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MakerBot Launches New 'MakerBot Labs' Platform (hackaday.com)
"MakerBot just announced a new Open Source initiative called 'MakerBot Labs'," writes Slashdot reader szczys. "It is a small move, centering around some new APIs and a new extruder which is listed as experimental and not covered by their normal warranty. Largely they missed the mark on making a meaningful move toward openness, but with a new CEO at the helm as of January this could be the first change of the rudder in a larger effort to turn the ship around."
Makerbot's history is "an example of how you absolutely should not operate an open source company," argues Hackaday, saying it's left them skeptical of Makerbot's latest move: It reads like a company making a last ditch effort to win back the users they were so sure they didn't need just a few years ago... The wheels of progress turn slowly in any large organization, and perhaps doubly so in one that has gone through so much turmoil in a relatively short amount of time. It could be that it's taken Goshen these last nine months to start crafting a plan to get MakerBot back into the community's good graces.
From MakerBot's press release: "After setting high industry standards for what makes a quality and reliable 3D printing experience, we're introducing this new, more open platform as a direct response to our advanced users calling for greater freedom with materials and software."
Makerbot's history is "an example of how you absolutely should not operate an open source company," argues Hackaday, saying it's left them skeptical of Makerbot's latest move: It reads like a company making a last ditch effort to win back the users they were so sure they didn't need just a few years ago... The wheels of progress turn slowly in any large organization, and perhaps doubly so in one that has gone through so much turmoil in a relatively short amount of time. It could be that it's taken Goshen these last nine months to start crafting a plan to get MakerBot back into the community's good graces.
From MakerBot's press release: "After setting high industry standards for what makes a quality and reliable 3D printing experience, we're introducing this new, more open platform as a direct response to our advanced users calling for greater freedom with materials and software."
3D Printers and then VR and then AI. Hyped technologies which completely failed in real life.
The wheels of progress turn slowly in any large organization
Is makerbot really a large organization? They laid off 1/3 of their 500 employees in February.
I have. Had a very expensive printer at work (big engineering company) maybe 15 years ago, saw 2 prototypes that it made, but I guess people did't find it that useful and never saw any more.
Yes, that sums it up for me as well. About 5 years ago I was doing some freelancing, visited a company here in Montreal. The owner showed me around, took me to a large mostly empty room and proudly showed me a big 3D printer being set up.
Over the next year I noticed it just essentially sat there.
Seems like 3D printing has very narrow, specific valid uses, but most of the time it looks like they are good at transferring huge amounts of money towards 3D printer companies.
There are enough "old school" companies making pretty much everything you can want, it's just a search away. I don't need a 3D printer to make cases for my electronics, I simply design around available cases.
I did notice a lot of newbs on forums designing the case first, then trying to fit all their electronics in there. I mean sure, it's fun to draw in 3D and add all kinds of features, but other companies have already done this for you.
On another topic, for making quadcopters (I was into those way before they became "drones" somehow), I have a friend who cuts carbon fiber sheets on a CNC machine in his garage. That seems far more useful than a 3D printer.
Mostly random stuff.
You 3D printed your own coffin, fucked over the community and turned into a bunch of money grabbing cunts producing overpriced, unreliable crap.
Now want us to help you claw your way back out of it?
No fucking chance.
I bought into the Makerbot way back in the beginning. Good reviews, open source, highly adaptable, all the things I thought would be good things for the long haul.
Then they went closed-source, redesigned the product to make it 3 times the price and less than half the quality.
In the case of the material, that went to 6 times the price, but I haven't a clue about the quality since I wasn't willing to pay it. The replacement parts were damn expensive (They charged me $95 for a 3 foot 4-lead 24 gauge wire) and suffered fatal redesign flaws that made them very prone to failure.
I learned a lot about what to look for when I replaced the printer with a completely different one. But MakerBot burned through all the trust I might have had for them, and I definitely recommended to all my friends to stay away from them!
A 3D printer is just like any other tool. It's nice to have but it's not useful for everything. A 3D printer can do things that a CNC can't do, a CNC can do things a 3D printer can do, add a lathe and a laser cutter into your shop and you can pretty much do anything.
Same goes for having a hammer, a saw and a screwdriver. They're different tools for different uses.
#DeleteFacebook
If you want a really good printer, there's the Prusa i3 mk3, tons of amazing features for under $1K. I've also heard good things about LulzBot's printers.
#DeleteFacebook
I'm doing electronics in together with design, and our 3D printers (yes, all 3 of them) seems to be occupied 24/7.
Also, when you need half a dozen prototypes, it still is more cost effective to print them.
