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Breaking Up With MakerBot
An anonymous reader writes "Sanders Kleinfeld explains how his experiences with a Makerbot device led him to the decision that 3-D printing hasn't quite arrived as a legitimate, consumer-friendly technology. Quoting: 'Waiting five hours for your Yoda feels like an eternity; you can play approximately sixty rounds of Candy Crush Saga in that same timeframe (although arguably, staring blankly at the MakerBot is equally intellectually stimulating). To make matters worse, I’d estimate MakerBot’s failure rate fell in the range of 25%–33%, which meant that there was around a one-in-three chance that two hours in, your Yoda print would fail, or that it would finish but once it was complete, you’d discover it was warped or otherwise defective. ... The first-generation MakerBot Replicator felt too much like a prototype, as opposed to a proven, refined piece of hardware. I look forward to the day when 3D printers are as cheap, ubiquitous, and easy to use as their 2D inkjet printer counterparts.'"
There are several other great 3d printers out there. The Up! I first started using is still a fantastic printer.
"I look forward to the day when 3D printers are as cheap, ubiquitous, and easy to use as their 2D inkjet printer counterparts.'"
Specifically
"Cheap, ubiquitous, and easy to use as their 2D inkjet printer counterparts.'"
I don't. :)
It's not ready for the general consumer yet, but what it represents is a complete upheaval of the modern manufacturing process. It's the primordial first step on the path to Star Trek replicators, and having to completely rethink our understanding of intellectual property rights (again).
Would you download a car? I fucking would.
So some time in the 23rd century perhaps?
Maybe the solution to the 2D printing problem (http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2010/08/25/why-do-printers-still-suck/) is just to print every page as a 3D object.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Half of the fun of 3D printers is getting angry at them. If you want one to "Just Work" you are out of luck. Some are better than others, but they all are basically hot glue guns with some servo motors, there is no feedback, no control. You can however, print some really cool stuff. Sure I would not let my parents buy one, but I have loved mine personally.
I'm still waiting for my 2D inkjet printer to be as cheap, ubiquitous, and easy to use as a pen and paper.
Even one the printing gets done, the job does not end there. It is like publishing a book using an inkjet. There are skilled steps that are required to finish the product. On the printer I used, it required that I manually removed supporting material. If the design does not take this into account, this process will lead to damage of the part. Other printers use ultrasonic cleaners to remove support material, but I hear this has issues as well.
I have been in the position to acquire some nice machines, but the support, cost, and payback never made since. I can image for the hobbying who wants to do something original it would be a good investment. I also imagine that, like my high speed color printer, it might see significantly decreased use after a period of time.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Then you get people comparing home 3D printing to word processing, as if they still don't get that you can't compare information processing to handling matter. It's not the same, and never will be.
I remember the failure rates for burning CD's early on was probably around 40%. Now if I burn a CD or DVD I don't think I've had a failure in a couple years now.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
"Waiting five hours for your Yoda feels like an eternity"
I just realized why online retail will never completely beat brick-and-mortar.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Stratasys, a company specializing in industrial 3d-printing will likely complete their acquisition of makerbot in the fall. For better or worse, this should change things in the consumer 3D printer space.
I look forward to the day when 3D printers are as cheap, ubiquitous, and easy to use as their 2D inkjet printer counterparts.'"
Super expensi... .. print head dried up, get a new one.
wonderful technology freedom
Forget the pillow cases, I'm setting my army of lawyers onto your for that broken jaw of mine you caused to crash to the floor!
This is a technology in its infancy. We're just getting good at printing with one material at a time, we're just starting to mess with printing with multiple materials, 3d printing rigs generally only use a single technique in a given machine, etc etc. Give it some time.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
only people who win are the 3D printer vendors
... we're all looking forward to the day when 3D printers only run on Windows, require proprietry model-specific plastic reels (with chips to stop you reloading the plastic) and contain government-mandated secret counterfeit detection routines.
" 'PC Load Filament'? What the fuck does that mean?"
What was it, I read an interview with a wealthy hedge fund manager, when asked about stuff he owned he said, if it doesn't make money, I don't want it. House in the Hamptons? Rented. Apartments in NY and London? Rented. Car, leased.
3D printers are like airplanes, boats, and loose women. Far far better to rent than to buy. Kinda like printed circuit boards, seriously you don't want to have anything to do with the production side of things, unless that's how you're making your money.
Extruder-based machines aren't a very good technology. The fundamental problem is that you're trying to weld a hot thing to a cold thing. Welding metals that way produces flawed joints, and soldering that way produces cold solder joints. Heating the build platform helps a little, but once you've built something of any height, the heater is too far from the action. Some of the machines have better temperature control of the build area than others, but they're all rather flaky. TechShop has tried four different brands, and they range from mediocre (Replicator2 ) to useless (the Up).
