Am I missing something, or is there still to many #FFF 3D Printers being released everyday? Is the open source nature having a negative affect on people’s creativity, basically allowing them to copy-paste too often just to make a buck?
I mean, not all new FFF printer designs are the same nor have the exact capabilities, but most do, and we all know that if needed to we could piece together a $2000 printer for $500-700 at this point, right? It’s not that FFF is getting “old” to me at this point, but every time I see a new kickstarter or indiegogo I look at my Mendel90 and say I would go Mendel90 any day of the week. It does still excite me to see FFF printers with huge build areas, designs that make it super cheap to build and 3D printers with a good meaning behind them, ones that help people in need or donate money, and designs that are open source.
Is it really the patents that are keeping people from coming out with more Form1s or PeachyPrinters? At least as open source. Where are all the SLA, SLS and powder bed open source printers? I know that engineering is really hard, but we have so many powerful minds out there that I’d just expect more, or is it that I am overlooking the commercial aspect of it where it must be shiny (or matte- black) and have pretty-bright buttons and come in a cool case which draws the sales in?
So… is it the patents, or is it just me expecting to much?
P.S. This post was triggered by this here Rapide-One off indiegogo… As it was in my feed as “What’s Hot!” How the hell does schtuff get hot of G+ anyway… It was only +28 wtih 17 shares… Nothing against them, they’ve got families to feed I’d like to think as well.
In the ‘history doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme’ view of the world, Makerbot is Apple, HP/Epson/et al. are IBM, and Apple/Makerbot just released the Apple ][/Replicator 2.
Everyone, in the whole wide world, is goldrushing onto the scene. Some will make it rich, some will crash and burn spectacularly, and Grandparents everywhere will lose their retirement funds by betting on the wrong horse.
Just sit back while your Mendel90 prints and watch the fireworks.
I guess we, and I speak of the RepRap community in general, are happy with building, calibrating and test printing to get a good end result.
Joe Public wants a CE/FCC approved box that they can connect to Windows 8 and get great prints from the first button press.
Glitzy boxes… no, highly rigid structures that can be calibrated at manufacture and material enclosures that can be replaced with ease.
What we, and the general public, are is poles apart. We get ours cheaper with the expectation that we have to put more effort in to realise it. – Fellow Mendel90 owner.
Lol nice idea if the windows software actually recognised my printer setting instead of what it believes to be the correct settings. And non of these printers that claim to be fully approved print ABS as they would require an extractor.