Introduction
The RepRap Project
In 2009, Dr. Adrian Bowyer and his students published “RepRap – The Replicating Rapid Prototyper.” which detailed an Open Source, unpatended, FDM 3D Printer with plans made freely available. By no coincidence, Scott Crump’s patent on FDM expired in 2009. The manuscript is an interesting read, especially some of the backing theory, and the inspiration / justification drawn from biological organisms. To the argument that “a 3D Printer can’t print ALL of the parts it needs to self-replicate, and it needs a human to assemble”, the response was a quote from Erewhon:
Does any one say that the red clover has no reproductive system
because the humble bee (and the humble bee only) must aid and
abet it before it can reproduce? No one. The humble bee is a part
of the reproductive system of the clover.
But yes – the main focus of the RepRap project was to create a machine that could create a majority of it’s own parts. This printer was called “Darwin”
With every first prototype – there was A LOT that could be improved, but you have to take into account, many of these parts were being hand made since you couldn’t just purchase them off the shelf. One of my favorite shots from this manuscript is the extruder design, which included a hand-made nozzle, heating block, and a repurposed heat sink from a computer.
It’s likely that if Adrian Bowyer and his team hadn’t made Darwin, some other group would have made an open source printer. But nope – Dr. Bowyer happened to be the first – and since that paper was published (and also the FDM patent expired), the mentions of 3D Printers in literature had peaked substantially:
Needless to say, the Darwin (no pun intended, though, maybe Dr. Bowyer intended for this pun) began to evolve. More and more researchers began reproducing the machine, and making small improvements, which were documented and given back to the RepRap community. And thus the benefits of Open Source Hardware became apparent.
What Does Open Source Mean?
Open source, in the simplest terms, means that something has been created and the files / specifications on which it was built are made publicly available. Open source does not necessarily imply “free of cost” (more on that later). The Open Source Software, and Open Source Hardware logos are shown below.
Why would anyone ever choose to open source something? If your technology is useful, other people may use it and create and share their own improvements. The biggest thing about joining the open source community is just that – there’s a huge community that you can now collaborate with. That’s work that you don’t have to do! Arguably the biggest open source “thing” is Linux, which as over 1000 contributors for each release.
If you manufacture sub-assembly parts, open sourcing them can be a great way to attract usage. For example, popular electonics manufacturers like Adafruit and Sparkfun open source their modules, which are used all over the world – because they’re not “black box” close designs. You know exactly what you’re getting and can see exactly how it works.
In addition, by keeping the design closed source / patented, you may be holding up some degree of a technical revolution (IE the FDM Patent).
There are several generic open source licenses that have been published that you can use for your project. These general licenses were penned by lawyers and engineers and made generic such that they can apply to any generic piece of technology. So that means you don’t have to create your own license agreement from scratch – you can instead just cite one of these open source license as your own. How do you know what license to use? Well – I think the Open Source Hardware Association sums it up pretty well:
In general, there are two broad classes of open-source licenses: copyleft and permissive. Copyleft licenses (also referred to as “share-alike” or “viral”) are those which require derivative works to be released under the same license as the original; common copyleft licenses include the GNU General Public License (GPL) and the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. Other copyleft licenses have been specifically designed for hardware; they include the CERN Open Hardware License (OHL). and the TAPR Open Hardware License (OHL). Permissive licenses are those which allow for proprietary (closed) derivatives; they include the FreeBSD license, the MIT license, and the Creative Commons Attribution license. The Solderpad Hardware License is a hardware-specific permissive license.
Licenses that prevent commercial use are not compatible with open-source; see this question for more.
Please note that the open-source hardware definition is not a license, although it does describe some of the license terms which are compatible with the practice of open-source hardware.
In choosing a license, you should first want to decide whether or not you want to require people to open-source derivatives they make of your design. If so, pick a copyleft license; if not, a permissive license. Beyond that, the differences between licenses can be subtle, you may want to talk to a lawyer or someone with experience in open-source to help you pick one.
Big Names in Software & Firmware
No surprise – 3D Printers aren’t just hardware; there’s extensive collections of code that make them work. There are 2 big pieces that came to my mind when I drafted this section:
- Marlin – Originally created for RepRap and Ultimaker (a brand) Printers, Marlin is a firmware package that is made to work with Arduino (a wildly successful open source microcontroller development system). The firmware is what goes onto a printer’s control hardware and responsible for receiving G-Code and telling the hardware how to act (IE move motors, control heaters, etc). Since the firmware is open source, it was made highly customizable, and can be used on a variety of machine types. The project was started in 2011 and is released under the GPLv3 License (This license does not allow for closed derivatives)
- Cura – Arguably the biggest piece of this whole system is the software that converts your solid model to instructions for your 3D Printer to actually make the part. This piece is called “a slicer” of which, Cura is probably the most used. Originally developed for Ultimaker printers, it was branched out to work with a wide range of other printers. It’s released under the LGPLv3 License – which also does not allow for closed source derivatives.
And of course there are several alternatives to these software packages, but these two are arguably the biggest, and also what we’ll be using in this class.
Commercial Success of Open Source Printers
“Okay – I get it, so since most open source stuff is free, it’s mainly just for researchers who aren’t looking for money, right?”
Well – no. Around the 2010s, all sorts of start ups started popping up that were using non-permissive open source technology, so they were legally bound to be open source as well. This began driving the price of 3D Printers from tens of thousands of dollars down to less than 1000. I distinctly remember my excitement when I found one available for $299 – the Printrbot Simple, which was my first printer back in 2013.
The market became saturated very quickly, and companies died out just as fast. So how does a company that puts their design files out in the public for a community of DIYers survive? There’s a quote that my advisor, Dr. Pearce, shared with me that has always stuck with me (I believe it’s from one of his books), “INNOVATE. OR. DIE.” If you want to remain competitive as an open source company, you have to keep pushing the envelope; make things cheaper, make things better – or some other company will do it for you and reap the rewards.
I’d say the best example of “INNOVATE. OR. DIE.” is Prusa Research. There are plenty of clones of their machines out there, but they’re always a step ahead, adding new features and improving the quality of their machines. They’re really to the point where their name is associated with quality – which is a good place to be in this market.
Open Source Printers Propelling Science Forward
A Conversation with Dr. Adrian Bowyer
In the previous semester of teaching this class, I managed to get a hold of Dr. Bowyer to give a talk. I recorded it, and it is now part of this lecture material: Check it out!