Blog 2011

16-01-2012:
(soon blog cleanup/move to 2012 etc)
First Orca 040 images posted (more to come and videos..)







Dec 2011 - First test prints made with Orca 040 prototype
(printed with white PLA 1.75mm filament from Ultimachine at 52mm/s and with 0,30 layers and a 0,40 nozzle.)










And yes the cups (left=PLA, right=ABS, both printed on Orca 040 proto) are watertight as you can see... ive been drinking out of them for few days now, printtime of cup was 37mins and costprice is 0,20 EUR..




11-01-2012:
We should have news on our plastic filament stock tomorrow, but the 1.75mm PLA should be coming back in stock (on coils and in more colors again) in around 2 weeks.
So we might put it online earlier (in next few days) as a product with lead-time, this way people can already order it with a complete kit order etc.
In near future we will also have ABS and water-solvable and flexible filaments..
PS: I still dont have time for skype yet.. (because once online i get 2days workload, just a few more important things, but i will be online probably tomorrow or latest Friday again, Im also keeping up with emails coming in on my hotmail again (no time for the long backlog yet), but new email is answered in 24h most times now, check contact us page for right email address on bottom. (is a temp solution to solve slow email server, but only use this for important things please, imagine there are thousands like you.. so dont send emails with technical questions (yet) or it gets overflown again, but only order issues/questions/changes/payments etc)

11-01-2012:
Here is another UPS=too fast to believe shipment im just looking up:
09.01.2012 22:57 Origin Scan (Camiel dropped box off at UPS facility)
09.01.2012 23:15 Departure Scan - Eindhoven, Netherlands
10.01.2012 1:19 Arrival Scan - Koeln, Germany
10.01.2012 2:52 Departure Scan - Koeln, Germany
10.01.2012 4:12 Arrival Scan - Malmo Sturup, Sweden
10.01.2012 5:05 Departure Scan- Malmo Sturup, Sweden
10.01.2012 6:09 Arrival Scan - Oslo, Norway
10.01.2012 11:51 The customer was not available on the 1st attempt. A 2nd attempt will be made.
10.01.2012 12:57 A Delivery Change Request for this package will be processed / Deliver to Another Address.
11.01.2012 11:07 Delivered
So even with an address change request it is still delivered in 36hours to Norway, if 1st attempt was delivered it would have been almost 12 hours.
Pretty hard to believe this one actually.. maybe UPS didnt noticed the labels were 1 day old and they tried to make up for lost time or something..

10-01-2012:
Yesterday/today we have had a new record (probably) for fastest shipping after placing an order..
order placed Jan 9, 2012 8:11:56 PM
order shipped: (raced to UPS by Camiel, 2nd shipment in evening) Jan 9, 2012 22:10 PM
order arrived at UPS depot close to destination city: Jan 10, 2012 0:59 AM
So thats less then 5hours after placing an order arrival in destionation city..
Hhmm or maybe things are changing over here.... but no please dont place any orders, because I now really enjoy this fast shipping so everybody dont place (too much) orders please.. lol.

And congrats to the customer, but sorry I didnt pack an extra present.. was in a hurry as usual for UPS, but this time just in time... although I really had to defend myself (with words..) to get the boxes on the belt and onroute.. lol, long story for another time, sleep now, tomorrow hopefully some amazing pictures coming of prints i made on Orca 040 last weeks/days :).
And ps. for customer with 030's: alot of the parts for 040 can also be used on 030, like the x,y and z opto holders for example and lots more.

Ps: All Russian orders will ship tomorrow (and i will pay the shipping cost due to insane delays) with TNT, and in future Russian customers can now select normal checkout / UPS, but the cost is actually for TNT (because that is what we use for RU) So this way there should be no more delay on these RU orders anymore.

10-01-2012:
Lately orders can have one day delay at the UPS facitliy, so the label is made and trackntrace link emailed and working, but it says "package not received yet."
Let me explain this qucikly: The problem is that Camiel still needs to get used to UPS new 2012 policy of closing a bit earlier for some strange reason, but its now around 10pm (depends on the person who helps you really..) instead of 11pm. So its my fault, Im very sorry Im just too late then and your box doesnt get scanned anymore that day, but will remain at UPS faciility overnight and leave next day / trace info gets updated... sorry im working on this issue and it should be solved soon

09-01-2012:
(this blog post will be in the 2011 blog, since it covers the last weeks of 2011 also)

0) (to quickly answer 50% of the questions:) NO we dont have MOTORS and BELTS for sale at this time, will be at least a few more weeks.
1) We now have a 1-4day handling time on orders that have no products with lead times and paid with paypal, bank payments have few days more handling time.
2) Our phone will be working again today from 9am, but if not in a hurry please phone us in the next few days, because today will be another hectic day here..
3) If you are in a hurry / have big problem / missing parts / etc, then call us today/tomorrow: 0031 40 202 6749 because we want to have all "old cases" solved this week, so 2012 can be without long-term issues.
4) I will be on skype again in next days (today/tomorrow probably) if you need info / help / contact us.
5) Our big news is coming hopefully today or tomorrow (we have so much news I really need alot of time to prepare it all, but alot of videos/pictures coming very soon).
6) Just a quick statistic on what is happening here last weeks: I cant remember the last time I slept in my own bed.. (it was some time before Christmas..), lately its more 3-4 hours sleep a night on the sofa.. So thats pretty fucked up and last weeks Im really on the edge of what my mind and body can handle, another example: burnouts used to be mainly mental, lately they have become physical as well... my body is sort of giving up on me..
So things really needs to change asap or Im gonna quit this webshop and do something else, however I have a feeling we now finally can stop with all this fast development (the big news coming..) and finally focus on production / delivery / support instead of development. Because I think we are done with development for this year 2012.. because the quality I print here last weeks is really amazing, im now 100% sure that I can print better quality on my Orca 0.40 protos then on my UP's even at 1,5x faster speed, our quality is still better, thanks to Orca v0.40 & a new hotend v10 & etc & etc ;)
So that is a big relief for my stress-mind and a little piece of the big news coming soon. People sometimes think development is a choice, I dont see it that way, if products are crap, development is necessary is my opinion.. But with Orca 0.40 I can finally look at it and dont feel the need to go back to my computer and make changes in CAD (something I had untill now with 0.2 / 0.30), now for the first time I really get a smile on my face. Also this time we have made alot of "in-between" protos (040A / 040B/ 040C etc), so 040 is really finely developed, alot of time spent on details. It is also very fast to build now (1 afternoon) with all linear bearings, aluminium pullies. It has a bigger print size then 030, but alot smaller footprint (and alot less aluminium/weight). (story will continue later today/ tonight)
** update: I really need to sleep now after a 23hour working day.. so hopefuly more blog tomorrow, but just a quick note: the pile of orders shipped this year is already more then 2cm thick ;)

Summary:
If you now think "Orca v0.40?? have you gone mad??" then yes we have gone mad! and now please go back to your hotend v2 supplier or your Asian Orca 030 supplier (they have copied it without our files) and we wish you good luck keeping up with us...)
If you now think "UP quality on Orca?" then yes, and you can get that too in a few weeks..
If you dont believe me... please come back in a few days and watch our pictures / videos ;)

29-12-2011:
All remaining orders will ship today (small orders / complete kits anything with status processing).
Bank payments will be updated later today too (we are far (many weeks) behind on that..)
All rest of orders will be refunded in next few days (paypal complaints etc).

From now on we will limit the amounts of our stock / products, this means products without leadtimes should have a handling time of a few days very soon..
This doesnt mean old products wont come back, but for coming weeks we will probably limit our products from 200 products online down to 20 products online, but those 20 with fast shipping / handling. Once that runs smooth we can maybe add more again.
For complete machines it will be a few more weeks, and then we will have worldwide shipping within 1 week from ordering..

Also our skeinforge v45 profile coming online very soon. (Slicer had alot of issues with correct dimensions).
SF45 has really nice quality with the new skin plugin and it also seems alot faster

and thats not even the big news.... no, that comes maybe tomorrow, maybe Jan1, but we have alot of big news.
Ill give one hint: I'm printing same (or better) quality then my UP's on an Orca now... ;)
So get ready for 2012: because there is a killer (whale / bot..) coming....

