MakiBox $200 Complete 3D Printer

MaxiBox Home Page

A friend just pointed out to me that the 3D Printer upstart "MakiBox" which was crowd funded earlier this year, opened its online store on Christmas Day.

They have their mini-flagship complete printer set for sale at $200... WHAT!?

The printer is tiny but still manages a build area of 110mm x 150mm x 90mm (X,Y,Z). The $200 version does not have a heated bed; there is a $300 that does..

There are videos of the prototype makibox printing; notice that it does not use belts (goodbye backlash?)

At this very low price, it seems hard to be the loser in this deal. It would seem that even if you just used the printer for parts, you would end up with 4 stepper motors, a printr-board, and a Bowden Extruder...

Buying one now

I will report back to let you know if I was robbed or got an awesome deal



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/28/2012 12:36AM by Idolcrasher.

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FabberForge - Printing Happiness

[www.fabberforge.com]

RepRap Wiki Entry

Write up on MakiBox by Gizmag

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FabberForge - Printing Happiness

[www.fabberforge.com]

I saw Makibox before, and thought that they sounded quite ambititious, but it seems they have delivered on what they promised. I guess if you reduce size you can get some cost saving all round, but at $200 that's a price point which could really sell a lot.

One thing they have backed away from is an integrated pellet extruder, that is now offered as a seperate product [makibox.com], but still $150 is a pretty good price.

They also created their own crowdfunding site to fund the project, they have been busy!

Makibox seem to be joining all the dots, the question is now can they deliver reliable performance and in volume?

The firmware is a Sprinter fork so motionplaner is not as good as Marlin

I imagine you could be right. But then again, perhaps because it uses drive screws instead if belts, the careful acceleration of marlin may not be as important?

The parts produced shown on their site look a bit messy, not very clean. But then again if you have a limited budget you can't beat $200.

tmorris9 Wrote:
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> The parts produced shown on their site look a bit
> messy, not very clean. But then again if you have
> a limited budget you can't beat $200.


Too True.

Also, me thinks that with some simple Slic3r tweaks that smooth parts are in arms reach

Print quality looks terrible in those videos. I'm guessing A6 = Alpha6. He mentions the Beta boxes will have better quality. Beta = B6?

Awesome price point. If he can get the quality up and maintain his supply chain and keep his delivery dates, we'll see these in every home inside 5 years. That's a lot of ifs. I wish him good luck.

On a side note... I like his design. No moving motors. Seems smart. I think a clever engineer can get the weight of the upper assembly down even further and use much smaller motors. Probably optical encoders and regular brushed DC motors can be used.

Seems like moving the heated build platform is a bad idea though. The weight on that platform increases with print size. Better to move the X/Y assembly up and down as the weight on these parts is always a constant.

I assume A6 refers to the ISO paper size for the build area. I.e. half of A4 in each dimension.

Looks like it has no proper bearings and the pairs of rods that guide the head are only driven at one end. That doesn't look mechanically sound to me and I expect that is why the build quality is bad.

Moving bed is fine for small machines but above about 200mm it becomes less practical.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

@NopHead

I will probably try out the printer "as is" at first, but will probably make tweaks and changes over time.

Right off the bat, are there any changes you would make to the design?

I read somewhere that Makibox will open source the design files, if so I expect the OS community will get in there and make some useful tweaks. Makibox had a successful crowdfund without a working prototype, which is not bad going.

I suspect they may have cut the part count aggressively and compromised on print quality, perhaps like printrbot. I wouldn't like to try standing on it anyway

Quote

Right off the bat, are there any changes you would make to the design?

No I simply wouldn't use that design or try to sell a machine for $200. It isn't enough money to make something that works properly and a profit. You need to drive both ends of the moving arms unless they are infinitely stiff and there is absolutely no angular slop in the bearings at the driven end. That would mean twice as many lead screws and motors., or do it with a pair of belts like Ulitimaker does. But then that also costs more.

