Re:Er.... "give it to a friend"??? (Score 1)

Okay... get some perspective here. The materials alone cost £400... which, giving that number a bit more meaning, works out to something over $750 USD. That's not exactly pocket change for a good percentage of people...

That's only the first generation machine. Keep in mind that the first IBM PC's introduced at the beginning of the 1980's cost about $4,000 in the dollars of that day. I'm currently working on an open source second generation machine that I estimate will have a parts cost of about $250. You can track my progress at... http://3dreplicators.com/ If I can get sort out a problem with lead screw length of Chinese source for linear stepper motors I should be able to drop that cost to about $100 for parts. I'm pretty sure that I can do that.