PS1:: Huge clearance sale starting in a few days, time for big cleanup.
PS2: I havent been on holiday yet... so we might close for one week somewhere mid/end January.. but as always, that is maybe, far from sure ;)

6-12-2011:
We are looking for a parttime employee here at mendel-parts, job description :
* help us with our email & forum support, handle phonecalls / orders / invoices / shipping / maintain our printerfarm etc
* 2-3 days a week on location: Eindhoven, NL. (This might change to fulltime in a few weeks/months)
* starting January 2012, with 1-2 weeks training first
* good language skills in English are necessary
* some technical skills required (alot of emails are technical questions)
* experience with 3D printing is preferred, but not necessary, motivation / enthousiasm is more important
Contact us via phone (nr on bottom of the page) if interested.

6-12-2011:
Tip of the day (thanks to James):
For customer that find skeinforge hard to understand/use: there is a new very nice and easy software to use called slic3r, you can find it here: slic3r.org.
There are versions for Mac / Windows and Linux.
It is very easy to setup, prints very nice quality and has easy profile sharing options, but most important of all, it makes gcodes 10-20 times faster then skeinforge.

5-12-2011:
Our phone will be working again from tomorrow, December 6 from 11am, we are very sorry for the troubles with our phoneline last weeks (due to move/too many phonecalls/and being too busy).
Also our apologies for even more delay (on alot of orders) but we have very big news / changes coming in the next few weeks, more info soon.
Tomorrow we will be shipping orders again, however orders with paypal complaints/claims might just be refunded instead of shipped, so we can finish all this trouble faster.
At this time its unsure when we can start on our email support, so we prefer phonecalls this week, however we hope that our email support is fully operational again by the end of the week/weekend.
At this time its also unsure when we will start sales again, it might still be a few weeks.

29-11-2011:
Our next workshop is on 10 & 11 December and the Friday before that, 9 December, might be a good day for another "walk-in-and-solve-problem-day", so if you have troubles/questions/need finetuning/fixing of your machine, we wll be available 9 Dec from 10am to 11pm, however you must make an appointment via phone (because of limited space maybe..)
PS: I've got a new favorite color set for Orca 0.30: Black anodised Aluminium with red plastics, that really looked nice on last workshop... I wish I had one here (or a good picture, Daniel from DE: send me one please or put on the forum.. I love to see that again, that shiny devil looked amazing..:)

28-11-2011:
First of all: I apologize for another period last weeks of delays / bad communication and support, so we had to make some changes:
At this time we dont have anything for sale and most of our products are disabled, main reason: this month / December is gonna be: "socc-month"
"Satisfy Our Current Customers" - month, because we have too many open issues with our current customers.
Please dont forget we have thousands of customers, so it will take a few weeks (and not days..) to fix all open issues, but we are gonna do our best to get you all printing properly before Christmas ;)

After this period / open issues are solved, maybe I can also finally take a first short holiday in the two years running this crazy business, (working 18-20h/day 7d/week and cancelling 4 holidays so far..) So we might close the webshop for a week or so, somewhere end December/January, Ill keep you updated about this, but first we need to solve alot of things, so time will tell if I can go snowboarding in the Alps this winter in some fresh deep powder and a nice sunshine.. (drooling allowed here, with or without retract.. )
(ps: if someone wants to meet up, ill keep you posted where I will be, but probably in Austria, Arlberg area)

But back to the important stuff:
We should be able to ship all Orca 0.30's ordered up until 22 October today or tomorrow (so yes there is currently some extra delay again on complete kits)
Mendels ordered in October should also be shipped in next few days/this week
Once items are shipped, customers will receive an email from UPS (can be late in evening) with trackntrace

Also we will ship all (other) orders (status processing) asap (in next few days), or else contact customers if there are problems/delays.
and customers can choose to wait/cancel or change the order and we will do so.

We just finished moving to our new location and just finished another very successfull workshop this weekend (all customers printing nice quality after 1,5day..)
There was even one customer from Brazil (current record for "longest-distance-joining-a-workshop-@-mendel-parts")
current record is: 9922.8 kilometers or 6165.7 miles set on 26-27 November, amazing... he also made alot of pictures, check Daniel's flickr page here:
Daniel Sikar Flickr page / pictures from 5th Orca build party last weekend

Last weeks we also didnt wrote on our blog for the reason that I noticed everytime we write on our blog, we get a sh*tload of orders that same day..
so alot of people then probably realise "hey, he is not on Hawaii at all, so lets place the order."
So with no blogging we still get plenty of orders and had a bit more time last weeks to get things sorted with the move etc.

PS1. if you wonder when we will start selling again: this is unsure but it might be 1-3weeks before we put products back in stock / enable them again, however we should have fast handling time then and shorter lead-times.
PS2: there are also alot of new products coming in next few weeks / months, things like: linear bearings / machined steel smooth rods / acme threads / plugnplay extruders / more hotend nozzle sizes / two new electronics sets (gen6 incl heated bed control & the touchscreen electronics) and alot more very interesting products.. more info coming soon
PS3: complete software-pack-v001 is online (under downloads) since 7 November (incl Marlin 0.9.10B / unoffical firmware), but you probably noticed that already by now...
PS4: Message for Michael (from DK): Daniel from Brazil finished/tested your Orca 0.30 today, so if you ever meet Daniel Sikar, thank him ;)

20-10-2011:
What a choas week this is so far.. but here goes:
Our email still has massive delay, we should have (better) news on our email in a few days, but phone is best to contact us (from 11am-11pm, nr on bottom of page)
Tomorrow:
- all small orders untill today will be shipped (or else you will get an email in next few days)
- all orca's v0.30 ordered in September should be able to ship (main problem is now checking/searching emails for changes etc..)
But all those orders should go out tomorrow / tomorrow evening, even if It takes me a 2nd 2-3hour night sleep in a row, or if I need to cancel Dutch Design Week activities..)

The main reason for (additional/last minute) delay/stop shipping orders last week, was that I realised that the bearings we were selling last weeks, were below quality standards, and also the 40x40 fans shipped with hotends (some of them) are below quality standard. So we had to arrange some rush orders, but all is solved now and orders will now get high quality bearings and good quality 40x40 fans.
PS: I've also build proper machines (still running here) with the low quality bearings, so they are usable, but its just a bit more work/technical skill required.
About the fans Im still not sure, it seems that some fans just run very weak and dont turn on automatically sometimes (need a push..)
But in that case, the hotend will run too hot (in the cold zone on longterm >1hour) and will start to jam after a while, so from now on we will only ship high quality fans with the hotend v9 full kits.

Customers waiting on an brass insert piece, reason for your delay is that we do have some left, but those are c*nrad quality and tomorrow new type inserts should come in and we prefer to ship those, because they have more grip (they are not the stainless steel yet, but they are better, stainless steel comes in 2-3weeks), to be continued.

Another reason for delay is that we are also still busy finishing a full "software-pack", more news on that very soon
And also we have been testing the limits last days on our Orca v0.30's on very fine detailed & small objects (to include settings in the software pack), video coming soon, but last week I achieved very nice quality and fast prints on our new Orca v0.30's with small & very fine detailed buttons etc.

Note: at this time we dont ship printed manuals with complete kits, (but you can download: downloads/ 2d drawings), we will ship kits including a manual, once the Orca v0.30 manual is finished (hopefully coming week). Untill then please use both Orca (0.2 & 0.30) manuals while building.

14-10-2011:
By the end of next week, we will have the first 65 Orca v0.30 sets produced (aluminium sheet & printed plastics).. things are going very fast suddenly :)
Dont forget: I started working (idea/engineering/prototyping/manual etc) on Orca v0.30 only 4-5 weeks ago :)
And you thought that product development was slow.. welcome to Mendel-Parts
ps. these are not all sold yet, im just putting them out of stock to limit orders, there will be more v030's in stock this weekend.

