Talk:RepRap

Signal for more Wikipedian attention

In response to the recent attention from outside the Wikimedia community I have requested extra attention from inside the Wikipedia. See posts at

• Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_52#Media_attention_for_edit_conflicts_at_3D_printer_project
• Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_98#Media_attention_for_edit_conflicts_at_3D_printer_project

Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:48, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I've been tightening up the prose a bit, and converting to the past tense. But I haven't removed much. I did tone down the "self-reproducing" part as hype - it only makes some of the plastic fittings; it can't make motors, shafts, or ICs. John Nagle (talk) 00:51, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

You've also claimed, unsourced, that "the company behind" RepRap has closed down (and you were a year out too). FFS! Hasn't this article attracted enough bad publicity for WP already without wild errors like this? Andy Dingley (talk) 01:07, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

That's what their site says.[1]. Is that not correct? John Nagle (talk) 01:58, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

That's correct for RepRapPro, the problem is that RepRapPro are very far from being "the company behind" RepRap. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:19, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Is there another organization? RepRap China? A nonprofit? "germanreprap.com"? The "reprap.org" wiki run by Adrian Bower? The article is vague on the organizational structure. Maybe we need something like "RepRap is a distributed cooperative project started by ..." John Nagle (talk) 19:09, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Strength of materials

In the article: "The mechanical properties of RepRap printed PLA and ABS have been tested and have been shown to be equivalent to the tensile strengths of proprietary printers.[22]" This is misleading. The test was only for the strong direction: “This study only looked at the tensile strength in the plane of the print bed, next we need to expand this study to look at interlayer adhesion.”[2] Did they ever test strength in the weak direction (across layers)? There are lots of forum posts about breakage in the weak direction. John Nagle (talk) 02:56, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Layer lamination strength, or interlayer adhesion strength, will change drastically based on the printing process. Because of the high variability, you can't accurately predict material properties for Z axis delamination in any Material Extrusion prints. What is possible is qualifying a specific combination of printer, material, settings, temperatures, and environment with a printed test coupon. From there you can test the coupon and provide accurate predictions for material strength.

I would add this to whatever wiki page we are fighting about, but I am ZERO% interested in a wiki edit war fueled by wikicrats. As a reprap user and additive manufacturing professional, I'm sure all my pertinent knowledge is some sort of conflict of interest. Better to have the noobs write wikipedia. </rant> Eagleapex (talk) 13:17, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Because of the high variability, you can't accurately predict material properties for Z axis delamination in any Material Extrusion prints. That's worth mentioning if it can be cited. There are lots of references [3] but a WP:RS reliable source is hard to find. (The fundamental problem is that you're trying to weld a hot thing to a cold thing, which never works very well.) John Nagle (talk) 19:21, 24 March 2016 (UTC)