For a while now, I thought that it would be nice to have as a community, a set of standards or specifications that would allow the commutability of parts between machines of different designs, etc. Filament diameters have already found a standard (3mm and 1.75mm), which has greatly simplified the ability to choose other parts to make use of the material.
As an example, just today there was a post about an all metal extruder body. Looking at the part, I thought how nice it looked -- but what if the hot end broke or didn't work for a material I wanted to use? What would happen if I wanted to keep the extruder body but use a different hotend? Wouldn't it be nice if there was a standard groove mount size(s) that would allow adaptability. In the open source community, lack of standards can cause designs to bifurcate rather than unify -- typically for no other reason than because there isn't a specification that exists.
I personally think that standardization is one of the most important things that this community could be doing. Having a defined set of standards I believe can be used to make small companies more competitive with larger companies, while still allowing them to retain autonomy from each other. Companies certainly can't be required to make things adhere to standards, but if a standard is useful, then it will be to their benefit because the customers will want a part that meets standards. Then, in production of their part, the company can state that it meets "Reprap Standard X.XX". Because of this, customers are better served by having a wider selection of parts to fill a given need.
Obviously, development of standards can lead to favoritism, so it is critical that a board is established where each member can prove that they have no financial interests. It is also critical that each standard would be well thought out -- i.e. Does the standard need to exist?, Will the standard interfere with innovation? Should an existing standard be revised to reflect new advancements?
I'm curious to hear what you all think about this idea. It's something that exists in industry in many shapes and forms, but can be extremely valuable. Starting to implement standards can be difficult and I think that the number of standards would have to be very minimal at first and gradually increasing as the community found necessary. If this should happen, I think Reprap should be the place to do it rather than allowing the bigger companies to set the stage.
As an example, just today there was a post about an all metal extruder body. Looking at the part, I thought how nice it looked -- but what if the hot end broke or didn't work for a material I wanted to use? What would happen if I wanted to keep the extruder body but use a different hotend? Wouldn't it be nice if there was a standard groove mount size(s) that would allow adaptability. In the open source community, lack of standards can cause designs to bifurcate rather than unify -- typically for no other reason than because there isn't a specification that exists.
I personally think that standardization is one of the most important things that this community could be doing. Having a defined set of standards I believe can be used to make small companies more competitive with larger companies, while still allowing them to retain autonomy from each other. Companies certainly can't be required to make things adhere to standards, but if a standard is useful, then it will be to their benefit because the customers will want a part that meets standards. Then, in production of their part, the company can state that it meets "Reprap Standard X.XX". Because of this, customers are better served by having a wider selection of parts to fill a given need.
Obviously, development of standards can lead to favoritism, so it is critical that a board is established where each member can prove that they have no financial interests. It is also critical that each standard would be well thought out -- i.e. Does the standard need to exist?, Will the standard interfere with innovation? Should an existing standard be revised to reflect new advancements?
I'm curious to hear what you all think about this idea. It's something that exists in industry in many shapes and forms, but can be extremely valuable. Starting to implement standards can be difficult and I think that the number of standards would have to be very minimal at first and gradually increasing as the community found necessary. If this should happen, I think Reprap should be the place to do it rather than allowing the bigger companies to set the stage.