14-10-2011:
ORCA v0.30 update: Ive decided to change our shipping plans (sorry..) and we will not ship the Orca v0.30's today.
Reason: I want to put photos online first of the anodised sets, so customers can look at them and decide to change their order if they want.
(Reason2: I just picked up colored sets and they look amazing, and also anodising gives a high quality/scratchfree finish surface)
But the main reason is simple: we need to search all emails, if customers want to change to anodised alu etc, but how can a customer decide if he hasnt seen it? So I will put pictures online tonight and start reading emails (from complete kits) tomorrow. So you can still swap for an anodised color this weekend and monday all Orca's v0.30 will then be shipped (ordered in September), anodising might not delay your order (for a few customers, because we have 5 colored sets (1 from every color) in stock for sale) if one color is wanted by two persons, the oldest order will get the set in stock, other one has to wait an extra week.

14-10-2011:
We might be able to ship all Orca's v0.30 ordered in September (if status=processing) today. (so that is already a 2 week lead time for Orca v0.30 :) )
We might be able to ship all remaining small orders today, (so orders placed up untill today), (except some (I mean: alot) of Russians we have to arrange TNT shipping for and cost etc (in next few days).
We still need todo bankpayments checks (today) and we still have some customers we need to contact for issues on their orders.
But the end of long handling times is near, to be continued...

13-10-2011:
Note to customers from last workshop: I made a mistake in the "software-pack/skeinforge settings" please wait untill im ready with the final version later tonight/tomorrow.
Two customers decided to leave their Orca v0.3 at Mendel-parts so I could finetune them and test them extensively here and then pick them up later:
* dr. Bauer / Axel: Ich habe die X-axis gefinetuned/bischen das "fingerspitzegefuhl" etc ;), und jetzt lauft ihre machine schon ganze tag hier und print sehr gut. Samstag/sonntag abholen ist ok.
* Michael: Yours is next up to be continued :)

12-10-2011:
Imagine a famous "windows blue screen" while you are printing.. now imagine that on a computer that controls 6 printers..
That just happened to me when i woke up here at mendelparts and started working with not enough "coffee in my vains" :(
Hmmm.. cant wait for our new standalone touchscreen electronics, few more weeks for the 1st working prototype probably.... :)
ps: the "fairy-tale" about running max 4 printers from one computer (I hear that from customers..) came from us a long time ago, thats not true anymore (with our Marlin firmware).
The six printers where not the cause of the blue-screen (I was the cause..) ive been printing for some time now with 6 printers controlled from one computer
Just make sure you keep your windows up-to-date (specially win7 x64). But not with auto-update off course, disable windows update and hibernate(sleepmode), but do often a manual windows update, windows 7 x64 had alot of issues in the past with too many (and connecting/disconnecting) USB devices, updating solves that issue on windows 7 x64.

IMPORTANT: issue with our v9 hotends is found/solved, the hotends (shipped last week) were just not tightened enough.
If you havent used the hotend yet, the issue is easy to solve, do this while hotend is cold:
- untighten PEEK bottomlock (while holding the PEEK core), then put two m6 nuts (or use heaterblock+nut) on the brass bottom, tighten those nut against each other (so you can tighten the brass bottom in the PEEK core with the nuts)
- tighten the brass bottom a bit more untill you feel more resistance, but carefull you dont overtighten it, then untighten the two m6 nuts
- tighten the PEEK bottomlock.
(and do the same for brass top part and PEEK toplock)
Normally it should be solved then, (worst case you might need to drill the hotend, but that is normally not necessary
If you have used the hotend already and its leaking, then its a bit more complicated, you need to heat it up so the PLA gets soft again.
Best is heating your hotend a bit, but do the tightening not while the hotend is 230C.. the PEEK is softer at these temperatures and you more easily overtighten it.
So heat it up, then let it cool down a bit again (around 100-150C) then do the above
If you have questions about this issue, preferrable use our Forum (info-forum) so we can respond once for alot of customers.
If you (think you) need new parts to solve this problem on your hotend you can also use forum for that, or send us an email, but forum might be faster.
(I hope I can also make a short video of this soon: howto assemble a new hotend v9, glue heaterblock of v9 and align/setup a v9 extruder...)
Also we will soon put a 2nd additional thermistor in the hotends / full kits, alot of people seem to have trouble with this 1st time.
But we are also busy developing a better/simpler solution for this: a full plugnplay heaterblock, so no more glue'in and taping needed.. and off course plugnplay ;)

12-10-2011:
Today I saw the first Orca v0.30 thick sheet sets that were anodised in gold, all I can say:
Too bad I couldnt take them home yet! OMG, that really kicks ass!
Cant wait to see how it looks assembled with gold printed plastics..
Pictures of the anodised thick sheet sets should be online Saturday, and also seperate thick sheet sets Orca v0.30 are then available in webshop.

11-10-2011:
IMPORTANT: apparently we have had issues with the assembly of our hotends that shipped last week. (and maybe Friday before).
We recommend customers to not use extruder untill we found the issue and solution (probably tonight).
I never had this on a v9 hotend, (same production), so it must be something with assembly/some-60-ish-UK-friend-helping-us ;) Dont worry too much, worst case we need to ship new PEEK cores, which we will do off course for free. But I dont think that is necessary, to fix the issue, its probably easier if you dont use hotend untill i posted the solution (i probably know already, but want to test more this night to be sure). Sorry for inconvience, but we will ship for free what is necessary to get you printing properly.
Also recently, I finally solved some issues on the brass insert piece, the only item left I never changed from Adrian's geared original design, but was never happy with.. The brass insert piece doesnt have much grip (specially on 1.75mm) and C*nrad changes quality/geometry on every different load etc.. so we soon have our own produced ones that have more grip and also soon stainless steel insert pieces, Ive tested a proto recently and it has insane grip on the 1.75mm filament, once ive finetuned it, we will send this (probably) to all customers for free that ordered a v9 hotend or complete machine last few weeks/months, but dont start flooding us yet! we dont have them in stock yet and will take number of weeks, but im just sharing it is "coming" and will solve alot of issues. Also im working on a software pack from driver/firmware install upto skeinforge, all with small simple install.txt files, should be online in 1day.

New blog post coming tonight we have alot of news.. but not enough time yet to share it all (im also still a bit in "recovery-mode" after sleeping 10hours in 5days last week/weekend to ship all orders and workshop etc). But all upgrades from Orca v0.2 to v0.3 were shipped last week, and all old mendel orders too, more news soon.

It's now possible to choose an anodised aluminium color for Orca v0.30 (additional 60 EUR), pictures coming in few days, if customers that are currently waiting on an Orca v0.30 want to change their order (and include/upgrade to an anodised aluminium machine, please contact us through the contact form (please include your ordernr).

Note we still have (some) delay on email, please dont resend emails multiple times a week, it can sometimes take upto 3-5days before we can respond, but we should be able to respond to all emails (from last week, older will take longer), and please always write emails in english. (from now on please dont use Dutch anymore, that might delay our response). We prefer (at this time) communication by phone, check bottom of page for our phonenumber and preferred time to call us.

Ps1: soon we will have smaller then 0,35mm and bigger then 0,50mm nozzles (probably 0,20/0,25mm and 0,60/0,70mm
Ps2. Last days Ive been thinking about doing more workshops/build parties (also abroad), if you want to organise it (accomodation/people/food&drinks), we can probably work something out (however: things are getting busy coming weeks/months..), workshops give alot of benefit in feedback for our products/manuals, exact date for the delivery of your DIY kit, faster building it, sharing thoughts/improvements/the "why's" etc, in general: more happy customers and thats what's all about...

07-10-2011:
please read the product description(s), forum, manual and FAQ first, before asking (technical) questions via email / contact us form.
(So often (all) the answer(s) can be found in the forum, or else ask it in the forum so we can reply once for everyone.
please dont ask us for "sponsoring" you(r project(s)), our profits simply dont allow us at this time.
No, we dont have a cheaper shipping option, this is also due to too many "lost" / "missed" shipments in the past without trackntrace, again we cannot afford this at this time.

