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Another big problem that makes it hard to raise this kind of money is that none of these FDM printers have anything that differentiates them from every other pr

by tmuir 12y ago

Another big problem that makes it hard to raise this kind of money is that none of these FDM printers have anything that differentiates them from every other printer. There are only a handful of different gcode interpreter/motor driver boards. Almost all of those boards use the same Marlin firmware. They all use Repetier Host has the PC software. They all have roughly the same printing resolution. They all use the same hotends. They all require too much tinkering, maintenance, and learning curve to ever be a mass market product. On top of that, ask any hobbyist who owns one how often they use it after the initial wow factor wears off. Most people run out of stuff to print pretty quickly. Besides Makerbot, who has the advantages of 5 years of experience and VC money, none of the low end FDM printers have any sort of moat to make new customers want their printer over the newest kickstarter project. And Makerbot isn't even competing on price anymore. Without some major innovation in ease of use, print resolution, print time, print material, or reliability, I don't see how a startup FDM printer can raise the kind of money outlined in the article.

batbomb 12y ago
Makerbot is owned by Stratasys for over a year now. They don't have 5 years experience, they have 25 years available experience to tap into.
baddox 12y ago
I agree with your general premise, and I still think it's great to have so many different designs and manufacturers. Like you said, reliability and ease of use are big problems, and it think continuous tweaking is necessary, even if most designs are more or less the same. Given time, it will become clear that certain designs are strictly better than other. There is also some genuine innovation happening, even if it is only on the very edges of the space. Things like auto bed leveling, dual extruders, different print bed materials and features, etc. > On top of that, ask any hobbyist who owns one how often they use it after the initial wow factor wears off. Most people run out of stuff to print pretty quickly. I definitely agree with this, but I'm not convinced it's that big of a problem. I bought a Printrbot Simple already assembled, used it fairly constantly for a couple of weeks, then my usage definitely tapered off. But I'm not too upset about that. Whenever I want to print something, or a friend wants to be introduced to 3D printing, I have one readily available.
- tmuir 12y ago
  Innovations may be happening, and perhaps it's unreasonable to expect major leaps, but none of these incremental innovations seem big enough to make anyone stand out for very long. It goes against the whole idea of open source hardware, but making the fruits of your R&D labors available for anyone to copy also ensures that even if you are innovating, you don't have much of a window to differentiate yourself within before your competitors catch up.
bane 12y ago
I've thought about getting a 3d printer to mess around with for a long time. But before I drop the money and spend the time, I sit around and try and figure out what exactly I'd do with one once I had it. I don't really have any useful modeling skills, so I'd be reliant on 3d models I could find elsewhere. So I go to http://www.thingiverse.com/ http://www.thingiverse.com/ and to be honest, even at the price of free, I can't find a single thing I'd ever be interested in having sitting around my house. Almost every object available is a novelty statue made by a fan of some geek favorite property, or some incredibly specific part for things I don't own. I mean, do I really need to invest a couple hundred to a couple thousand dollars and hundreds of hours of my time to print off a low quality t-slot hinge when I could just stop off at my local home deport and pick up a high quality metal hinge for $2.95? In almost every case where I think it'd be cool to have a printer sitting around in the off chance I really needed to spend $3 in ABS plastic and spend a half hour assembling a lens cap, I can usually find an actual version of the part cheaper and higher quality on-line somewhere and I don't have to muck around with anything. I'm obviously the wrong kind of audience for 3d printers as they are now. But I don't think I'm that atypical of the general audience that's out there. The economics and ROI on 3d printers don't remotely work out for anybody who's not a tinkerer. Until I can start printing off exact-to-quality copies of my favorite shoes for 1/3rd the store price, or entire working keyboards I don't have to assemble and find electronics. I just don't see much of a general market.
- tmuir 12y ago
  I think your sentiment is true of technology and tools in general. If you have a pain point that a particular tool solves, then that tool is probably a good fit for you. But if you buy a tool because you've been sold on all of the cool things you _could_ do with the tool, and you weren't necessarily looking to do any of those things before you knew about the tool, then buyer's remorse is almost certain to come your way. 99% of smartphone apps fall into this category. The internet of things, at least currently, is also an example of this. There tons of products out there that solve problems that no one actually has, but can be construed as game-changing with romantic notions and polished marketing.
  - 12y ago
rodgerd 12y ago
> Without some major innovation in ease of use, print resolution, print time, print material, or reliability The biggest innovation I've seen is a British outfit (botObjects) who claim to do in-head mixing of base colours to give proper multicolour printing.
- fudged71 12y ago
  You call it innovation, but botObjects is the exact kind of vapourware the article is warning against. Lots of warnings out there for this company.

