BMG vs clone test
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Like most markets, the extruder market also has room for a spectrum of quality and price points.
For example, one of the most popular printers in the market, the Ender 3, costs about the same as a Duet 3 board, and still makes many makers happy,
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@zapta spot on. Measured on does it get me to work, and over to my friends house in the evening a Bentley looks fairly crap compared to a Skoda.
Clones and copies are always going to be a contentious issue, but without the threat of clones and with no one copying each other to the slightest degree there would be far greater likelihood of profiteering which would make aspects of this pursuit/hobby/technology impractical.
Yes the BMG clones appear a direct copy of the bondtech units but in reality they are not. Different manufacturing methods and materials have been chosen that have allowed a significant per-unit cost saving in both production time, and improved production rate at the cost of flexibility. Along with reductions in quality control and customer support. Pay your money, take your choice. The fundamental innovation in the Bondtech BMG may have been new to 3D printing, but it was already in use for welding. So should they really be granted immunity from being copied just on the basis they borrowed a MIG wire feed mechanism and applied it to FFF machines?
If the real grumble here is the fact that some of the east asian countries can make things far cheaper than UK/US/EU countries or there is a particular grievance with a specific country then that is either the commentator having an issue with their governments import tarrifs/regulations, or indeed a political opinion on the country of source. While I may have strong feelings on both aspects I don't think this forum is the place to discuss these issues.
Running 3 P3Steel with Duet 2. Duet 3 on the shelf looking for a suitable machine. One first generation Duet in a Logo/Turtle style robot!
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@DocTrucker said in BMG vs clone test:
So should they really be granted immunity from being copied just on the basis they borrowed a MIG wire feed mechanism and applied it to FFF machines?
sadly some patents are approved for using a non-novel concept in a pseudo-novel context, however not all hold up if challenged after the fact (admittedly i don't know, or care, if Bondtech has a patent)
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@bearer yes some patents that I have seen granted are laughable. Traxas for example have been very actively patent hungry in the area of radio control model cars patenting things like using two servos instead of one for steering. Necessary evil but also not really fit for purpose.
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Does Bondtech AB have patents related to their extruders? I couldn't find any, not in search nor on their web site.
https://patents.google.com/patent/EP3659783A1/en?assignee="Bondtech+AB"
Edit: another thing I noticed is that they partner with Slice to compete with E3D which provides integral extruder + hotend sub systems.
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@zapta not sure. Wasn't personally referring directly to them having patents, merely the idea that we should be brand loyal to a specific party because they were there first with and idea.
Looking forward to what comes out of the Bondtech/slice partnership. I've been watching that for a while.
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@zapta I believe Bondtech has no patent for using two hobbed inserts because it’s widely used in extruding MIG welding filament. Or at least, that’s what I heard. I also think other people did it before them, just didn’t commercialise it.
Ian
Cartesian bed-slinger with Duet 3 Mini 5+ WiFi and 1LC : RRP Fisher Delta v1 with Duet 2 Maestro : TronXY X5S with Duet 3 MB6HC and Roto toolboard
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@zapta Seems GPL-3.0 License - or at least partially.
https://github.com/BondtechAB/Bondtech_Prusa_i3 -
@DocTrucker said in BMG vs clone test:
If the real grumble here is the fact that some of the east asian countries...
Confusing between Korean, Japanese, and Chinese is almost as insulting as confusing between Scots, Irish and Brits. Completely different animals.
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@zapta I did say earlier that I appreciated that not all countries in that area are the issue, hense 'some'. Not only China, and to be fair not only within east asia. Third World isn't accurate either. What's the best way to describe a country whose product can under cut competing nations due to their significant natural resource and low paid workers?
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On a second thought, preventing Chinese cloning may not be that hard, Duet for example can lay out the Duet 3 components to say "Winnie the Pooh" or any other forbidden speech.
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@droftarts
Yes, they have been used in MIG welding for donkeys years.
All you need is something like this and all four wheels are driven.
You would need 1.7mm knurled rollers which are readily available and used for flux cored wires.
Then ditch the DC motor for a stepper.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/4RA-4-roll-24V-DC-MIG-Welder-Welding-Wire-Drive-Motor-Feed-Feeder-Roller-/183142075319They larger drive rollers would provide more contact area on the filament.
A tad too big for a direct drive though
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Hey Jens
I pretty well have the same experience with the clone I purchased as you
I purchased the DotBit version.
I had some minor setup issues with mine , the grub screw would get loose and the same filament gears offset and grip pattern on filament that you observed.
