RepRap is a project to develop low-cost 3D printers that can print most of their own components. As open designs, all of the designs produced by the project are released under a free software license, the GNU General Public License.
MakerBot Industries, LLC was an American desktop 3D printer manufacturer company headquartered in New York City. It was founded in January 2009 by Bre Pettis, Adam Mayer, and Zach "Hoeken" Smith to build on the early progress of the RepRap Project. It was acquired by Stratasys in June 2013. As of April 2016, MakerBot had sold over 100,000 desktop 3D printers worldwide. Between 2009 and 2019, the company released 7 generations of 3D printers, ending with the METHOD and METHOD X. It was at one point the leader of the desktop market with an important presence in the media, but its market share declined over the late 2010s. MakerBot also founded and operated Thingiverse, the largest online 3D printing community and file repository. In August 2022, the company completed a merger with its long-time competitor Ultimaker. The combined company is known as UltiMaker, but retains the MakerBot name for its Sketch line of education-focused 3D printers.
Thingiverse is a website dedicated to the sharing of user-created digital design files. Providing primarily free, open-source hardware designs licensed under the GNU General Public License or Creative Commons licenses, the site allows contributors to select a user license type for the designs that they share. 3D printers, laser cutters, milling machines and many other technologies can be used to physically create the files shared by the users on Thingiverse.
Open Source Ecology (OSE) is a network of farmers, engineers, architects and supporters, whose main goal is the eventual manufacturing of the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). As described by Open Source Ecology "the GVCS is an open technological platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 types of industrial machines that it takes to build a small civilization with modern comforts". Groups in Oberlin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and California are developing blueprints, and building prototypes in order to test them on the Factor e Farm in rural Missouri. 3D-Print.com reports that OSE has been experimenting with RepRap 3-D printers, as suggested by academics for sustainable development.
Printrbot is a 3D printer company created by Brook Drumm in 2011 and originally funded through Kickstarter. Printrbot printers use fused deposition modelling to manufacture 3-dimensional artifacts.
Fab@Home is a multi-material 3D printer, launched in 2006. It was one of the first two open-source DIY 3D printers in the world, at a time when all other additive manufacturing machines were still proprietary. The Fab@Home and the RepRap are credited with sparking the consumer 3D printing revolution.
Joshua M. Pearce is an academic engineer at Western University and Michigan Tech known for his work on protocrystallinity, photovoltaic technology, open-source-appropriate technology, and open-source hardware including RepRap 3D printers.
Ultimaker is a 3D printer-manufacturing company based in the Netherlands, with offices and assembly lines in the US. They make fused filament fabrication 3D printers, develop 3D printing software, and sell branded 3D printing materials. Their product line includes the Ultimaker S5 and S3, Ultimaker 3 series, Ultimaker 2+ series and Ultimaker Original+. These products are used by industries such as automotive, architecture, healthcare, education, and small scale manufacturing.
The Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs by Joshua M. Pearce was published in 2014 by Elsevier.
ROBO 3D is an American 3D printer manufacturer located in San Diego, California and traded in Australian Securities Exchange under symbol ASX: RBO.
A recyclebot is an open-source hardware device for converting waste plastic into filament for open-source 3D printers like the RepRap. Making DIY 3D printer filament at home is both less costly and better for the environment than purchasing conventional 3D printer filament. In following the RepRap tradition there are recyclebot designs that use mostly 3-D printable parts.
This article contains a list of 3D printers.
Fused filament fabrication (FFF), also known as fused deposition modeling, or filament freeform fabrication, is a 3D printing process that uses a continuous filament of a thermoplastic material. Filament is fed from a large spool through a moving, heated printer extruder head, and is deposited on the growing work. The print head is moved under computer control to define the printed shape. Usually the head moves in two dimensions to deposit one horizontal plane, or layer, at a time; the work or the print head is then moved vertically by a small amount to begin a new layer. The speed of the extruder head may also be controlled to stop and start deposition and form an interrupted plane without stringing or dribbling between sections. "Fused filament fabrication" was coined by the members of the RepRap project to give an acronym (FFF) that would be legally unconstrained in its use.
Aleph Objects, Inc. was a small manufacturing company based in Loveland, Colorado. Their business model focused around the development of Open-source hardware for 3D printing with full support for Free and open-source software.
The Prusa i3 is a family of fused deposition modeling 3D printers, manufactured by Czech company Prusa Research under the trademarked name Original Prusa i3. Part of the RepRap project, Prusa i3 printers were called the most used 3D printer in the world in 2016. The first Prusa i3 was designed by Josef Průša in 2012, and was released as a commercial kit product in 2015. The latest model is available in both kit and factory assembled versions. The Prusa i3's comparable low cost and ease of construction and modification made it popular in education and with hobbyists and professionals, with the Prusa i3 model MK2 printer receiving several awards in 2016.
The RepRap Morgan is an open-source fused deposition modeling 3D printer. The Morgan is part of the RepRap project and has an unusual SCARA arm design. The first Morgan printer was designed by Quentin Harley, a South African engineer at the House4Hack Makerspace in Centurion. The SCARA arm design was developed due to the lack of access to components of existing 3D printer designs in South Africa and their relatively high cost. In 2013 the Morgan won the HumanityPlus Uplift Personal Manufacturing Prize and third place in the Gauteng Accelerator Program.
The Game Creators Ltd is a British software house based in Macclesfield, Cheshire, England, which specialises in software for video game development, originally for the Microsoft Windows platform. The company was established in March 1999 through a partnership between programmers Lee Bamber and Richard Vanner, who were joined by Meash Meakin in 2011 and Deborah Ascott-Jones in 2013.
A variety of processes, equipment, and materials are used in the production of a three-dimensional object via additive manufacturing. 3D printing is also known as additive manufacturing, because the numerous available 3D printing process tend to be additive in nature, with a few key differences in the technologies and the materials used in this process.
Hangprinter is an open-source fused deposition modeling delta 3D printer notable for its unique frameless design. It was created by Torbjørn Ludvigsen. The Hangprinter uses relatively low cost parts and can be constructed for around US$250. The printer is part of the RepRap project, meaning many of the parts of the printer are able to be produced on the printer itself. The design files for the printer are available on GitHub for download, modification and redistribution.
3D makeR Technologies (makeR) is a 3D printer manufacturer. The company started out as an open-source printer company. It was founded between Barcelona and Santa Marta by Carlos Camargo, who currently acts as the CEO of the company. Following the traditional RepRap model, the makeR's first products were as do it yourself kits with an alternative version based on open-source FDM 3D printer Prusa i3, called Prusa Tairona. Current makeR 3D printers are designed with a closed frame and selected build sizes.
