higly recommend participants to bring their own.   Let me know what days suits you ASAP and I shall send the word out. Also let me know if there is a local dealer for MakerBot who can bring some kits on site if anybody wants to buy one on the spot.   Tushar

[Neil Underwood]

I don't really understand why you would have people build $1300 Makerbots when you can put together a 4 times as large and more capable Reprap for $400, but hey, what ever you want.

Unfortunately I will be speaking at Posscon. http://posscon.org/speakers2011/  on Wed, Thursday and Friday of this week, so I can't help you guys.

If you have folk in Greensboro, they might be interested in our Hackerspace meetings over at http://fablocker.org/ We have RepRap build parties every Monday at our open meeting, we are up to 6 RepRap Mendels 1 Makerbot Rigged as a Laser engraver and 1 as a FDM machine. with a new RepRap being added almost every open meeting.

You guys going to make these classes a regular thing?  If so I might be able to come and help, but not too often, a 2 hour each way trip is hard to justify at a loss. :)

[Otto Hammersmith]

<smartass>

Where's the $400 reprap kit?

</smartass>

<actual answer>

Marketing.

</actual answer>

[Aoife Hammersmith]

Because we all have Makerbots, and we're volunteering for the Mobile FabLab here these couple weeks, and are hoping to show people the possibilities of a FabLab, and the good it can bring to the community, especially the underserved, poor, marginalized, and sometimes hopeless communities. RepRaps would be cool too. We're more about bringing power of technology to the people, and whatever we can get is good, regardless of it's brand name.

So we're reaching out to those we know of, or those lurking, who might be interested in joining us for a bit of fun. 

On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 1:39 PM, Neil Underwood <underwo...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
Aoife

www.theaoife.com
WerkIt.com     ...training logs with style

[Jeff Crews]

The completely unmade kits that tushar has are Thingomatics bought by NCSU a while back. Personally I'd like to get my hands on one and see what it's like. Neil has a point about the Mendel (and more lately the Prusa Mendel). It's better by all accounts, just not driven by a company. NC State prob would have been better off using their Dimensions or whatever to print a bunch of Prusas, but they din't. JC --- On Mon, 3/21/11, Aoife Hammersmith <aoif...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Neil Underwood]

Ok, 

http://www.makergear.com/products/3d-printers

That's $825 4 times the build area and easier to put together (I put one together last week for a guy, only took 8 hours by myself)

Here is a link to one of my friends "build party classes"

http://ikmaak.nl/eenblog/2011/02/28/bouwcursus-een-groot-succes/

$1200 4 day seminar, at the end you know how to print, they made a good bit of money, and you have a wonderful machine.

Ruben had $400-$500 in each of those machines, and got $1200 each for the class.

But sure, go ahead and have a Makerbot class, what do I know?

I have self sources 4 Mendels and helped 27 other people do the same (I have sold 27 kits, and hold peoples hand through the build process), none of us have more than $500 in the machine, You only need to buy from 3 venders, and the instructions/support for Mendel is WAY better than MB. RepRap has 24/7 irc tech support from around the world off #reprap in freenode IRC, go into #makerbot off the same server.  Ghost town.

Makerbot is great if you have no support structure, or just like buying the brand name.  I started with a Makerbot, but at 3 times the cost, MB is not worth it.

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