07-10-2011:
Im currently printing some Orca v0.30 plastic sets in silver PLA.. and can only imagine how cool they will look on an Orca v0.30 with all the aluminium.. :)
Also, I was just checking the 2010 blog and realised that we are still using the same nichrome wired heated beds (on some Mendels)..
However for safety and easiness we recommend using heaterblocks these days, but I just wanted to share that they still perfom great.
So they are in use now for almost a year (next week..) amazing.. another amazing thing: I use the same kapton tape upto 6-9months these days on our heated beds..
Proper taping it on (i prefer doing that while bed is little hot (50C) and I sort of "rub" it on, while holding tight), never touch the tape with hands, always use pliers to remove parts etc and only degrease once a 1-2 weeks seems to work very well..

07-10-2011:
First Orca v0.30 thick sheet sets are now in stock (around 30 sets are produced now.. and more to come)
Most customers upgrading from v0.2 to v0.30 should ship today..
Customers that have ordered a Mendel (not last 2-3 week, but earlier) should ship today also.
I'll post more info later during the day (or wait for an email from UPS, however that can be late in the evening upto 11pm)
ps: We will start shipping the other customers that ordered an Orca v0.30 from next week

06-10-2011:
Orca v0.2 STEP file online, check in downloads/3d-models section (downloads is currently being re-organised, click main downloads button for whole download section, untill the menu is updated.
Orca v0.2 assembly manual is now complete and online available, check /downloads/2d-drawings/Orca/ORCA 0.2 Assembly Manual and 2D Drawings
Orca v0.30 Thick sheet files (DXF & PDF) & seperate STL files will be online in approx. one week or earlier.
Orca v0.30 Thick sheet will be in webshop in approx one week or earlier (price will be around 130-150 EUR)

05-10-2011:
Orca v0.30 STL file online (one printbed = all parts now, including extruder, I only left out the belt pullies on this bed, separate files coming later.
Orca v0.30 Firmware online (same as Orca v0.2, except X and Y direction are inverted and ive increased the acceleration to 4000mm/s² or 0,41G)
Orca v0.2 revised drawings online (check downloads/2d-drawings/Manual-Orca-v02-UPDATED-PDF/)

05-10-2011:
Some Orca v0.2's shipped last week have missing parts, we have put a BOM (bill of materials) online in the Orca v0.2 product description (scroll all the way down the page), so that customers can double check if they have everything that should be in the kit.

04-10-2011:
We have had some issues with our phone today, if you tried phoning us earlier this day, try again in the evening (UTC+01).

04-10-2011:
Here is an example of a parcel, im just looking at the trackntrace and amazed, but just realising that this happens often here.
(after the long handling time etc.. the moment we finally ship your very long delayed order (what will soon be history i hope):
To: WINONA, MN, US
10/03/2011 10:03 P.M. Origin Scan Eindhoven, Netherlands
** (Camiel's makes label)
10/03/2011 10:15 P.M. Departure Scan
** (depart from UPS depot, so 12 mins after making a label its already delivered & scanned at a UPS depot and already leaving it again, yes i should drive a bit slower I know.. ps there is no arrival scans after 8-9pm, because im "offically" too late to bring more parcels, but they accept them always)
10/04/2011 12:41 A.M. Arrival Scan
** (in Koeln, Germany 2,5hours later, all UPS packages go there that have destination North America, UPS planes leave from there)
10/04/2011 1:34 A.M. Origin Scan
** (scanned again in Koeln, Germany)
10/04/2011 5:30 A.M. Departure Scan from Koeln, Germany
** (airplaine leaves Germany (arrives in the USA approx 6-8 hours later)
amazing: 12 mins after I make a label its on a truck to Germany and 5,5 hours later its mid-air, and probably 12 hours later its in the USA.
(and that was actually a late package (2nd shipment that day, processed in the evening, during the day we have pickup by UPS & in the evening I drive a 2nd load)
New update: Philadelphia, PA, United States 10/04/2011 7:35 A.M. Arrival Scan :)

03-10-2011:
We shipped the customers (who ordered Orca's v0.2, that shipped last Friday without extruder bags) their extruder bags today with regular mail.
All processing Orca's v0.2 are now shipped (if im incorrect please phone us tomorrow).
From tomorrow we will start shipping the remaining Mendel orders and other custom orders.
Customers upgrading from Orca v0.2 to v0.3 should ship end of this week (or some early next week).
Small orders (from last week) should ship also over coming days.
Ill post more info in the next few days, but most/all should be able to ship coming days.
So we might be catched up fully by the end of the week.. and our handling and lead time might drop massively.. however lets not celebrate untill we are there.
And if you ever meet mr James Hardiman from the UK in your life, tell him thanks from Camiel (he will know what it is about..) ;)

03-10-2011:
We still have delay on our email, but by the end of the week (or in next few days) all new emails should be answered quickly, however older emails will take longer.
Im very sorry for this, but we are doing our best, but we still have a few higher priorities (ship old orders/custom invoices etc)
if important, we can be phoned every day from 10am until 11pm. (0031 40 202 67 49)

03-10-2011:
Mendel-Parts will be moving (again) early November to a new location (same size, but better facilities). Over the coming weeks we will have a huge clearance sale and we will sell all kinds of left-overs / (2nd hand) products / engineering material etc. We might even sell 2nd hand complete assembled Mendels from our production line. So keep your eyes on our clearance sale section over the coming weeks ;).

02-10-2011:
Ive just refunded someone who filed a paypal complaint after only 6days, I just want to say to everyone: If you want to file a complaint after only 6days, please think before you order here. (We have a handling time upto 8 business days at the moment, see shipping page). In other words: THEN DONT ORDER HERE!! Im getting really tired of people shouting at me one day and the next day (when realising we do ship..) ordering a bunch of stuff.
We have alot of happy customers that we want to help properly, but its these people with zero patience and zero trust and shouting at us, that makes it impossible for us to work normally. PLEASE GO AWAY AND NEVER COME BACK AGAIN, so we can help the people that do have patience and do want our high quality products.

30-09-2011:
We shipped all Orca v0.2 orders except three two customers: ordernrs: 539 & 524. So we did ship 20 Orca's in last two days, but only two are now remaining, we are very sorry for those customers not being able to ship today. Your orders will go Monday (or email us this weekend if you want to cancel/refund your order or upgrade to v0.30).
However at a certain point we did run out of extruder bags (and not enough time to make more) so some Orca v0.2 are shipped without extruder bags, (we will ship those also Monday with regular mail).
We still need to ship some complete Mendel kits (these will also all ship early next week).
All small orders upto 17 September are shipped now (only few are remaining, but they have issues like wrong shipping methods etc).
But Im very, very impressed by our temporary helper James Hardiman, he worked so hard with me last few days.. it was total madness here.
So all-in-all we shipped over 100 orders in just two days, thanks James, seriously: I cant thank you enough, THANK YOU!

29-09-2011:
UPDATE: Orca v0.30 Thick sheet should be in stock next Wednesday, so earlier then expected.. so customers upgrading from v0.2 will be shipped end next week probably.

29-09-2011:
From today we have a temporary new employee: Mr James Hardiman from the UK is here to help out for at least a week, so customers can expect emails/phonecalls also from James over next few days..

27-09-2011:
I want to make something clear here: if someone files a paypal claim, then orders get AUTOMATICALLY cancelled / set complete. This is not something we do.
The webshop system (magento) notices the payment being hold (via paypal API) and then automatically makes a credit-note etc and sets the order complete.
However the order is not refunded then, since its still a claim and the money is at that time being held by paypal (not by us).
So we can still ship it and get the money, or the other way around.. however it looks (and customers think) the order is then not continued anymore. However if the claim is solved, your order gets back to processing.
I get the feeling people think we do all that.. and try to keep the money as long as possible, but thats total nonsense off course, its the system of the new webshop that works that way in combination with paypal.

