On Sat, Jul 29, 2017 at 11:04 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton < lkcl@lkcl.net> wrote:
*sigh* i know it seems that way but i am not kidding when i say that literally every single 3D printer i've seen has some form of design flaw or is made from materials and parts that are just... too far-out expensive, given that the requirements are to maximise mm / sec / $.
Ehh... How many months have you been at this design so far? You could have bought some crappy printers, taken a few months to print the parts, and could have moved on with the other (arguably more important) EOMA68 development and manufacturing stuff. As it sits right now, you've not printed a single production frame, because you're too busy designing a 3d printer. Even after you've made your first one, there are still some sizable risks before you go out and build a fleet of them.
Your "existential 3D printing moments" blog post was on May 16, where you said that with 10 printers, it would take four months of 8 hours a day printing to make these parts. Assume 16 hours per day, that's two (2) months with the same amount of machines. Or, for 24 hours a day (3 shifts), it's now down to 1.3 months.
If I were you, I'd literally be done by now. That's because I would have used "status quo" 3D printers that would have been running and happily turning out parts back in the month of May (possibly even before that). If that 'four month' estimate was for the "fast" machines, then yea, maybe I'd be only halfway done? But then again that's still further than where you are right now. Labor is cheap where you're at. I'd have no issue running a small operation 24/7 if that's what it took. Hell, we did that in China when I was out there.
Maybe you're over-thinking it.
Just sayin' ;)