The UV polymerization machines seem to work quite well. The high-end machines produce consistent results and don't need to be watched while running. They're still slow, though. The Form1 printer may get there, if they ever really ship the thing in quantity. The ship date has slipped from April 2013 to October 2013, even though their Kickstarter funding was way oversubscribed. They also charge $149/liter for their custom resin. (I suspect that resin for 3D printers is going to be a similar racket as ink for inkjet printers. The stuff isn't inherently expensive; a slightly different formulation is routinely used for making printing plates, where it costs about a quarter of the price.)
When did rounds of Candy Crush become a measurement of time? I thought the reward of the maker movement was the process in which you can design and iterate and produce your own prototypes, not the end thing itself. Once you have your design nailed down there are more cost effective and quicker production methods.
I just can't be bothered.
easy to use as their 2D inkjet printer counterparts
There already are much faster printers, like the Ultimaker. The high failure rate might be from your individual setup, because that shouldn't happen that often.
You're trying too hard. I suggest you buy a Macbook and a latte and enjoy the moment.
5 hours is not so bad, it's a fast grow compared to some crops/trees which are 12 hours in farmville 2. Reminds me 10 years ago when you wanted to rip a DVD, would take about 8-12 hours on a Pentium 3, still, everybody was still doing it.
Get off my lawn you mainstream kids!
I chuck an absolute tantrum whenever I am exposed to an inkjet printer. They are hands down the most stupid and irritating piece of technology known to mankind. I eastimate the success rate of an average inkjet printer to be in the 7 - 9% range.
"Why does it say filament jam, when there is no filament jam!"
After a few decades of existence, they still can't get the printers to cancel the operation properly. Lol
After years of struggling with an inkjet I dumped it for a B/W laser printer. The ink was always dry every time I needed to print something and cartriges are worth their weight in gold. So should I need to print in color -- it's a trip to a local pharmacy.
So assuming that 3D printer is somewhat related to inkjet in principle but more complex, it is probably only meant for dedicated shops and some hobbyist garages, not for mass market. And even if the above mentioned issues are overcome, handling 3d designs is probably more complex than an average comsumer wants to deal with.
The failure rate on my 2D printer is at least 25%. Damn thing is brand new and can't load paper for shit.
We have one in our shop. We do development work that requires one-off parts that take considerable time to machine. Our MB2 lets us print parts that may need some finishing operations (still can't print 8-32 threads, sorry) but that save us much time overall. Yeah, it's a hassle figuring out whose slicing algorithms are best, and sometimes the printer screws up 4 hours into a 5 hour run, but on the whole, it's been really a help to us. I expect like any technology, it will become both better and cheaper over time.
This is coming from someone who built his own lathe. My experience with building my own machine tools has taught me that not only does the algorithm (i.e. tool motion) matter, but also the properties of the material being machined.
With the traditional CNC machine, the method of material removal works the same irrespective of the stock material, with minor exceptions. A CNC mill can make parts from materials as soft as waxes to as hard as steel with little more than a bit change, and perhaps the addition of cooling lubricant.
A 3d printer, by contrast, is a deposition method which depends to a very large degree on the properties of the feed stock. Even at their best, they'll do no better than a mill.
And 3 hours to make a part is ridiculously long, especially given the failure rate. A trained machinist would instead choose the best tool(s) for the job and turn it out in short order.
Just for perspective: I spent one and a half hours building a molding machine from scratch. Rather than print out the part with a 3d printer, he could have made the molding machine and molds in the same amount of time, with the added advantage that he could make an almost arbitrary number of copies. Sometimes the old ways are just faster.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
if all you want is a plastic yoda, go buy one and stop complaining how long it takes to print one, jeez. 3d printers are more suited to prototype parts, not plastic toys.
Also the price difference between the low end uPrints and the Replicator 2X isn't that great. About 2.5X. Now that the company that makes uPrint owns MakerBot, I'm hoping we see consumer printers as robust as these high end machines (that are as large as a refrigerator!)
Still took 20+ hours to print my figure on both machines.
The kit scene reminds me of the personal computer scene in the '70s. I expect rapid progress in this area. We've already seen drastic improvements in quality on the consumer side with the Replicator 2X and Form1.
I still kind of don't like stereolithography because although it's way higher detail, you can't use a support material--right? You still have to print 'fluff' that you crack off by hand?
ralphbarbagallo.com
New Thing Will Get Better Over Time
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Absolutely, why the fuck would the container for filament be called a paper cartridge?