27-09-2011:
First Orca v0.30 manual online (is version 0.1 and not finished yet), check downloads/2d-drawings/Manual-Orca-v030-PDF or check here for a preview:
Step 8 - Y- Frog Pre-assembly
Also the hotend v6 drawings are finally online, check downloads/2d-drawings/2D-hotend-PDF/ (v6 drawings start with HE6B_)

27-09-2011:
First Orca v0.30 workshop/build-party is now full, it will be very international: people from France, Slovenia, Denmark, Austria, Netherlands and the UK are coming over. Those people can choose themself which day to come: Saturday or Sunday, or both, we will contact those customers also soon, but workshop should start Saturday 8 October around 9am. (but do remember to bring a mobile-phone, since our gate is closed in weekends, so you must phone us to get in.)
Next workshop will probably be early November (because mid/end of October we are very busy with DDW (Dutch Design Week).

27-09-2011:
Orca v0.30 Thick sheet should be in stock in 2weeks.
People who ordered v0.2 and dont want to upgrade to v0.30 will ship this week.
People with issues/questions/changes/refunds/cancellations etc, the best is to phone us today (or in next few days) via our phone: +31 40 202 6749
(I should be here whole day (untill late in evening), however I must pickup few things, so i might be gone for an hour or so this afternoon)
Our email is still not answered, but we will start on that from today, however with a back log untill July that will take a while.. (probably upto a week)

27-09-2011:
Ive just read some forum threads (havent been there in very long time..) and ill read more soon and start replying also on them in few days, however a first quick response:
Everyone who has problems and wants to come over, coming Saturday (1 October) I will be available for help (but please first phone us to make an appointment, phone will work from today again).
But "helping" means not building the machine for you, we do expect customers to have basic technical skills. (in future we will include this also in the manual: skills required)
PS: This is also the reason why we have developed a new machine, its much simpler (& faster) to build, less that can go wrong etc.
So we havent developed a new machine to make more profit or something (we actually have smaller profit on Orca's then on Mendels..), but to solve these issues for future generation customers.
Also Orca v0.30 will have a much better manual (should be ready in 1 week) and this time all customers will get the machine including a printed manual.
The Orca v0.2 manual will also be updated coming days/weeks (fix small errors, more notes/remarks etc)

27-09-2011:
Massive email delay (from July) will be processed from now on.
Phone will be answered again from today 11am (UTC+01): +31 40 202 6749
We will start shipping orders from today again, but we do need to search whole emailbox for every customer/order (to check for refund/cancel/change order etc), so might take a while.

26-09-2011:
Separate Orca 0.2 PDF manual pages online (downloads/2d-drawings/Manual-Orca-v02-PDF)
Separate Orca 0.2 STL files online (downloads/stl/_orca-020)

17-09-2011: Well in short, its total chaos @ mendel-parts, massive delays, hardly communication etc.
There are multiple reasons for that:
- last 3-4 weeks Ive been struggling with my health, there were even days I couldnt even get out of my bed. (massive pains in my lower back, feels like electrocution..)
- Beside that we also lost some helpers, some went back to school etc, but also we noticed just way too many mistakes still (upto 25% of the orders!)
- So Im gonna do all orders myself from now on, Im gonna try to handle all email (because in the end my head contains all (technical) info, not my helpers etc.. )
However this does require alot of restructuring (something we have been busy with also last weeks) and last but not least we needed a new Orca that can be mass produced without too much trouble and can be build much easier then current Orca v0.2, so less issues can arise and customers dont need much support etc.

But all in all there are still some people waiting for their Orca or Mendel, but those should all finally ship early this week.
But if customers dont want to wait anymore and want to REFUND their order, please also contact us (read below, what best way of communication is atm) for a full refund.

HOWEVER.. (and this is were the good news starts):
Im giving customers (who read this in time) the option to contact us if they want to swap Orca v0.2 for Orca v0.30

If you now think "wtf, Orca v0.30??", then check our latest video (video from 17 September 2011 under Multimedia / Videos / Videos 2011).
(yes it was very late in the night yesterday and with way too much coffee again, so sorry for my non-understandable talking.)

Or check our catalag / complete kits / Orca v0.30 or click here
So as before, in total chaos, the best ideas get brewed...

My current personal thoughts on Orca v0.30 are these:
- why in the hell did we build so many Orca v0.2 !! lol! (however they do perfrom still ok)
- Orca v0.30 first print ever (last night) was at 180mm/s print and 300mm/s travel and was still ok quality... (check videos tonight/tomorrow)

So Im just blown away, seriously, I still have a feeling im walking in some dream with all this Orca v0.30 stuff.. also because it all happened so fast.
one evening (4 weeks ago?) at the barbecue first ideas generated, two nights CAD work, two days prototype building (WITHOUT waterjet parts, just by hand from alu plates!) and then printing with it two days later @ 180mm/s.... development here is literally days, instead of weeks.. or months

So if you are waiting for an Orca 0.2 OR a Mendel v2, and you want to change to Orca v0.30 contact us today/tomorrow/early next week about the options.
Contact us via our webmail (include your ordernr or orderdate), we will start reading the webmail again from tomorrow or contact us via phone from Sunday/Monday we should be available again)

Orca v0.2 & Mendel v2 orders (currently processing) will ship early this week.
Orca v0.30 will start shipping in 1-3 weeks.
If customers dont want to wait anymore and want to REFUND their order, please also contact us (like above) for a full refund.

02-09-2011: At this time we still need to ship 30 Orca machines and 6 Mendels. However we only need to print 15 more Orca plastic sets, rest is finished. We print 10 sets each day now and are still increasing production, today another 2 Orca's will be put in production line). So in short,: all Orca's will be printed in a few days and we should ship all machines within a week now.
So in theory we could soon start sales again, however we still need to solve some older issues first and give customers support with building / send missing parts / handle custom orders etc, so its still unknown when we will start selling complete machines again.

21-08-2011: Pictures from Barcelona / Orca build party and Jesse Kirschner @ TAC online in image gallery (check under Multimedia or: click here. We will (soon) add more pictures..

21-08-2011: As of today Ill start updating the FAQ (under Info..) but to answer a few frequently asked questions..

Q: Why are the Orca's and Mendels still out of stock?
A: Because we will start selling them with direct-shipping in the future, no more pre-orders/delays/changes etc, once ready to ship it will be put in webshop. Main reason is with long pre-order time customers start to change their minds about details or get tired waiting and file paypal complaints (with BIG consequences.. story for another time). Anyway I've totally had it with all the crap involved and therefor complete machines are out of stock untill we have solved our issues and have direct shipping on those.
Ps. Mendels might be in sale again in approx. 1-2 weeks, Orca's probably a little bit longer, however once in sale, the items can ship in probably 1 week.

Q: When does hotend v9 full kit come back in stock?
A: Same reason as above, however we have 350pc in stock, but as long as we have delay we will not put them back in stock, we should have them back in webshop in 2-4days.

Q: I want to be able to use 1.75mm and 3mm filament on my machine, what do I need to order (as addition to a complete machine or all-in kit v9)
A: We will soon have a v9 preassembled partially (v9 except heaterblock and nozzle) in our webshop (few days), that is needed then including a nozzle of choice OR you can build it yourself from parts (dont forget you need a long drill for v9 then)

Q: When is my delayed order going to ship? (not full machines)
A: Monday/Tuesday we should ship all (processing) orders excluding full machines

Q: When will my country be added to the shipping tables so I can make an order?
A: Today

Q: When will my email be answered??
A: Unkown, if important please phone us (phonenr is on the bottom of page), we will try to catch up on delayed email this week.. Also our server has had some email problems and the contact us form also didnt work for one day last week (I think it was around Wednesday/Thursday)

16-08-2011: For new orders we have implemented the "add an order comment" during checkout. In the last screen before confirming an order, customers can now add comments for notes/remarks that might be usefull to communicate to us.

16-08-2011: Finally we have fixed our issues with guest accounts. All guest accounts are now converted to normal accounts and customers have gotten an email with login details.
This also gives us the option to work via the webshop with companies that want to order excl. VAT. So as of today we will not work with custom invoices / orders anymore. EVERYONE must order via the webshop, also wholesale buyers etc.
Hopefully this solves another reason for delays.. we only have one system from now.
Current custom orders will be finished/shipped off course, but no new ones will be made.