by tmuir 12y ago

batbomb 12y ago

Makerbot is owned by Stratasys for over a year now. They don't have 5 years experience, they have 25 years available experience to tap into.

baddox 12y ago

I agree with your general premise, and I still think it's great to have so many different designs and manufacturers. Like you said, reliability and ease of use are big problems, and it think continuous tweaking is necessary, even if most designs are more or less the same. Given time, it will become clear that certain designs are strictly better than other. There is also some genuine innovation happening, even if it is only on the very edges of the space. Things like auto bed leveling, dual extruders, different print bed materials and features, etc. > On top of that, ask any hobbyist who owns one how often they use it after the initial wow factor wears off. Most people run out of stuff to print pretty quickly. I definitely agree with this, but I'm not convinced it's that big of a problem. I bought a Printrbot Simple already assembled, used it fairly constantly for a couple of weeks, then my usage definitely tapered off. But I'm not too upset about that. Whenever I want to print something, or a friend wants to be introduced to 3D printing, I have one readily available.

tmuir 12y ago
Innovations may be happening, and perhaps it's unreasonable to expect major leaps, but none of these incremental innovations seem big enough to make anyone stand out for very long. It goes against the whole idea of open source hardware, but making the fruits of your R&D labors available for anyone to copy also ensures that even if you are innovating, you don't have much of a window to differentiate yourself within before your competitors catch up.

bane 12y ago

I've thought about getting a 3d printer to mess around with for a long time. But before I drop the money and spend the time, I sit around and try and figure out what exactly I'd do with one once I had it. I don't really have any useful modeling skills, so I'd be reliant on 3d models I could find elsewhere. So I go to http://www.thingiverse.com/ http://www.thingiverse.com/ and to be honest, even at the price of free, I can't find a single thing I'd ever be interested in having sitting around my house. Almost every object available is a novelty statue made by a fan of some geek favorite property, or some incredibly specific part for things I don't own. I mean, do I really need to invest a couple hundred to a couple thousand dollars and hundreds of hours of my time to print off a low quality t-slot hinge when I could just stop off at my local home deport and pick up a high quality metal hinge for $2.95? In almost every case where I think it'd be cool to have a printer sitting around in the off chance I really needed to spend $3 in ABS plastic and spend a half hour assembling a lens cap, I can usually find an actual version of the part cheaper and higher quality on-line somewhere and I don't have to muck around with anything. I'm obviously the wrong kind of audience for 3d printers as they are now. But I don't think I'm that atypical of the general audience that's out there. The economics and ROI on 3d printers don't remotely work out for anybody who's not a tinkerer. Until I can start printing off exact-to-quality copies of my favorite shoes for 1/3rd the store price, or entire working keyboards I don't have to assemble and find electronics. I just don't see much of a general market.

tmuir 12y ago
I think your sentiment is true of technology and tools in general. If you have a pain point that a particular tool solves, then that tool is probably a good fit for you. But if you buy a tool because you've been sold on all of the cool things you _could_ do with the tool, and you weren't necessarily looking to do any of those things before you knew about the tool, then buyer's remorse is almost certain to come your way. 99% of smartphone apps fall into this category. The internet of things, at least currently, is also an example of this. There tons of products out there that solve problems that no one actually has, but can be construed as game-changing with romantic notions and polished marketing.
- 12y ago

rodgerd 12y ago

> Without some major innovation in ease of use, print resolution, print time, print material, or reliability The biggest innovation I've seen is a British outfit (botObjects) who claim to do in-head mixing of base colours to give proper multicolour printing.

fudged71 12y ago
You call it innovation, but botObjects is the exact kind of vapourware the article is warning against. Lots of warnings out there for this company.