Open Source Desktop 3D Printers
Description
Hod Lipson and Melba Kurman:
"Today’s lowest cost 3D printers have their roots in university research projects. The two leading consumer-level 3D printer platforms originated from university research labs at Bath University in England, and Cornell University in the United States. The University of Bath’s 3D printer is called RepRap and Cornell’s is called Fab@Home.
Perhaps because of their university origins, the machine blueprints for both RepRap and Fab@Home are freely available to anyone who wants to build their own machine, or to improve upon the existing designs.
Not only do Cornell and the University of Bath openly publish their machine design blueprints, they permit commercial companies to develop and sell their own versions based off of the designs of the original university machines.
In contrast, commercial-scale 3D printers are developed commercially and their product designs are proprietary and not shared publicly." (http://web.mae.cornell.edu/lipson/FactoryAtHome.pdf)
Directory