If you spent hours staring at a Makerbot - the problem is not the device. HINT: how long do you spend staring at your washing on the line?
Maybe the problem is that most people don't have a real use for a 3D printer and after the novelty wears off, boredom sets in. I mean really, how many 5 inch Yoda head does somebody really need? Now, on the other hand, I know many hobbyists who use 3D printing to make parts for various hobbies they are engaged in that would have used lost wax castings in the past, a milling machine, or some other time consuming or costly process. For these people, 3D printing is a faster, cheaper alternative to the traditional way.
So, yes, 3D printing probably isn't ready for the average consumer. But, that is probably because the average consumer doesn't have much need for 3D printing.
I got a Thing-O-Matic, and I must say I'm really disapointed... My failure rate is much more than 30% when trying some other people STL file. Though, my own creation had a higher success rate. They finally added acceleration support, well I should say Makerbot DIDN'T... They basicly stop supporting older model and improving on them... So thanks to some hacker, they added it. But software still need lot of work, and hardware update a definitly needed.
I personally moved away from 3d printing (I still have my ToM on the shelfs), and bought a laser cuter which is MUCH MORE FUN ! I got a 99% success rate on simple job so far, and the look of the final result is MUCH higher...
But I hope for the day of better 3d printing... I can't afford any new toys now since I bought a house, but I'm sure the new high res one will be available within a few years.
Plastic cartridge?
Laser cutter? Shit I thought 3D printers were expensive. Then I looked at laser cutters. $10k for a basic unit? Fuck. That. Shit.
Wait, inkjet printers are "cheap, ubiquitous, and easy to use?"
Could have fooled me.
If you play Candy Crush Saga, you probably shouldn't be messing with 3D printers anyway...
Stratasys, a company specializing in industrial 3d-printing will likely complete their acquisition of makerbot in the fall. For better or worse, this should change things in the consumer 3D printer space.
I don't see it really changing anything.
makerbot lacks any unique technology and statasys bought them for their Wired(etc) visibility... there's a bunch of manufacturers in the makerbot grade(but cheaper) space now though.
there's literally dozens of companies now coming with better slicing sw and more user friendly electronics now though.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
We printed out dissertations in Graphics mode on needleprinters with Windows 1.03 which needed 10-12 hours and we liked it.
Kids nowadays can't wait a couple of hours until their new toys come out of the printer.
Get a grip.
I agree with AC, laser cutters are expensive. Which model did you buy, from which company and at what price?
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Wooosh!!!!
I would tend to agree with Mr. Kleinfeld. 3D printing is a tweaky, fiddly process that requires a lot of time, energy, and specialized knowledge to get to work properly. The machines are finicky, the software requires far too much knowledge of detailed printer specs and the raw materials that feed printers are produced with little or no quality control resulting in unpredictable performance from the printer and frequent recalibration.
The printer designs are not particularly well done either, especially the bed leveling. Most use screws at the corners of the bed to do the leveling. That makes no sense as anyone who has had a geometry class will tell you. 3 points define a plane. Since one point can be fixed, there need only be two leveling screws. That is what I designed into my printer and it works perfectly. One screw adjusts tilt along the Y axis and the other adjusts tilt around the X axis and neither affects the other. Leveling took about 1 minute and now I can completely remove the print bed and replace it and never have to tweak the settings.
My printer is designed to print big(ish) stuff. The print bed is 300x300mm and vertical print capacity is 280mm. I designed it so that I could print full-sized human skulls from CT scan data. If you're going to print big stuff you have to have everything working reliably. I ran into the extruder problem early on and have been working on that for a while.
There seems to be two problems with extruder failures. One is the variations in quality of the filament and the other is in the design of the extruder itself. I can't do anything about the quality variations in the filament but I can make changes to the extruder design to make it more immune to those variations. My original extruder used a gear on a stepper to push filament into the hot-end. I found that the filament would often got hung up in the hot-end and the extruder would keep trying to push and the gear would carve a divot into the filament assuring that the extruder could never push that filament again. It is notable that I have never had the nozzle actually clog- every time the extruder has hung up I have been able to manually push the filament and have it come out the nozzle. My reedesign mimics a wire feeder in a MIG welder and uses two steppers to push the filament. Preliminary tests indicate that it is working, but further tests are ongoing.
Progress can be monitored here: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/milwaukeemakerspace and on the blog at http://milwaukeemakerspace.org/
I look forward to the day when 3D printers are as cheap, ubiquitous, and easy to use as their 2D inkjet printer counterparts.
With a 25-33% print failure rate, it sounds like they're already there.
