RepRap Movement
In 2004, most 3D printing patents had expired, and Adrian Bowyer, a Senior Lecturer of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath, wanted to offer an inexpensive non-commercial 3D printer design. He wanted to make 3D printing open-source, and intended for 3D printers to replicate themselves by printing its own parts. The project was dubbed "RepRap" as in replicating rapid prototyper, and it uses FFF manufacturing to lay plastic filament layers on top of each other. Bowyer eventually created the first RepRap dubbed "Darwin." This printer was a CoreXY design, and the name is a reference to natural selection as Bowyer intended self-replicating 3D printers to have improvements over time by others. Then the best printers would become popular while the unpopular ones would fall out of favor in the community.
In 2008, Darwin would successfully 3D print all its own parts by February and assemble a "child" machine that had parts sourced from Darwin. Afterwards, the movement took off as hundreds of replications occurred with multiple instances of the "Darwin" design, and people began building their own 3D printers. This would lead to 3D printers becoming extremely inexpensive compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars 3D printers previously cost by producing community built 3D printed parts.
In 2009, the first Cartesian RepRap design would be built and dubbed "Mendel." Soon MakerBot Industries would be founded that year by RepRap volunteers to create commercial 3D printers based on RepRap designs. Company would eventually launch the consumer desktop 3D printer race. RepRap itself would fall out of fashion since it was too technical for the average person to build and the firmware was very hard to work with. It was for hobbyists, and not the consumer. As the RepRap movement slowed down, new companies started to compete with MakerBot to produce cheaper 3D printers, but they all derived their core designs and firmware from RepRap.
Afterwards, 3D printers shifted from solely self-replication into a commercial industry that would allow non-technical consumers to start using 3D printers instead of being exclusively technical “big company equipment” or technically-built DIY printers. Most engineering communities began to buy these new 3D printers to use for prototyping and designing parts, and less technical users like libraries and schools were able to 3D print items too. However, there was still a barrier to entry with needing to have some technical knowledge in 3D printing and relatively high costs.
New Industries
In 2009, the first Cartesian RepRap design would be built and dubbed "Mendel." Soon MakerBot Industries would be founded that year by RepRap volunteers to create commercial 3D printers based on RepRap designs. Company would eventually launch the consumer desktop 3D printer race. RepRap itself would fall out of fashion since it was too technical for the average person to build and the firmware was very hard to work with. It was for hobbyists, and not the consumer. As the RepRap movement slowed down, new companies started to compete with MakerBot to produce cheaper 3D printers, but they all derived their core designs and firmware from RepRap.
Afterwards, 3D printers shifted from solely self-replication into a commercial industry that would allow non-technical consumers to start using 3D printers instead of being exclusively technical “big company equipment” or technically-built DIY printers. Most engineering communities began to buy these new 3D printers to use for prototyping and designing parts, and less technical users like libraries and schools were able to 3D print items too. However, there was still a barrier to entry with needing to have some technical knowledge in 3D printing and relatively high costs.
Credit to Nathan Shows and Andrew Wu