14-08-2011: Today we will release our new firmware (its called "Marlin" under downloads/firmware) and also the full PDF manual of Orca is now online (check downloads/2d-drawings/manual_Orca).
GEN6 batch4 is in stock and more 1.75mm PLA and also new colors (more about that soon)
But we still have delay on Orca's (mainly now due to hotend v9 production/assembly problems) and there is delay on hotend v9 pre-orders.

However last Friday we finally had "next day shipping" on a few orders.. (ordered thursday evening, shipped Friday afternoon). So .. ups and downs, still delays, but also next day shipping, but the hottest news is that we now have the best firmware in the world and if you dont believe me.. go talk in IRC with Ahmet or Erik or others who know what they are talking about. ;)

Our email is at the moment not/hardly being answered (best is to phone us between 11-14h, phonenumber is on bottom of page) But please dont phone us asking about delays.. thats just not helping to resolve delays.. we are working everyday almost nonstop to solve the issues.. but there are days that we really need a person fulltime just to answer the phone. So from now on we wont pickup the phone all the time anymore. So try to phone us between 11-14h (Amsterdam time zone) or wait untill we have our email back on track somewhere this week Or just wait for a UPS email that your order is finally shipped ;)
PS: hotend v9 pre-orders should ship early this week (most of them..)

15-07-2011: Blog update coming this weekend & pictures of our new hotend/thick&thin sheet/Orca v0.2 etc.
First I need some sleep: last five days&nights I slept in total 14hours and drove 3000km..
But the Orca build party in Barcelona was/ is a big success! (its still on-going, we will post more info later, check video page for a first video (from someone else).
(Its also being live broadcasted.. maybe I can post or implement it in our webshop temporary this weekend.. to be continued)
Too bad I couldnt stay longer (and without stress in my head..), but I wanted to say a quick thanks to everybody for realising this amazing event!
And Julio thanks for your help, and Emmanuel: also thanks for the great out-of-reality-or-not talks, haha, we will surely continue on that one day, cant wait..

7-07-2011: We have just printed succesfully a testblock at 250mm/s speed and with an acceleration of 7000mm/s² (on an Orca v0.2 with hotend v9).
This was done thanks to a new custom made firmware for our GEN6, and no its not Sprinter firmware.. its a "Mendel-Parts unofficial homemade" firmware with very smart acceleration etc, it is based on Grbl (Grbl is a free, open source, high performance CNC milling controller written in optimized C), it is too early for public release, however that might not take long anymore..
more news on this and probably a video very soon, (however we need a high framerate camera to follow this, its mind-blowing so fast.. and with zero delay etc)
(for reference: we currently print on our production-line with 50mm/s (what you see in videos untill now..)

7-07-2011: blog update coming soon, also with prices & delivery time for hotend v9 (& v6 parts) etc. (it took a while, but we finally managed to get very high quality machining work at amazing prices.). Also more info on Orca delays.. First Orca's will finally ship today/tomorrow, but without hotends (will be shipped for free later). Sorry about all the delay, but Ill promise v9 is worth waiting for.. As of today all production machines at Mendel-Parts without v9 will be shutdown and upgraded, Ive had it with all those strings and v9 quality is so far more superior to v6.. But we will also produce spare/change parts for v6 for current customers. However v9 will be available at a very sharp price and in large amounts (first batch 500pcs..)

17-06-2011: ALOT of news coming very soon.. we hope to post all our (amazing) news and videos soon..
This time we will bring all the great news at once, backupped by alot of nice videos. One thing i can promise: it will amaze you for sure..

20-05-2011: The paypal issue/order not visible seems to happen when customers fill their cart as a guest, then register and then do paypal payment. So to avoid this problem for now please register first then add products to your cart and then do checkout. Else you might end up under a guest account. However we are working on a plugin to convert guest accounts to normal accounts again.. should work very soon, to be continued.

18-05-2011: The paypal/"order not visible" issue seems bigger then we thought.. some users cannot even login into their accounts after making an order with paypal. We are working on this almost continous, however it seems very complicated, only some customers have this issue etc etc.. more news very soon. But most importantly orders dont get lost and payments are made fine.

14-05-2011: The paypal/"order not visible" issue seems solved, Ive done some changes and last 5 orders went ok, so new orders placed can be seen again by the customer in the account overview, as it looks now..

12-05-2011: We have started adding products again and will continue todo so over coming days.. (will take a while since we are making new codes/checking stock properly/updating info etc). Also we have had some extra delay since we decided to put Orca parts also online very soon, so customers can see already the differences in prices and info.
However this morning we noticed an issue with paypal payments, for some reason the order placed with paypal are not visible under account information. The order gets placed properly in the system and under correct user and payments are made ok, however the order (history) can not be seen by the customer, so this is a big issue. We will look into that asap, however orders made with bank transfer are ok and visible under the user account info page.
So in short: orders can be placed and dont get lost, but its not optimal yet with paypal...

02-05-2011: Webshop will re-open in a few days, (probably Thursday 5-5), we are very busy preparing for another few hundred orders in a few days.. and this time we dont want to close again, so we are preparing alot of things. Also we still need to learn our new webshop system (which should fix alot of issues we had with old one). We might start selling Orca parts also very soon.. and maybe release first version in a week or so. New PLA colors are in (check latest video @ 1m17s for our new PLA colors). Also batch3 of GEN6 electronics will arrive in a few days, so can ship directly once we will reopen.
So while you are all waiting for us to re-open,please dont forget to check our latest videos.
ps: we dont post all videos in the video page, so make sure to check our account as well for all videos..

28-04-2011: Orca is already printing (see videos 2011 section also).. hotend v6 inlet for 1.7mm and .35mm nozzle coming in today and new load/ / colors PLA should arrive tomorrow,
Anyway the biggest news today is that ive been printing with Orca last night, and very nice quality already, check videos:
* Orca 2nd print
* Orca being build

21-04-2011: First info about our new printer published: RepRap Orca & Orca Electronics
"RepRap Orca is the latest 3D printer in development by mendel-parts.com and well in short: a cheap printer, simple/fast to build, not much hardware, very stiff and short belts, one printbed of plastics (excl extr) and... "

18-04-2011: well its about time to write something on this blog by now..
Even if i have 8 more hours of work left that is NECESSARY 100% before tomorrow and its now 11:30pm :(

I decided to write anyway because.. today something strange happened.
however i just realised it fully now and decided to use it as an intro..

somebody phoned me, someone i remembered his name from a paypal dispute..
however it was a very friendly conversation and we worked everything out.
after that we kept on talking for a while and i was amazed about the customer positive support.
it amazed me this afternoon, however while being busy all day, only now it suddenly drops to me as a bomb..

because alot of times customers arent mad at all, but they just hate the lack of communication etc.
i knew that a bit off course, but more and more i start to realise how often that is the case..
its all about communication...

so that reminds me of one of my last goals: fix our email support (again) properly.. (and after that forum)
its simply unacceptable that customers get zero response (often).
We have already started sorting/digging in the webmail and we can now browse again through the new email pages (pages= > 250...)
All old emails are archived/will be searched for important things, but that will still take a long time.
however, we will read all email in time..

But this email problem is not so easy to fix.. this email beast is hard to control, we get so weird questions and so many emails..
And not everybody can answer everything etc, its pretty complicated, so please give us a bit more time to get more helpers trained etc.
However we will start on replying (within 24h) to ALL NEW emails starting from tomorrow morning.
And lets pray we can keep on doing that from now on..

