There’s been a nice flurry of activity over on the RepRap site (Link); lots of parts being designed and sent out for fabrication to be used in the initial units, a growing RepRap wiki and another participant.

For anyone who remembers my post on the glue gun fabrication device back in April (Link), Vic Olliver – it’s creator – has made excellent progress on the next, upgraded version. He’s also been posting entries on it’s development, including one on the gears shown above (Link). The parts are all FDM this time around and are all ABS I believe, but they’ll be great for a first unit which can be used to take a first pass at creating parts using the final device’s intended material. It might take a few iterations on the design to get something that can create the bulk of its own parts (in order to replicate itself), but this is a great start.

{Image Copyright © 2005 Vic Olliver}