Proper bushings only last a few days in my experience, so no bearings at all is not going to run for long. The only way you avoid slop is with preloaded bearings.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2012 04:04AM by nophead.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

bobc Wrote:
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> I read somewhere that Makibox will open source the
> design files, if so I expect the OS community will
> get in there and make some useful tweaks. Makibox
> had a successful crowdfund without a working
> prototype, which is not bad going.

They said they'd release it once they hit 1000 orders. They announced a number pretty close recently and there has been a lot of press in the last few days.

They certainly are an optimistic bunch. Their pellet (to filament) extruder is already available for ordering even though they only have a very rough sketch drawn a couple of days ago.

Frankly I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic when talking about print quality.

Kept talking about how nice the printer was while posting pictures of garbage.

I give him props for tooling around on the bottom end of the spectrum

I doubt every printer needs to be able to withstand the weight of a man standing on it

Looks like they need to spend some more time doing their homework and experimenting to me. Who is going to give $150 for something that is drawn in a hand sketch on a piece of paper. Heck i got tons of hand sketched ideas, anybody want to fork over $150 for one? This is all something i would expect to hear from a kid who has no experience or knowledge of what it takes to run a business or to manufacture a product in mass quantitys. Come on people, do you seriously think this is going to fly? Who the heck paid these guys $200 for something that is nothing more than somebodys half built dream? I feel sorry for the people that give their hard earned money away on things like this, then again. Nope.

I wish them nothing but the best in their endevor. I hope they make a fool out of me for the comments but im not holding my breath.

GITRDUN Wrote:
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>Who the heck paid these guys $200 for
> something that is nothing more than somebodys half
> built dream?

Apparently a lot of people. The initial Makibox campaign video showed nothing more than a cardboard mockup and a CAD animation and they got a whole lot of funding from just that.
[techcrunch.com]

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2012 06:06PM by billyzelsnack.

I couldn't agree more. When ever have you seen someone sell a product that doesn't exist yet? Just because it is a different strategy, doesn't mean it is better or likely to work. That said, very ballsy and I admire that.

Also, I've always considered the economics of a 3D printer business, and knowing the raw price of 3D printer filament and components, especially the acrylic and motors and electronics, I can tell you their markup is 20%, at best, not including labor. This business will close as soon as they actually start scaling up and realize - holy crap - we can't even make a few printers.

Case in point, we flagged SD2 as being costing too low ($200) to afford labor at the $499 price point, and they bumped the price up $100 after getting some initial traction. All while prices in this industry tend down, so they have to do it out of necessity of labor costs. My guess - Makibox will not be able to deliver, or will suffer greatly for it and fold after closing out the kickstarter with more money spent than earned - no question in my mind.

Meanwhile, anyone know what their thin-film heater element is, or where to get one?

Also, Seems like a great design, lot of clever work going on there, just horrid economics. Its basically a non-profit.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2013 11:11PM by Simba.

Simba Wrote:
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> Case in point, we flagged SD2 as being costing too
> low ($200) to afford labor at the $499 price
> point, and they bumped the price up $100 after
> getting some initial traction. All while prices
> in this industry tend down, so they have to do it
> out of necessity of labor costs. My guess -
> Makibox will not be able to deliver, or will
> suffer greatly for it and fold after closing out
> the kickstarter with more money spent than earned
> - no question in my mind.

Does it make a difference to the economics that Makibox already have a manufacturing facility based in China? They have access to cheap parts and labour. It's just a hunch, but I think Makibox have done their homework on the cost side. Again a hunch, but it looks like they are still learning the ropes when it comes to FDM printing, so the question mark for me is how much the quality will suffer.

If anyone can get the engineering right, I think there are big rewards waiting at the $200 price point. Because Makibox are taking pre-orders, there is no visibility of the success or otherwise of the campaign unlike crowdfunding. To be honest, I think it is the vendors selling yet another Mendel clone in the $800 - $1200 range who are going to struggle. If Makibox don't succeed with cut-price printers, someone else will.