Also someone apparently wrote somewhere, that we will repsonse after a paypal dispute..
I can quickly tell two things about that:
1) it will not speed up, from experience it will EXTENSIVELY delay your order for sure..
2) We might stop using paypal, since we have big issues now with paypal, (they hold insane amounts of our money for 60days!)
So thats what will happen next.. only bank transfer maybe or creditcard or.. i dunno, but thanks..
well on positive side, i prefer one payment only anyway, to speed up and keep it simple and fast..
to be continued..
/me looks at the new webshop 2.0 "we prefer paypal" logo..

so as you (probably) noticed we were/are also busy with a website upgrade..
Dont get me wrong, this is mostly necessary, so its (mainly) for the better backend and not for the new look..
I prefer fast and simple... however fixing all (small/but time taking) issues we had with OSCommerce was just too time consuming.
The backend of the new webshop is much better, so we can easily/better do order-addons/changes/address issues/VAT refunds/wholesale etc
and keep track of stock better. We are also busy finializing our new inventory/unit stock numbers etc.
So that should solve the last issues we have with mistakes etc (hopefully).
Also in time we can fully integrate the new webshop with UPS, so we can do things like address validation and select other UPS services etc
In the past we have had UPS issues and are trying to solve those, because we lost alot of money in that..
I better not tell all what happened there.. but it just sucks big time, the problem is with our volumes mistakes are deadly/pricy..

Beside all that trouble, also one of our helpers suddenly had to go under surgery last week (that is Klaas, so please be friendly to him on the forum..)
We lost him almost fully last week and I got sick wed/thu/fri.. so it was again messed up big time last week.
So Im very sorry for all the issues lately, we should ship again tomorrow alot/most orders that are "processing UPS" now.

Anyway because of all trouble I have decided a few days ago to shutdown the webshop checkout again for new orders.
However you can already place orders in the new webshop 2.0.
But that still is a bit BETA, so might have some delay etc. However it should work and also shipping for alot of countries (more to come soon).
For now the shipping is only working with UPS regular package. (another method of us to (temporary) try to slow sales down a bit...)
Last weeks we are also busy finialising year 2010 sales/administration etc and its alot of work...
Also because of that and to solve (most) old issues we will stay "closed" for a week probably.

damn what weird problems we always have.. why me :(
but well.. dont get me wrong, im hard as rock (ac/dc..)
and thougher then the rest (bruce springsteen..)
so dont worry about a thing, because every little thing is gonna be alright (soon Bob.. soon..).

I say this also.. because I have a little suprise.. hehe.. /me smiles, more news in a week probably, but it will be our biggest news so far...

PS1: coming in next week: PLA 1.7mm NEW colors and large stock of black/mint-green 1.7mm..
PS2: customers need to re-register at the new webshop, we do this also for cleanup and fixing old issues with addresses/bad characters etc.
To make this a little bit less comfortable, we will give free product(s) (probably tools) to first 50 or 100 orders when fully re-opening in probably a week.
PS3: this is the last blog post on the webshop 1.0 so now it will be closed soon and can then float around on the internet as history in the making..
(or untill i stop paying server bills.. )

LAST 1.0 BLOG SENTENCE: Hmm.. I just realised something, because all that above means.. webshop 1.0 never officially got closed, but more like "crashed again" in the RepRap Webshop process..


8-04-2011: PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO UPS ENVELOPE DIMENSIONS: MOTORS, PRINTBEDS & PLA FILAMENT DONT FIT! (or check shipping page for info)
8-04-2011: Well since its "thought-sharing day" today, here some more funny statistics:
- We sold over 100.000 bearings now..
- We sold around 4000mtr of bar and studding so far.. (almost europe highest mountain..)
- I lost 14kg since starting this crazy webshop.. (and i used to weight only 80kg..)
- I havent cooked in probably 200 days, just microwave meals/pizza/fast food etc.
- I sleep in my bed probably once every 10days.. (rest is sofa/chairs etc)
- I am listening Bob Marley atm: dont worry about a thing, cuz every little thing is gonna be alright...
- I have 117 notepads open at the moment on my notebook.. all important todo lists..
- i have 12 A4 pages full with important things todo (just today!).
So think about that if you email me with URGENT and IMPORTANT in topic, the problem is everything is important these days..

However i know a few older customers with some really old problems / missing parts , to you I want to say, please feel free to email me again with URGENT in topic or MISSING PARTS, because those are URGENT and resending emails about that is fine.. please send to my hotmail. But we will also try to find those customers soon.

8-04-2011: Webshop is open again, but..
..we silently reopened half March, without announcing, but still soon we got over 100 orders in one day at some point..
We are also busy with new people for email/support etc, but those need to be trained (going on as we speak now..) so in few weeks those things will be better.

Anyway: we are now open again, and we might close again if things get too crazy again.. Maybe you should see us more as an auction then a webshop. Grab it before its gone, because things fly out litteraly sometimes. Also from now on you can only continue checkout if your products are in stock. Because that is another reason of alot of delay, people ordering everything that is simply not in stock.. and then complain why not shipped and file a paypal claim.
Some people file a paypal complaint after only 5days.. PLEASE PLEASE.. to those customers I want to say BYE BYE, for simple reasons, customers with patience are suffering for customers with zero patience. Our paypal account can be blocked if too many things are going on (what has happened before), so we can also not buy in new stock etc for weeks (paypal is really slow in reopening accounts), SO PLEASE THINK BEFORE YOU DO THOSE ACTIONS..
IF YOU DONT HAVE PATIENCE DONT ORDER HERE!!!
Off course we are improving alot here.. but dont forget what we are doing.. what amounts, its totally insane. we can easily ship 15 full kits daily now.. IF we dont have issues... now we need to double check every order.. no cancel? no paypal dispute? does it fit Envelope? no other issues? all in stock ? etc. if we dont need to do that, we can ship easily 80-120 orders a day incl 10-15 full machines. So we are going to try that, with new people on email etc. So in short future you might get emails from Klaas or Matthijs also beside me, Camiel. Also i want to point out once more, if you have issues with Electronics, post in the forum first, before starting a paypal claim that you cant hook up your electronics, so far in 499 cases of 500 it was customer fault.. so please save us some time and read more and use forum more. (Im still not back in forum, but our electronics partner is (Elmar) and Alan is also our technical expert in the forum and off course alot of users who can help, but dont email me and then file a complaint if i dont respond. Again we sometimes get thousands emails a week... its simply impossible to keep up with. (at the moment, we are busy thinking of ways to be able to... but is very complicated).

And again to everyone reading negative things, what I have noticed so far, its only a handfull of people (always the same ones..) that shout and shout. The other 1350 customers that are happy you dont hear.
I can tell so many stories... of us trying to help people, ship, reship parts, send free parts.. but off course you don hear all that.... And also when we dont post much on our blog etc.. its simply because we dont have time for it, i wish i could write daily what all is happening here, but i wish i could also sleep more then 2-3 hours daily.. so for now that is still not achievable.

I hope you can all understand a bit more now what is going on here and how fucked up it is here and maybe have a bit more respect and patience with us.
Because if things keep going like this.. Im not sure how long we will stay in this business... maybe some people think im happy with complaints and negative news.. well im NOT, things were alot different before October 2010. But ever since we sell complete mendels kits.. things took a complete different ride..
so please give us few more weeks and we should be able to give proper email support, for now that is still not the case. However we shoud be able to ship in roughly 1 week most parts, but if you start a complain after 1 week + 1 days.. PLEASE FUCK OFF! and its not for us why i say that, but its for the other customers, in the time we do one customer with problems/claims etc, we could do probably 10 customers with no problems..
So i would recommend: pay via paypal, dont ask for anything else.. and just wait. Big change you will have your order on time, in any other case.. things will get delayed, bank payments/custom invoices/questions etc.

And if you have the slightest doubt in trusting us or you have zero patience, please just GO TO SOME OTHER WEBSHOP, we have enough customers to help that do have patience and trust and with positive feedback (thanks for all positive support last weeks!!)..

29-03-2011: Webshop checkout is closed for a few days probably, more news soon.

28-02-2011: Website will remain closed for at least one more week, because we will not re-open untill we have catched up on all/most orders and have a 1-3days handling time again.

