3D Printer Sourcing Certification

About

Sourcing parts for the OSE 3D Printer - either D3D Pro or D3D Universal 2

FAQ

Question: One reason I am making slow progress on the BOM document is that if say you approve it, keeping the costs and time of delivery aside I will have to pick up delivery from 5-6 online sites. Parts coming in from so many different places is a bit uncomfortable.

Hence I am looking for people who have most/all parts at one place

Answer: Well, the truth is, nobody will have all the parts in one place simply because of the diversity of parts that are included. For example, the specific PEI that we use, braided fiberglass sleeve, steel angle, 3D printed pieces, bolts, electronics - are very much different in nature so that no single supplier will have them. And if they are a 3D printer supplier, they are likely not to have the nichrome, fiberglass, sleeve, GFCI, steel - our design is quite unique and robust Common-Off-The-Shelf (COTS), but no single supplier will have it. So I think you may need to shift your mindset here.

For one, BOMs are some of the most challenging aspect of physical production. Their complexity is overwhelming. If you say that you will have 5-6 suppliers - that is very low and excellent! And, our design uses the smallest unique part count in the world. We have about 100. For comparison - Lulzbot 3D printer has about 1400! And about dozens of suppliers, I would guess 50-100. The OSE version is amazingly simple.

For comparison, I have about 30 suppliers. with 9 unique ones as several of those suppliers are on Amazon and other sites. So you should expect comparable numbers. You can probably reduce this number, but sourcing would not be optimal.

So this should ease your pains and explain some things - nobody said this would be easy!

Links

• Open Source Microfactory Basic Certification
• (search MJ Log and put other cers here)