Quote

Also, Seems like a great design, lot of clever work going on there,

Strongly disagree. The fundamental mechanics of their design are terrible. Nophead hit the problem on the head in his earlier post.

All this guy is going to accomplish is bilking a bunch of people who don't know any better out of their money, and turning them off to 3d printing when they have a terrible first experience.

You have to love forums of all types. Every internet forum I've been on has the same rhetorical comments. Person "A" starts thread. Person "B" flames such thread. Person "C" says "X" about capabilities of such object in thread. Then the inevitable happens. All of the speculation is wrong and then the trend continues on next thread.

This goes for racing forums, car enthusiast forums, hobby forums, etc....

A psychology major could do a complete thesis using internet forums.

I reserve my negative comments until after they fail... That way if they succeed I can say I told you so, even though I didn't......

Well, then allow me to shift gears and suggest that everyone with the ability/desire to do so, contact the MakiBox creator and offer their expertise on the subject.

If I am correct in believing that [MakiBox] is an open source project, and we all want dirt cheap 3D printing capabilities; are we not better served as a community to help this designer?

Your thoughts?

Hell, we are all merely speculating on his capabilities and resources. If he really does own factories, or if he has a ton of money/resources/time to spend on legitimate "basic" RepRap research then potentially we all benefit from his successes.

I'm more interested in their filament extruder. If it produces decent filament with accurate widths.
Upon looking over the highschool drawn notebook plan, I really do not see nearly enough parts to produce accurately extruded plastic.

I've been looking around some of the solutions currently in work, and I'm waiting for a reliable design with at least one set of custom manufactured round rollers capable of producing filamint accurate to .1mm or more.

xclusive585 Wrote:
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> I'm more interested in their filament extruder. If
> it produces decent filament with accurate widths.
> Upon looking over the highschool drawn notebook
> plan, I really do not see nearly enough parts to
> produce accurately extruded plastic.
>
> I've been looking around some of the solutions
> currently in work, and I'm waiting for a reliable
> design with at least one set of custom
> manufactured round rollers capable of producing
> filamint accurate to .1mm or more.

My kit here:

[www.soliforum.com]

Doesn't need output rollers, and I maintain +/-0.05mm.

Here's one of the beta testers: (He found tolerance is +/-0.03mm)

[www.youtube.com]

Just so you know I'm not making this stuff up.

Quote

If I am correct in believing that [MakiBox] is an open source project

To find out, find these sources. My guess is, you won't find any, because about none of the people with commercial interests provide sources before actually shipping, if at all.

Quote

are we not better served as a community to help this designer?

You can help people like me just as fine. My goal is to make electronics more affordable not by using lower quality parts, but by finding simpler, DIY-able designs. Electronics now, full machines in preparation: [reprap.org]

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

I found an announcement he made saying the MakiBox goes open source after he sells 1000 units.

I dig your electronics work btw

xclusive585 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm more interested in their filament extruder. If
> it produces decent filament with accurate widths.
> Upon looking over the highschool drawn notebook
> plan, I really do not see nearly enough parts to
> produce accurately extruded plastic.
>
> I've been looking around some of the solutions
> currently in work, and I'm waiting for a reliable
> design with at least one set of custom
> manufactured round rollers capable of producing
> filamint accurate to .1mm or more.

All filament extruders get well below .1 mm tolerance - the one on your 3d printer makes .35 mm with nearly .02 mm accuracy = standard deviation. Crappy extruders everywhere can hit .03 made with little control or expertise.

Simba Wrote:
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> All filament extruders get well below .1 mm
> tolerance - the one on your 3d printer makes .35
> mm with nearly .02 mm accuracy = standard
> deviation. Crappy extruders everywhere can hit
> .03 made with little control or expertise.


This isn't quite true. Apples and oranges comparing a 0.35mm nozzle to a 1.75 or 3.0mm nozzle.