Loctite for the grub screw and a small 3mm washer for the idler gear offset to pad it in one direction improved that.
"There was however a substantially amount of black dust. I examined all the bits and I have not been able to find where this dust comes from"
Same experience here , I have greased it lightly with silicon based grease that reduced it considerablyToday DotBit failed , at first I thought it was a setting in the slicer as I have just switched from s3d to Ideamaker . It printed the bottom part fine but failed when it it got to the smaller details and retraction activity went up significantly . watching it print while failing I could see the large white nylon gear was actually slipping on the main shaft .
I took it apart and just using my fingers and applying hard twisting could make it move on the shaft , even pull it off.
Plan A) Tried drilling the nylon and shaft to pin it but failed when I hit that stainless steel shaft , barely scratched it .
Plan B) Glue , but not just any glue
. Pulled the nylon gear off cleaned the serrated shaft with alcohol and roughened the smooth inner surface of the nylon gear with a dremel . Applied Bondic a UV activated glue , a couple of drops spread on shaft serrations and inner face of gear and reassembled , then shone the UV light down the drilled hole and at the edges .When I went to roughen the gear I did notice on the inner surface of the nylon gear it was totally smooth no serrated marks from the shaft at all , which really surprised me , the serrations of the shaft stood up a bit but probably needed to be significantly higher or sharper to cut the nylon .
I'm going to adopt a Chinese manufacturing and cloning philosophy here
“Cha Bu Duo”, which can be translated as “not far off” or “close enough”.
So far it seems fixed, managed to complete the print !
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@DigiD, thanks for the 'heads up' I will check out the gear.
Which surfaces did you grease to reduce the black powder ?
The pinning would likely weaken the shaft too much so it's a good thing you didn't succeed. -
@jens55
I greased the large white nylon gear , same one that slipped .Just enough to coat the gear teeth with out globs hanging off going around and around
I used a silicon based one that is fairly plastic friendly called superlube
Edit :
Clone usage details , purchased in May 2019 for 25AUD printed somewhere between 2-3kg PLA before it failed -
@DigiD, Thanks!
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I've never used a clone, but I have no problem paying for the original ON PRINCIPLE.
We all whine about jobs going over seas, but at the same time we want good pay...there's only one way that goes, higher prices but also better quality. The Duet boards are a classic example, also cloned by the way.
At them moment my life has been drastically changed, and my industry (Australian beef) was viciously attacked by China as a warning shot just for asking "what the fk happened?"
I'll give them as little as humanely possible until they lift their game. I don't think it's a cheap shot to mention the ethics of stolen IP, in fact it seems poor form not to acknowledge it.
When buying Chinese clones, you are buying STOLEN ideas executed poorly.
Any of us here would scream absolute blue murder if we invented something and went through all the drama and expense of bringing a product to market, only to have clones pop up everywhere. I'm sure we'd see it differently then.
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@Corexy, I have no problems paying a reasonable price which is why my Duet stuff is original rather than clones. I do have a problem paying unreasonably inflated prices for the real McCoy.
Buying a clone does neccessarily mean stolen ideas. Duet being a perfect example - the design is open source and anyone is free to use it ---- not stolen (call it borrowed with permission)
I agree that I would be VERY unhappy if I had a product that was patented and it was cloned but I would not be surprised about clones if I sell a product that I can produce for $5 and I charge $200 for it retail. The chances of a clone being produced reduce drastically if I sell my $5 cost product for $50 instead of $200.
If China can't make a decent profit, they will not clone the product. Having said that, if I can produce an item for $5, chances are that China can produce it for $1 and they can sell it for $10 and still be quite happy.
Anyway, it is a never ending story and I don't see a real solution. You will always have areas that can produce stuff cheaper due to cheap labour or poor environmental practices or whatever. If not China then somebody else. On the other hand, if it wasn't for these cheap products, our lives would be totally different and not in a better way.
Let's start with a basic car to go from A to B costing $30k now. How would you feel if the same car cost $300K? While it would be great for the environment, it would totally screw up society. -
@Corexy, there are several dimensions here, legality, morally, personal interests, and and national/local interests, that eventually contribute to a single buy/no-buy decision and like many things these day, it's complicated.
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In there book, "The Second Machine Age", Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee explain that chineese clones push people to always improve and innovate. By beeing a step ahead is the way to survive.
Look at E3D-online: despite the fact their products are probably the most cloned in the 3D printing market, they are still here, because they never stop producing new and better products.
Frédéric
