As a statement to the danger of calling shenanigans on 3D Printers “stealing” each other’s ideas. I’d like to call attention to the Buccaneer 3D Printer’s Linear Motion System (seen in the kickstarter) and a piece I had prototyped awhile back.
You can say great minds think alike, but the reality is simultaneous invention is a very real phenomenon.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pirate3d/the-buccaneer-the-3d-printer-that-everyone-can-use
that sucks complain to them
Well, the only people to see that piece or the rest of the assembly would have been the shop that cut it and a few folks at Burning Man. It’s more likely the fellows at Pirate3D stumbled over the same idea I did.
Kind of like the Radio, Telephone, and even the first 3D Printer if I’m remembering my history correctly.
Look at the doboz2 that @Mark_Moissette_ckaos was working on. I also worked on a derivative h-bot a while back with a piece that also looks very similar.
The clones are coming thick and fast, but I welcome anything that’s shoves two fingers up to makerbot pricing.
I don’t like the idea off cloud wifi printing smacks off DRM, now I like my tablet to control the printer over BT,
No idea is truly unique. And I think you just use it as confirmation that your idea is valid.
It’s also why patents are just ridiculous. “Look, I managed to file a patent first, so no the idea is MINE ALL MINE!”
Who invented calculus again? Newton or Leibniz? 
I think you will find they probably got the idea from http://corexy.com, the frame looks almost, but not quite, identical to their water jet cutter prototype’s frame.
Or they’ve read Don Lancaster’s stuff. Or…
The current buccaneer XY stage plate looks like it’s laser or water jet cut, which means the “we’ve designed it around stamped steel” part is not yet proven out.
Same thing with the plastic and aluminum case being made out of extrusions — an alu extrusion that large is never going to be cheaper than even alu plate run through a bender, never mind plate steel bent into a cylinder.
I have a real hard time believing they will be able to do it at this price point. If they do meet their goals eventually, I’ll be happy to order a production machine, even if it goes to $1000 rather than $500, but for now I think they’re way underpriced. And that means that I don’t think it’s likely that the Kickstarter backers will get their machines. Not that it’s a scam — they seem very well intentioned — but I think the money will run out before everyone has their machine.
“but the reality is simultaneous invention is a very real phenomenon” just look at the 16th and 17th century 
What specifically are you claiming and what are you expecting for it? Credit? Compensation?
Reading comprehension is apparently a lost art.
He’s not saying they stole anything, and certainly not expecting compensation, he is giving an example of parallel evolution and saying that you shouldn’t be too quick to call something stealing/copying/etc.
Doh. Reading is hard. I’ll keep practising.
I had a meeting at Printrbot where I announced we would be moving to core xy with a new machine a couple days earlier. We have a similar design in the works. I worried for days that I would be perceived as pirating from the pirates, but got over it quickly. In truth, there is only so many ways to do xyz. Getting to market at a certain price point and keeping items in stock is the hard part. Not to mention customer support and business reputation. It’s the wild Wild West… We are all riffing off each other. The only thing I hate is when people don’t give credit where it is due. I have had my designs “ripped off” even to the point of violating the license with no mention… I could kick and scream, but really, it just inspires me to go out there and kick butt.
As one of the early big kickstarter success stories, and one that is now actually a thriving company, I can say with authority that a successful campaign was the easy part. It’s what happens after it ends that proves your metal.
Brook
Isn’t this just called “Open source”?
Atleast that whas the whole idea of 3d printers right?
Open source isn’t all public domain.
@Jasper_Janssen I too wonder how such product can be so cheap. According to the number of pledges they set on kickstarter, they plan on manufacturing at least 5975 units. Could that be enough to reduce the costs to what they claim ? 5975 is probably more than any crowd funded printer before and would propel them amongst the top 10 most popular 3D printers.
They plan on manufacturing no more than 6000 units for the Kickstarter. They’ve got 1500 sales now and the Kickstarter is already oversubscribed by six times. So their minimum is more like 250. I really don’t think they can reach this level of manufacturing efficiencies at 250, they have better odds at the 1500, and maybe they can even actually pull it off at the 2000-2500 they will have by the end of the Kickstarter.
@Brook_Drumm thanks for mentioning “Customer Support” - so many new companies totally fail with that. So keep up the good work. Btw different topic, but do you already look into Distributors for Europe?
