Like I said on the forum two weeks ago, after the request of builders without printers, I contacted a Printing service which I work with sometimes, I knew their prices would be high…
So, I finally got prices from them. The news isn’t so great.
Prices are too high to my taste. Way too high.You might as well buy yourself a printer and start printing, you would be better off. The two arms + torso comes in a range of 3000 euros.

The goal of InMoov is to be built at a reasonable price for most DIYers. 
While printing on your own machine there is the cost of electricity and materials of course. Time consuming doesn’t cost you if you do this for the fun (that’s the way I see it), but a printing service takes that in consideration and the price goes way up.

Now I’m up with another option, but I still need to gather more details about it, because it is a big step.
We will see in a few weeks if this new plan is viable. 

In the meantime, I started to work on a leg for the fun.

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Gael Langevin

Comments 30

  2. Hubby

    BTW, I uploaded the files for the hand, wrist and forearm to one of the biggest 3D printing companies on the web, I-Materialise. It is ILLEGAL to have InMoov parts printed there, due to it’s license, but I wanted to get an estimate to compare to others… Well, it’s much cheaper. It’s ONLY $782.68 plus shipping for ONE assembly!!! ARGGGGGGHHHH! Little pricey there! 😉

  5. ambroise

    yes it s a good song gael to hear you work about legs i am happy but for people like me with no printer 3d it s more expensive!! so i would like to make himself with cardboard but i haven’t mensurations so if i print on paper i don’ know wich mensuration exacly
    wich help can i have
    so that it was cool to find people from marseille to france to have a printer 3d 🙂

  6. Anonymous

    Hi Gael, Can you drop me an email “eric d wilson” ate yahoo ….. com… (delete the spaces) I could not find an email for you…

  7. BAS

    Hi, after printing a lot of InMoov I think $782.68 for the hand, wrist and forearm is a bargain. But, I wouldn’t spend it but, then I’ve likely got more like $5K+ into him through stuff and my time at minimum wage. :-O

    For InMoov it is time to moov on up to the NOW. Get a 3D printer through purchase or RepStrap. There are companies selling printers for about $600. If you sunk $700 into a printer and $200 into plastic then, don’t mess up as much plastic as I have, you will have an InMoov’s plastic parts done in several weeks. This is Fun!

    I think Ambroise should make a cardboard printer! The ulitmate ‘RepStrap’.

  10. Elijah Hradovich

    I were thinking: what if people people will print 3D printer’s parts for another people just for material’s cost? Of course the cost of shipping will be as well, and there will be a need to buy electronics for it, but nevertheless – it could be something like open source movement, only in hardware.

    • gael langevin

      Of course, we could do that. I would love it if we could all share things that way. I have printed a Prusa iteration for a friend. It does take some time to print it. Unfortunately, it is still not has easy as it seems.

  11. Anonymous

    Prices of 3D printers (without any knowledge of them) are way too high at the moment to start a revolution. It has to come down to 300$ for something working and yes, we will have our revolution. Simple game theory.

  12. Anonymous

    If you pay 2’000$ for a working printer and the rest on materials, you’ll be at a price of robotic plattforms already. It just doesn’t make any sense to spend 2’000$ on a printer to justify the counter value of some (mostly useless) parts out of thing universe for a noob. Of course you are a forerunner of the revolution. The word revolution contains the word evolution. It means the evolution gets a speed jump.

    • gael langevin

      Anyway, I can understand your point of view.
      2000 dollars for a printer, is a lot of money. You can find many printers for at least half that price though. Look for clones of the Replicator or a Prusa. And you should consider also, that once you have the printer, nothing stops to use it for other things than just building a robot.
      we need to look beyond.
      When I bought my printer, I knew I could use it for my job, it was payed back rather fast. If you buy a printer a 1000 dollars for to print little cubes of plastic, then of course it is expensive.
      Unless you invent a new Rubics cube 😉

  13. Anonymous

    Hello Gael
    It would be a lot of help if you can put a comparision of working printers on your blog here, needed dimensions, requirements, etc. It’s key for your attempt. Most cheaper printers don’t print ABS as I have seen.

    I found:
    http://www.3ders.org/pricecompare/3dprinters/details.aspx?ID=145
    http://store.solidoodle.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=56

    Here are some comparison charts:
    http://www.3ders.org/pricecompare/3dprinters/
    http://www.makershed.com/Articles.asp?ID=301

    Are there any plans to make this working with lego mindstorms-software and components in it?

  14. gael langevin

    Pfuu, what a lot of work.
    I will let others do those comparisions. Plus, everyday there is a new type of printer coming out. Prices will go down pretty fast.
    Your comparision charts are well documented.
    My parts all fit in a 12x12x12 build enveloppe.
    Concerning legos mindstorms-software, I never even tried it. I use to play a lot lego when I was a kid though.

  16. Anonymous

    Found them! There are three or more.

    Ardublock:
    http://blog.ardublock.com/
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnbHQ0LaZ-g

    Minibloq (this was the one I saw on kickstarter):
    http://minibloq.net/
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnAm8S6k2z0

    Modkit (this one is commercial):
    http://www.modk.it/

    Also read this discussion:
    https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/ardublock/8Vgnh-uyCbo

    Highly interesting stuff going on! Thinking about getting the ardublock kit and try out programming.

  17. ~ Brad

    Have you looked into injection molding of the parts? I have been working with publiclaboratory.org on an injection molded spectrometer (current working version: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:49934 , soon to be released: http://publiclaboratory.org/notes/braddudenhoffer/2-23-2013/mobile-spectrometer-design-update). The initial cost for the molds is very high but the price per part is extremely affordable. I would be willing to bet you could raise enough on kickstarter to finance the molds and first batch.

  18. gael langevin

    What a coincidence, I was looking this morning at diferent funded projects on the Kickstarter site and I saw your project.
    Cool project by the way!
    I know injection molding is very expensive to start with, I had to do for my work a few molds for to inject thousands of parts and the amount of the molds are extremely high.
    InMoov isn’t designed at all for to be molded and injected unfortunatly. If I would go for such a goal, I definitly should review many parts for to make it interesting. For exemple all of my parts are totally designed to be set on a 3D printer mainly without support, but molding them could be a hard task since there is reserved and empty spaces inside some parts.
    But it isn’t impossible, I’m still thinking.
    Thanks a lot for your advise.

  19. mcsdaver

    I have ordered and paid for a 3d printer.
    Now to wait for it and build models in my computer for future prints.
    I knew 3d printing parts would help me build better robots, but after seeing your amazing work, I now know that I can print most of the robot in 3d.
    Your work is inspiring many to build robots they could only dream about before.
    Thanks for all of your hard work and for all the help you give everyone who wants to build robots.
    Again Thanks

    David Mc

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