Commercial 3D printers now available for everyone?

I've been building a prusa mendel reprap, and have spent about $600 so far. I see that at the CES show there are at least two commercial 3D printers being showcased, selling for $1,200-$2,000 USD. About the same as a nice TV.

See:

[www.wired.com]
and
[www.smartplanet.com]

Early and semi-early technology adopters will scoop these up like crazy at those price points. Have we seen the turning point? $200-$500 commercial printers available this year or next? Will Apple come out with an "i-3D" soon?

Other than the fun of building something, will there be a need for homebrew 3D printers?

They are not commercial machines in the sense of how the term is use in the RepRap world. The first one is just the newest makerbot bot and the second one is another Up / Mosaic copy. Just people selling out an amazing project.

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I agree with Sublime, this is nothing new. The UP! has been available since 2010(?). I can't seem to find any info whether the new cupcake is a kit or comes assembled. If it's a kit, that's absolutely nothing new. Only pre-assembled it seems. The dual extruders are nice though.

The interest is growing at an insane rate, and there will of course be a lot of companies who want to get their part of the home 3d-printing market. We can look forward to many more printers like these, at lower and lower cost.

But $500 for a complete commercial printer in a year? Possibly, though I'd guess it wouldn't be very good compared to what a RepRap can do.

> Other than the fun of building something, will there be a need for homebrew 3D printers?
A need? None of these printers can print or fix themselves, which is a huge point for me personally. And although it's not very visible to outsiders, RepRap is what started, and what have been pushing this entire movement forward, technologically speaking! Smaller electronics, better software, better extruders, the list is endless. If it was up to a commercial company to control the technology, and if it wasn't open source, they would not have developed past the cupcake, so to speak. A need? Yes, definitively! And because the commercial printers are based on RepRap GPL-sources, they can't patent their machines, so we can copy ideas back-and-forth, and all benefit from it! Great, huh?

DIY printers will always have the possibility of being bleeding edge, especially with a RepRap which you can easily upgrade. Not to forget many people buying a commercial printer might want to print a RepRap when the other one gets outdated or expensive to repair.

It's just like there's not really a financial benefit to building your own PC. And although it has changed, and doesn't require soldering and programming your own OS like it did for the early adopters, there's still an enormous market. I think we will see more of the same change with 3D printers.

I'm still waiting for a big company to step up and mass produce parts specifically tailored towards the RepRap crowd, like extruders and electronics. The sellers we have today do it on a smaller scale or as hobbyists.


Also, even though the rich markets of the world will be overrun with cheap commercial printers, most people globally don't have the money to buy a $500 (or even $200) commercial machine, and for them the only option is a RepRap or a RepStrap.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2012 07:44PM by Nudel.

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-Nudel
Blog with RepRap Comic

I noticed many of the parts shown with the cubify printer were NOT printed on the printer...

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www.Fablicator.com

Yes, cubify is being somewhat dishonest (or at least misleading) in what they are showing.

Gotta say this, and the wide variety of derivatives, is what got me here. If something goes wrong with the hot end, I've got half a dozen other domestic vendors selling varieties that I can adapt.

Meanwhile, my first [kit] printer developed a problem that eventually lead to me having to order replacement parts from overseas, either at insanely expensive but fast shipping or (the option I picked) insanely slow but not too expensive. And that's a pretty good compromise: I'd hate to see the 3d printer fallout in 3 - 5 years when all the new designs and kits coming out today start getting pruned by companies going out of business, and those who bought are left without any easy way to keep them running when things break. Remember how many different kinds of personal computers there used to be?

The best part is that nothing for RepRap is single source and doesn't have that kind of constraint, and I'm not talking about just being open hardware but from people actually running businesses supporting it. It's all about genetic diversity to make a stronger species.

Nudel Wrote:
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> > Other than the fun of building something, will
> there be a need for homebrew 3D printers?
> A need? None of these printers can print or fix
> themselves, which is a huge point for me
> personally.

