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  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  19:48, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_52
 * Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_98
 * 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.. 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.” 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. 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 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)