Quote Originally Posted by paradiddle65 View Post
I believe one of the reasons for scrapping the Darwin design and moving forward with the Mendel was the large number of non printable parts. Remember, the original goal of the Reprap project was to design a printer that could print itself. Reducing the number of metal components from the Darwin to the Mendel effectively increased the overall percentage of itself a Reprap could print.
The main reason the Darwin design was scrapped was that it was barely functional. Back then, most of the discussions revolved around the bad design of the Z axis and the troublesome extruder, not to mention the software chain. The necessity to make a functional 3D printer was much more important than self replication. Plastic parts have their limitations. For example, I had to redesign the extruder bracket in metal because it would deform when it got warm (another design weakness). Self replication is an interesting concept and it is not impossible but I believe mass production with conventional methods is going to bring us cheaper 3D printers.

IMHO,

Drew