Gosh I hope in 3-5 years the printers will be inexpensive enough and of high enough precision/quality you won't want to repair your old dinosaur of a machine

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www.Fablicator.com

Considering that there are enough printers cheaper than a good DSLR or laptop, i'd say 3d printers are cheap already. I have at least two hobbies that i've spent more money on than my printer, and i'm not a rich man. of course, it's not "developing world" cheap, but most high tech projects aren't.

I don't think you could make a 3d printer cheap AND idiot proof. idiot proof is going to require too many sensors.

(Cough) inexpensive professionaly produce plastic parts you say? Check out our open source H1 at seemecnc, were still pretty new, but have about 140 machines sold and shipped out.

One thing for sure is , this will definitely open the doors for more creative people to help advance the Reprap project. With a good first printer, they can print good enough parts to test and begin moving reprap ahead so it stays the PIONEER of the 3D printing rhelm and keep reducing the costs of production. Big corporation is taking over fast. Be it makerbot, or 3dsystems Cubify. But if they beat Reprap to making the first Metal printer, or plastic filament recycler maker, then we can see it as a reprap community loss.

Rock on community. lets keep it going!

Ah, at last someone noticed that cubify thing is another 3D systems frontend.

Those guys have an hyperactive communications department ! I'm nearly tempted to launch a new 3D printer startup company, in order to get bought off too

Nudel Wrote:
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> I'm still waiting for a big company to step up and
> mass produce parts specifically tailored towards
> the RepRap crowd, like extruders and electronics.
> The sellers we have today do it on a smaller scale
> or as hobbyists.

I'm particularly wondering if someone in China or HK is going to start selling RepRap kits. People like mixshop.com have decent prices on kits but the shipping really be a killer if they aren't local. This isn't mixshop's fault of course, shipping from most developed Western countries is expensive.as I'm sure many have experienced when buying stuff in general. E.g. 3-5kg for mixshop is C$83 for surface. 3-4kg is C$130 for air for international shipping. Meanwhile Hobbyking (one of the sites I know with large weight shipping from HK/China) is US$47.23 for Singpost Airparcel 4kg or US$46.25 for 3.999 kg for Air Parcel.

And of course being closer to the source and having lower labour costs they would also likely be able to sell the products cheaper. Many of the parts I'm thinking of are already mass produced, it's more about source and collecting them. A lot of the stuff is probably buyable from China/HK if you try hard enough, but putting it together from several different suppliers is difficult and wouldn't necessarily end up being cheaper.

I've been semi following RepRap since 2008 and was hoping this would have happened by now but so far all we seem to have is people selling filament like that reprapcn.com person on these forums. And one or two Chinese sellers producing 3D printers of their own but not simple kits. And still a novelty so they're expensive, often more so those from Western RepRap suppliers.


> Also, even though the rich markets of the world
> will be overrun with cheap commercial printers,
> most people globally don't have the money to buy a
> $500 (or even $200) commercial machine, and for
> them the only option is a RepRap or a RepStrap.

Having said that on the final point you mentioned it wouldn't surprise me if commercial 3D printers drop below a RepRap for a few years (currently it seems clear putting one together yourself is cheaper, ignoring the putative cost of your time, then buying a preassembled one). Mass production (and China or other developing country assembly) does have its advantages, from what I've seen the CES stuff is still only limited production.

I think we're still a way ago from being able to cost less then US$200. If you can't afford a US$200 commercial printer, you probably can't afford a US$300 RepRap, even if you can modify and fix it yourself more easily. The electronics and motors in particular are something which seem to be a while away from using having a good non vitamin solution.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2012 02:14PM by Nil Einne.

A note on the Cubify printer, just do a search on the forums about Botmill and their customer service. Cubify is basically the "shiny & presentable" front end of Botmill, both of which are 3D Systems companies. I feel their Cubify printer is taking advantage of people who don't know any better, it's just a [pp3dp.com] printer for which they are making you subscribe to a website to download designs (guess they haven't heard of Thingiverse) and have a "cartridge" system to tie you into buying filament from them at outrageous prices. And all questions regarding the openness of their printer or software are unanswered.