Clonedel

Clonedel is a modified fork of the Prusa Mendel, designed for easy casting by Open3DP at University of Washington Solheim lab. Metrix Createpace is making these parts -and- molds accessible at Metrix Createpace If you are interested in holding workshops or just getting people building repraps, you can pour and demold a full set of parts in a little under an hour vs the normal printing process.

Holes are not pre-drilled, so you can build metric or SAE, depending on what is cheap in your locale.

The X motor bracket and idler are probably the most noticeable changes at the moment, with more changes coming in the coming months.

Currently parts are being cast in 2 part urethane (1:1 by volume or weight) from smooth-on. You can experiment with materials quite easy if you have molds, and there are thousands of urethanes to choose from with different hardnesses and psi. We have found that the casting material we are using is very strong, not brittle, and retains some flexibility, much like RP parts. It also doesn't smell bad. It is easy to mix in color as well as filler for fun or added strength.



I am generally on #reprap if you have questions. I will be posting more documentation on the whole process as I get time.

You can get an idea of how things are progressing by following our flickr stream.

I am happy to see anything that will move the progress of repraps forward, but I have a question. Printing parts on a reprap does not involve purchases other than what you need to use the reprap for printing anything. What is the cost of materials to pour in the molds? What is the total time to useability, including the drilling of holes?

Cost of the materials drops substantially quickly depending on volume.

You can build one set of parts with a trial size of smooth-on resin for ~$22.

If you buy the resin by the gallon kit (2 gallons), you can make 10 sets of parts for under $100

We pour in 100cc at a time (2 50cc syringes into a paper cup) and pour a set in about 15 minutes or so. Most of the time is mixing the material. Currently the full set is a little over 600cc

It takes 15 minutes for the resin to cure. The parts get harder over time, they are drillable usually by the next day. It takes about 30-45 minutes to drill a set. The first hole probably takes the longest