Little Red and Big Red - a tale of two printers

[LesterCHall]

Let me tell you a story of two fascinating printer designs, Little Red and Big Red. These printers were created by my friend Dennis and myself. The story begins with Little Red, a printer that is now making beautiful prints as we speak, and continues with our second design, a long bed printer called Big Red.


Sometime last October (2014), Dennis and I met on the RepRap persistent Google Hangout that is part of the RepRap community’s services offered to the world freely. Dennis asked me something like “What would you like to see in a 3D printer?” to which I replied “as high a reproducibility content as possible” among several other features that we discussed in an excited exchange of creativity.


Long story short, today we have prototype #1 which is Little Red working and prototype #2 which his Big Red well underway. Here are some specs:


Build Volume: Little Red <X, Y, Z> = <200, 200, 80> to be increased to 150 tall
Big Red <X, Y, Z> = <200, 400, 100>


Frame: 100% 3D printed plastic
12 pieces of PLA plastic printed on a 400mm long bed RepRap printer
24 bolts with 24 nuts


Motors: 5 NEMA 17 Stppers
Associated gears, hardware, and belt components


Rods: 6 smooth rods
4 threaded rods


Photos: Forthcoming, please wait a couple of days


As for any production plans and things of that nature, Dennis is a home shop hobbyist and both Dennis and I would like to speak with folks about financial possibilities for his printer design. We would prefer to open source the design yet do not want to lose financial rights. Please feel free to contact usvia email (deltamodulator@gmail.com) for information or just add to this thread. Thank you for your time.


Les

[LesterCHall]

Above you can see front and side views of Little Red. Note that the frame is almost entirely composed of 3D printed PLA in red and yellow, and that the design borrows from the Prusa Mendel i2 and i3 designs. Please feel free to reply with any questions or comments.

Les

[Timaz]

We would prefer to open source the design yet do not want to lose financial rights.

What is it you think open source means?

[LesterCHall]

Oh, what we meant by that is that we would like to select the proper license. There are several to choose from and we would like to get clarification on which is the best choice for us.

Les

[Timaz]

Oh, what we meant by that is that we would like to select the proper license.

Lulzbot uses GPLv3 and CC by SA, does not appear to have hurt them any.

[LesterCHall]

is that GPLv3 for the hardware and CC for the software? How about 3DPL, the emerging license specifically designed for 3D printed hardware designs?

Les