A bit of a rant:So I just got a heads up that my hw design from Thingiverse/Soliforum has been ripped of by “Verde Mantis” for their “Mantis 3D printer”, who claims on their webpage that is is “Designed and Built in the U.S.A.” (which is at least a partial lie).I made my design many years ago after not being happy with the performance of the Solidoodle 4. Since I really liked the enclosed cabinet, I created a core-xy design around it. All other parts were replaced, except the linear rods for the x and y axis. It’s a rather special design since I wanted it to fit in the cabinet without the belts going over the door-opening, thus having both the steppers and the belt-crossing from left to right at the back.You can see my design here, and judge for yourself. Keep in mind that everything except the metal cabinet itself is part of my design:This video show their design. Their bed is mostly the original from solidoodle. It’s not great…Anyway. I just think it’s shitty to take someone else’s design and claim it’s your own, especially for monetary gain. I’m not against sharing it, I uploaded it to thingiverse after all. It’s not even a good design for a new printer, it was made within the constraints of having to fit into a cabinet made for a normal cartesian design.I pioneered the piezo-electric leveling design some years ago. After uploading that to youtube and thingiverse I was approached by the now founders of precisionpiezo and asked how I felt about them comercialicing it, which I was all for. And they did give me credit on their webpage, which I appreciate. I think they have contributed alot to the community by developing it further and making it accessible, and I’m happy they did what I didn’t have the time for.But this just feels like crap, since had they only asked and given me some credit I would’ve said yes. But they didn’t. And any improvements they might have done to my design has not been shared back to the community, which is the whole point of the Creative Commons license. And I firmly believe that the reason why the 3D community is such a thriving community is because of all the open source designs and software.Rant over. https://ift.tt/2BUBLjL