0 1 - just my two bits
"cheap, ubiquitous, and easy to use" would not solve any of the issues that he describes.
When you ask for something different than you want, you are often unsatisfied.
Using the knowledge and experience you gained from that miserable makerbot, you now have the ability to reconsider your initial idea of printing a gun...
That is, assuming you haven't blown yourself up already.
Just try the Ultimaker. You will spend some time to tune it up but it delivers the fastest (150 mm/s) and most definition (40 micron layer height) in FFF technolgy. Not for the casual user, though.
The title of the article shows the author misunderstood what a 3D printer is for:
"Printing Plastic Tchotchkes Was Fun, but MakerBot Was Just Too High-Maintenance"
Don't buy a 3D printer to print trinkets. I use mine (mostly) to print gears, axles, motor mounts, custom train tracks, replacement parts, etc. If you want trinkets, buy them from China. This is similar to 2D printers: When color dot matrix printers and inkjet printers were cool, everyone bought one to print silly signs, banners, and jokes. But the novelty wore off and "Print Shop" is no longer a killer-app for your PC.
Hobbyist-level printers really are unreliable and high maintenance. Fortunately, the next generation might be a lot better in that area.
Somebody has a case of the Mondays.
that's EXACTLY what my life was like, anon. All the way including the family vacation renderings....
except I had an A500... but still... the fact that people are doing this in real time in browsers nowadays is incredible.
But there's a lesson for us to learn... the revolution from Amiga to web browser ray-tracing is about *information* processing done with small pieces of electricity... 3-D printing is a different medium... it's physical and doesn't scale the same way.
p.s. was that a typo "It was Florida before the UPSes become affordable" ?
It seems they had reached the level of inkjet printers...
So you're lamenting that the spools don't cost 3x the time of the printer?
Farking genius.
My understanding is that reliable and affordable 3D printing is already here.
Yeah, I don't have a professional grade printer in my kitchen, but I can go to Shapeways and submit model designs or buy prints of other peoples' models with good confidence in the result.
Some people may not consider $50-$100 "affordable" but if you amortize the cost of $3000 makerbot and add in the cost of filament your locally printed model is almost the same price.
I don't know what printers Shapeways uses, but I suspect that they use something more professional than a Makerbot.
Yes, I'm sure they both use the same amount of brainpower
All the makerbot does is find the lowest acceptable bar for accuracy and repeatability...which is pretty damn low when comared to even hobby CNC XYZ systems. They can get away with it because the maximum precision the can get from the medium is relatively low as well. At the end of the day the only think that makerbot has going for it is that it is an additive process instead of subtractive.
The real devil with all 3D printing (additive CNC) is that it is, at its core, a materials science problem. You can throw better software and hardware at the problem until the cows come home. Until you solve the fundemental material science problems you will always be better off with a 5 axis mill if you want to build stuff that is actually usefull.
Could chocolate be quiet and let me finish?
tl;dr. Waaaaah bleeding edge bleeds!!!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
"easy to use as their 2D inkjet printer counterparts."
"PC LOAD LETTER? What the fuck does that mean?"
In a lot of ways, 3d printers already are as easy to use...
specifically designed for hobbyists, and he's sad that his yoda sculpture that materialized out of a spool of thread takes 5 hours?
Yoda: Print me they can not; this generation has no patience.
Diembodied Obi-Wan Voice: They will learn patience.
I've tried a few times to do unattended long prints on my Solidoodle but often enough something goes wrong partway - not only is the print ruined but a heap of filament gets wasted. Generally I stay close by and work on something else, and a couple of those times I managed to catcha problem that might have damaged the printer (e.g. snagged filament). Anyway, it's not completely dead time, but it does require a fair bit of nursing. Im slowly improving some of the mechanics and operating parameters so maybe it will get better, but it's far from foolproof yet.http://computersbds.blogspot.com/">please visit it
It's interesting that the author uses a time killing game as a yard stick for the waiting period - as if the time spent while printing was 'dead' and couldn't possibly be used for anything productive. That's his point - for the purposes of using the makerbot, it is dead time. You can't iterate before you have something, and you can't have something for 5 hours with a 33% chance that hardware failure was the problem and not the design. What we're really seeing here is the impatience of the Now Generation. What? You have to wait -thirty minutes- for something to be produced?? OMG! That's basically the same as having to wait 5 hours, right? Have these people any idea how long it takes to produce something through conventional CNC, let alone hand fabrication? How many amateurs are willing to burn virtually all of their free time for a day to do those things? Very few. Comparing your professional abilities and patience to his amateur abilities and patience is unfair (to put it very kindly).http://computersbds.blogspot.com/">please visit it