Here are my highlights from and 2016 - there's a bit of everything in

3D Printing
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Here are my highlights from #FabCon3D and #Rapidtech 2016 - there’s a bit of everything in there, from racing cars over affordable laser sintering to 3D-printed carbon fiber. And an oversized fridge.

Overall, the interesting stuff was happening in the prosumer and professional ranges with very little groundbreaking new tech shown off in the maker/consumer range. Does that mean our tech is now good enough? Maybe. Does it mean we should start focusing on aspects other than the pure machines? Probably.

Watch all of them here (they keynote by @Arthur_Mamou-Mani was great, by the way): FabCon3D and Rapidtech 2016 - YouTube

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I see it as the maker/consumer low end is commoditized now. My low end full kit orders have dropped quite a bit since April. The users are chasing price at the low end and would rather spend $150-200 on a Shenzhen import than a kit with name brand parts.

With smaller machines like the the Monoprice MP200 there seems to be a shift toward complete machines rather than kits. As the market scales I think we’ll see the low end ready to use machine take that part of the market.

I see the big areas of improvement/opportunity for lower end FDM being ease of use, streamlined tool chain and higher performance, lower cost electronics.