MakerBot appears to have gotten themselves trapped between Printrbot (proprietary, entry level) and Lulzbot (open source, more expensive). Well, and about 40 other competitors.
I own a Printrbot Simple Metal, which is a nice machine. But the simple reality is that this is not a consumer machine:
- Given a choice between driving to town to buy a part, and firing up the printer, I'll drive.
- Given a choice between buying on Amazon, and firing up the printer, I'll buy on Amazon.
Where 3D printers are awesome is when I'm in "tinkering" mode—when I've taken out my toolbox and my calipers and my Arduino and I want to make something that doesn't exist yet. I can design a part using OpenSCAD, mess with the tolerances a bit, and run off two or three generations of prototypes in an afternoon. When I'm done, I can upload the schematic and some images, and other people can download it. It makes hardware almost as much fun as software.
But the reality—at least for machines using hot plastic—is that you need to learn about how plastic heats and cools, about what kinds of shapes are easy to print, and about how to model things using CAD software.
Until the open source laser sintering printers come down in price, the only "mass market" for 3D printing will be the kinds of people who have always hung out around RadioShack and Home Depot, or who browse SparkFun and Octopart regularly. 3D printers are awesome because they encourage hacking and entrepreneurialism, not because they give you a push-button desktop fab.
Comments
MakerBot appears to have gotten themselves trapped between Printrbot (proprietary, entry level) and Lulzbot (open source, more expensive). Well, and about 40 other competitors.
I own a Printrbot Simple Metal, which is a nice machine. But the simple reality is that this is not a consumer machine:
- Given a choice between driving to town to buy a part, and firing up the printer, I'll drive.
- Given a choice between buying on Amazon, and firing up the printer, I'll buy on Amazon.
Where 3D printers are awesome is when I'm in "tinkering" mode—when I've taken out my toolbox and my calipers and my Arduino and I want to make something that doesn't exist yet. I can design a part using OpenSCAD, mess with the tolerances a bit, and run off two or three generations of prototypes in an afternoon. When I'm done, I can upload the schematic and some images, and other people can download it. It makes hardware almost as much fun as software.
But the reality—at least for machines using hot plastic—is that you need to learn about how plastic heats and cools, about what kinds of shapes are easy to print, and about how to model things using CAD software.
Until the open source laser sintering printers come down in price, the only "mass market" for 3D printing will be the kinds of people who have always hung out around RadioShack and Home Depot, or who browse SparkFun and Octopart regularly. 3D printers are awesome because they encourage hacking and entrepreneurialism, not because they give you a push-button desktop fab.