Yep. It's just one of many tools in a Complete Shop. I find mine useful for a number of smallish things that I would either machine out of aluminum with a CNC mill - lots faster if you don't need the strength. I have several custom mounts for various things on my bicycle that were a breeze to make with 3D printing. At work, we bought a small unit to make the little plastic bits that hold the phone handset on the cradle when mounted vertically. Couldn't find them on E-Bay, it's an older phone model that works just fine, thank you but isn't supported by the manufacturer.
Made 50 of them in three days (they break or fall off, not the best of designs).
Stuff like this is perfect for a 3D printer. Will it Take Over the World like some zealots have suggested? Of course not. Will it replace WalMart? Of course not.
But it's a neat device if you are interested in that sort of thing and the general rise of additive machining technologies will expand niches and capabilities as time goes on. So long as we don't turn ourselves into molten radioactive bits.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
How would you know if you had? The company I work for uses 3D printing for some of its production parts, not just prototypes. There's nothing to tell you that they're 3D printed if you didn't know. Rolls Royce uses 3D printing for some parts in its latest engines. 3D printing is a mainstream manufacturing method, which is used where appropriate by all sorts of companies.
Now perhaps you're talking specifically about plastic extruder type 3D printing, as opposed to the types that are commonly used in industry. The inherent limitations of that type of 3D printing make it more suitable for prototyping and hobbyist stuff than anything else, so you may well not have seen much of that around. I haven't seen too much evidence that that's going to change any time soon, so I'm personally doubtful that they will reach the point of being useful to Joe Public any time soon.
3D printers have been around since to 70's and 80's. The latest development I know is extrusions, all the others were laser/polymer, I think those came first.
Similarly at my last job, the boss has been clamoring for years to buy us a high end ($30k+) printer, and all the engineers continue to tell him not to. He gets furious because "it's the way of the future", and we tell him it's simply a tool for poor designers, who can't conceptualize things in a 3D CAD environment. For ergonomic studies, they can be useful, but our company makes industrial products that people don't usually see or interact with.
Similarly at my last job, the boss has been clamoring for years to buy us a high end ($30k+) computer, and all the engineers continue to tell him not to. He gets furious because "it's the way of the future", and we tell him it's simply a tool for poor engineers who can't use the slide rule.
That tells me more about your engineers than it does about your boss.
I'm happy that I was able to get their last open sourced printer, and I'm still pissed that my printer was the last open sourced one they sold.
On another topic, for making quadcopters (I was into those way before they became "drones" somehow), I have a friend who cuts carbon fiber sheets on a CNC machine in his garage. That seems far more useful than a 3D printer.
My son - currently 17 - went into making multi-roter frames using one of his many 3D printers over the past couple of years. We both thought it could be something. However, the time, expense, and wasted filiment when things went awry were so much more costly than just picking up a frame at the local RC store.His 3d printers - all home built- are now in the garage collecting dust. We see no future for a home hobbyist until the process, filament become way cheaper and the printing way faster.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Sorry, I didn't notice any turbines on the sidewalk the last time I took the bus.
Mostly random stuff.
Eat shit MakerBot.
I wanted one about 6 years ago. Well, actually, 20 years ago, but it was a financial impossibility until 5 or 6 years ago. I was reading about them in engineering journals for many years and never saw one up close until I joined the Milwaukee Makerspace. One of the members had a Makerbot CupCake.
I wanted a machine that was capable of printing a full sized human skull extracted from CT scan data. I looked at that miserable little CupCake, pushed on it and poked at it a little, and instantly knew I could make something much better. So I did. It took about a year and a half to get it printing, but it produced extremely high quality prints over its 305 x 317 mm bed. I used what I learned from that one and built my second printer over about a 6 month period- fully enclosed, warm enough to print ABS reliably, etc. I measure, test, and redesign until I get the machine to do what I want. I build printers like the proverbial brick s**t house using surplus industrial components and absolutely minimal 3D printed parts. I set the bed level once and don't have to touch it again.
6 years and three designs/builds later I have a CoreXY machine that can print 300 x 300 x 695 mm. I still haven't printed that skull, but I print a lot of other things. Here's one example: https://drmrehorst.blogspot.co... I have about 50 designs posted to Youmagine and Thingiverse, and countless others that I have never posted.
They aren't for everyone, and some people never get past printing tugboats and Yoda heads, but some of us do interesting and even useful stuff.
I use them at my work to make custom fixtures, we just expanded our line up of printers with some stainless steel printers to not just make fixtures, rigs and prototypes but to potentially make production components, in a business were the market is very niche and often requires one off or two off parts 3D printing metal and carbon fiber allows for huge cost reduction and potential for very intricate and complex designs with out the need for offsite machining and slow turn around times.
I have one of the i3 mk2S units, the previous model. Works really, really well. Prusa is a quality outfit that won't screw its users.