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The author is wrong- but it's not their fault. All the interesting things (new technologies) in 3D printing today are happening at an enterprise price scale rig

The author is wrong- but it's not their fault. All the interesting things (new technologies) in 3D printing today are happening at an enterprise price scale right now so if you're not looking too hard, it can be hard to see. Today 3D printing is eating small-batch manufacturing. Tomorrow any production run of less than 5000 units will happen on 3D printers. Bre Pettis and the maker (and investment) community had the right ideas about the future, but I believe Makerbot focused too much on how to sell a hot glue gun (with extra steps) to the public and far too little on how to make a product that was truly useful to their customers. (disclaimer: I work here https://markforged.com https://markforged.com, we're hiring)

IndianAstronaut 10y ago
I visited a 3d printing center a few weeks ago. The guy was extremely busy printing all sorts of products for hospitals and medical labs. The occasional comicon type stuff came in, but a huge demand for b2b 3d printing.
- grogenaut 10y ago
  What type of printers was he using?
  - IndianAstronaut 10y ago
    They had over 20 different ones, but I do remember seeing some by 3d systems. Did not see any makerbots.
    - grogenaut 10y ago
      I meant were they doing the more advanced printing methods like a stratasys or the light based ones or the simple extruder type ones? Or TI sintering or what?
      - IndianAstronaut 10y ago
        They were all extruders. He was talking about getting some more advanced, but that was it. It also meant he had to walk through designs with people so they could do things like have proper scaffolding and other things. A lot of people, including me, thought you could just plug a design in and just hit print, but it was more complex than that.
TD-Linux 10y ago
This is one thing that Stratasys totally missed out on. They are heavily reliant on support material and other consumables, which is great for making arbitrary shapes but not for cheap production.
ascorbic 10y ago
The article is saying Makerbot's market (consumer 3D printing) has stagnated, not enterprise.
gregpilling 10y ago
I am looking at your machines now. I can't seem to understannd why your smaller machine is $3500 and the slightly larger one with manual laser scan is $69,000. Its not like the laser scan is controlling the machine, and adjusting printing in real time. 20x price change. If I just want to print in Onyx material, there seems to be no point in the more expensive machine. The carbon filament printing is cool, and I may step up to the $13,000 machine. I just wish someone could justify the big machine - or in reality I wish it was actually significantly bigger. Double each dimension, so 6x the build volume of the small machine. It is using linear guides, it is easy to purchase them in any size needed. The pricing seems to be arbitrarily aimed at maximum cash extraction from the customer, not reality. I will probably end up with the cheaper machine. I am looking for a way to print parts I would normally machine from aluminum. It is a well built machine, however. It makes very very nice out of the box prints too. Retail quality, probably the first machine that I have seen using filaments that can do that (in the pro-sumer price range, excluding big dollar machines). It will be machines like this one with good parts inside (slides, bearings, servos) that will make 3D printing really useful. At the tradeshow I saw the machine at (SEMASHOW) , the side by side comparison to the machined aluminum parts was quite impressive. The part felt like half the weight, and had really nice surface finish.
- AbrahamParangi 10y ago
  If what you need is a regular FDM machine our $3500 printer is a really, really fantastic one. It's the least hassle and has the best out of the box prints out of any desktop 3D printer I've used. If you're looking to print aluminum replacement parts, you should look at the higher end machines. They have the ability to print continuous composites (our homegrown, weird, and very powerful 3D printing technology) which will let you print parts which are strength/stiffness competitive with Aluminum. While our $69,000 printer definitely has an enterprise price-tag, it's still the cheapest (on an amortized cost basis) way of getting strong parts with a 24hr or less turnaround. The purpose of the laser scanner is to close the loop on what is typically an open-loop system in essentially all other 3D printers. I can't say too much more about this but we're adding a lot of cool features all the time. (Obvious Disclaimer: I'm trying to sell you on the printers we make because I believe they are the best)

IndianAstronaut 10y ago

I visited a 3d printing center a few weeks ago. The guy was extremely busy printing all sorts of products for hospitals and medical labs. The occasional comicon type stuff came in, but a huge demand for b2b 3d printing.

grogenaut 10y ago
What type of printers was he using?
- IndianAstronaut 10y ago
  They had over 20 different ones, but I do remember seeing some by 3d systems. Did not see any makerbots.
  - grogenaut 10y ago
    I meant were they doing the more advanced printing methods like a stratasys or the light based ones or the simple extruder type ones? Or TI sintering or what?
    - IndianAstronaut 10y ago
      They were all extruders. He was talking about getting some more advanced, but that was it. It also meant he had to walk through designs with people so they could do things like have proper scaffolding and other things. A lot of people, including me, thought you could just plug a design in and just hit print, but it was more complex than that.

TD-Linux 10y ago

This is one thing that Stratasys totally missed out on. They are heavily reliant on support material and other consumables, which is great for making arbitrary shapes but not for cheap production.

ascorbic 10y ago

The article is saying Makerbot's market (consumer 3D printing) has stagnated, not enterprise.

gregpilling 10y ago

I am looking at your machines now. I can't seem to understannd why your smaller machine is $3500 and the slightly larger one with manual laser scan is $69,000. Its not like the laser scan is controlling the machine, and adjusting printing in real time. 20x price change. If I just want to print in Onyx material, there seems to be no point in the more expensive machine. The carbon filament printing is cool, and I may step up to the $13,000 machine. I just wish someone could justify the big machine - or in reality I wish it was actually significantly bigger. Double each dimension, so 6x the build volume of the small machine. It is using linear guides, it is easy to purchase them in any size needed. The pricing seems to be arbitrarily aimed at maximum cash extraction from the customer, not reality. I will probably end up with the cheaper machine. I am looking for a way to print parts I would normally machine from aluminum. It is a well built machine, however. It makes very very nice out of the box prints too. Retail quality, probably the first machine that I have seen using filaments that can do that (in the pro-sumer price range, excluding big dollar machines). It will be machines like this one with good parts inside (slides, bearings, servos) that will make 3D printing really useful. At the tradeshow I saw the machine at (SEMASHOW) , the side by side comparison to the machined aluminum parts was quite impressive. The part felt like half the weight, and had really nice surface finish.

AbrahamParangi 10y ago
If what you need is a regular FDM machine our $3500 printer is a really, really fantastic one. It's the least hassle and has the best out of the box prints out of any desktop 3D printer I've used. If you're looking to print aluminum replacement parts, you should look at the higher end machines. They have the ability to print continuous composites (our homegrown, weird, and very powerful 3D printing technology) which will let you print parts which are strength/stiffness competitive with Aluminum. While our $69,000 printer definitely has an enterprise price-tag, it's still the cheapest (on an amortized cost basis) way of getting strong parts with a 24hr or less turnaround. The purpose of the laser scanner is to close the loop on what is typically an open-loop system in essentially all other 3D printers. I can't say too much more about this but we're adding a lot of cool features all the time. (Obvious Disclaimer: I'm trying to sell you on the printers we make because I believe they are the best)