28-02-2011: We are finally ready with moving to our new (very big) location, but it took alot longer then expected, our phone line is back up again (temporarily, but hopefully works from now on again). We have 35 plastics sets ready to ship soon. (i just counted..)
But we are very sorry for all the extra delay this has caused. We were hoping to be able to keep shipping while moving, but that seemed very inefficient. So alot of orders (still) have delay, if you want to cancel an order and get a refund, please email me on: camielgubbels@hotmail.com with REFUND or CANCEL in the subject. If you have done this already in the past, no need to re-send, please wait for a reply, it just takes alot of time to catch up on thousands of emails..
Another method for cancel and refunding an order is to use "paypal disputes". In the past we most times tried to solve paypal disputes, however from now on we will not do this anymore, a paypal dispute will be directly refunded, because we need to speed up solving problems. If you cant wait and/or dont trust us, please just dont order at our place at this time.
The manual and STL files are on its way, the build manual will take a bit longer, but the v2 STL files will be released probably this week. Also a new load of 1.75mm PLA is coming in this week (also green and black 1.75mm PLA).

And there is one final thing we wanted to share, just before moving we were also busy developing another new hotend, but this time I wanted to have an unbreakable hotend.. so no more PTFE (weak) barrier part, but PTFE tube instead . Its in final development stage now and its called our hotend v6. All our machines are already printing on it for 3-4 weeks now, but the most amazing thing was, that its quality is much better then v5.. (which was already a bit better then v4). But that was not the main goal, but a very nice side effect. Also it is now modular, so you can also just unscrew the nozzle and replace with a smaller nozzle (even while hot!). And last but not least, yesterday we decided to do some testing, because the hotend was always the issue with high printing speed. So we did some speed testing for first time with v6 and 2.9mm PLA filament. First test was a full printbed (nr3) at 1,5x speed we normally print at. 60mm/s printspeed and 80mm/s movement speed.. and amazingly it printed perfectly, roughly same quality. We even did the large gears at this speed and its hard to see differences between 40mm/s and 60mm/s. Also this way the extruder motor can be (in theory, needs testing) somewhere else to save mass on the fast moving carriage, so that is all very promising for the shortterm future..

04-02-2011: webshop is temporarily (1-2weeks) closed for new orders. But you can still see your order history/products etc

01-02-2011: Apparently our new helpers are not paying same amount of attention to details then I was, while handling orders.. (for example: I did over 300 orders and had one mistake..)
Now it seems that every week a few orders have missing parts, with our global shipping, this is unacceptable and we have to change our system. Resulting probably in some extra delay this week.
If you have missing parts, please send me an email: camielgubbels@hotmail.com and I will personally take care of it.

31-01-2011: We will close the webshop temporarily for new orders from 4 February for at least one or two weeks.
There are multiple reasons:
- catch up on all the delays (orders/email/support etc)
- (most-likely) moving to a new (much bigger) location soon (again, 2nd time within one year(!)) so we can continue to grow..
- update alot(!) in the webshop (stock amounts/product descriptions/shipping info/alot of new products etc.)
- prepare (& release files etc of) the new complete kit 2.0
- catch up on production times on plastics, we want to have 2-4weeks max production time

This way we can make a fresh new healthy start at our new location.
But this doesnt mean we will stop printing plastics sets, the opposite, we now have 8 machines running 7d/week and this will soon expand to 10.

We have decided not to close the webshop (temporarily) for new orders today, so customers that are in need of parts have the opportunity to place new orders.

21-01-2011: We have good news for everybody waiting on a full machine including plastics. Due to the delay, we decided to upgrade all full machines (being shipped from next week) to a free heated bed upgrade (extra powersupply + predrilled bed + heaterblocks+PTFE sheet+steel springs etc), free extruder springs, and also beside nichrome wire all machines will now get the alu heater block kit.

21-01-2011: New shipping record today: we shipped 70 orders today! 40 postmail and 30 UPS orders. I still need to update all the orders, so please be patient. Also Ill be back in the forum very soon, im very sorry but lately that was just impossible. This week was really crazy, alot went wrong this week (from a small fire, to a large city-wide power out to big issues with UPS.. etc etc. Somehow it was problem coming after problem this week, but im glad we could finish this week with a new shipping record day.

Also we had issues with our phoneline here, but finally The Mendel Factory has a working phoneline now, phonenumber is: 040 202 6749.
And from outside the Netherlands (incl country code) is: 0031 40 202 6749
(please phone us at normal Western Europe times, because I sometimes sleep here and dont want to be called up in the middle of the night :P.
So the best time to call us here is probably (UTC+01:00) between 9am and 10pm, but try to avoid our stressed shipping time (4pm-7pm is UPS+TNT shipping time)

20-01-2011: Batch2 of our GEN6 Electronics have arrived, all batch2 electronics have our latest firmware (incl improved temp table of 7jan) all electronics have heatsinks now and the high pitchy sounds has been removed/reduced. We only have a few GEN6 Batch1 remaining, so we will start shipping batch2 from Monday/Tuesday next week.

18-01-2011: Mendel-Parts live stream back online:
live stream Mendel No.1

16-01-2011: Mendel-Parts goes v2.0..



Im very sorry for all the bad support lately, there has been going on alot, we kept on rolling in new developments that were necessary. Because we are working on moving to skeinforge, we discovered some issues. (Inaccurate temperature table in original firmware, longterm issues with hotend v4 etc). And solving that was just very high priority because we have alot of customers waiting on plastic parts. Beside fixing that we improved all our extruders for longterm use with a loadspread plate+ptfe sheet (soon in webshop) to use with hotend connection on lower side. Also all our machines have spring loaded extruders now.

And on the other hand I was not happy with the reviews or I should say the bad support we still have in build manuals etc. So that combined we had to make a move and start working on ways so we can deliver quality again in the future, in parts but also manuals and support etc. But for that we first needed proper 3D CAD data, including every bolts, nut etc. But once busy redrawing parts, I also wanted to improve things that delay printing (unused holes, unused material etc). Also Ive put my experience in to improve small issues i noticed with printing and/or building the parts. Im not sure everybody will understand the importance of what we did last few weeks, but I see it as a point from where we finally can slow down development a bit and focus on support/manuals/order handling. This was complicated lately, because things changed faster then we could make manuals etc. So I see it as a new start:
Mendel-Parts goes v2.0

But the downside of all this was that our support (order update and email etc) last 1-2 weeks was almost zero.
All I can say, Im very sorry, Ive been working insane hours behind the scene, but some people probably dont care about that.. but in my eyes those things were really necessary so we can grow further instead of choking on support problems.
Ill give one quick example of how Im doing last few weeks: I sleep probably 5days a week now at the MendelFactory...

now the good news: mendel-parts goes 2.0 - this is RELEASE WEEK, over next few days we roll out:
- mendel v2.0, we have improved/finetuned probably 80% of parts and made a fully parametric proper CAD model again including all bolts, nuts etc, but still (mostly) compatible with the old hardware.
(example: our new framevertex is 2x faster to print (ive done one in 22mins) at probably 80% of strenght, thanks to FEA analysis and some common sense)
This will be released as: edrawings (incl measure/cross sections), stl/step/iges files. (Check our build info page to download the latest eDrawings)
- new hot end v5.0 (this is an improved v4, thanks to our new IR camera and CFD simulation we were able to finetune/improve the design and as a result we are now also able to print at faster speeds..)
- new gen6 firmware (improved temperature table for 150-300C range, we noticed that the original temp table was inaccurate at 200-300C range.)
- new small bracket designed for a cooling fan 60x60 to mount on gen6
- complete mendel 2.0 kit coming soon (incl heated bed, hot end v5, gen6 (incl cooling fan) with latest firmware, cd/dvd with files etc)
- we will share our skeinforge settings and full bed print plates
- we will publish first manuals, BOMs etc soon in the build info pages
- we should get proper support again very soon: our phoneline should be active from tomorrow (once active, we will put phonenumber in contact us page) and email support will hopefully get back to normal too
- streaming video: we finally have a proper internet connection here since last week and can start streaming from our Mendels soon
- GEN6 electronics batch2 will arrive middle this week, there was a bit of delay, because we decided to put heatsinks on all electronics from now on
- we have also started on GEN6 electronics future development (codename: GEN6 Ultra), for now ill reveal one hint: touchscreen..

So again, sorry for all trouble lately, things should get better very soon.
Regards,
Camiel Gubbels