Does the market need a cheaper printer, or a better one?
I've used 6 types of 3D printers. (Extrusion type, ABS or PLA) 3 from the 'consumer' grade and 3 from the 'pro' grade. Each of the consumer grade printers was an exercise in frustration.
All the printers had ugly, clunky software, but the pro printers would almost always make the thing I wanted.
The consumer printers I've tried take 3 or 4 failures to get 'set up' then a few more tries to find the bugs most of the way through a build, and eventually you might get one nice print. (After 4-6 hours)
The difficulty of getting a good print scales dramatically with the initial footprint, and not as much with height.
I have no intention of actually buying a printer until I've seen one work that I can afford. I can't manage the cost of most pro machines, but I can't accept the headache of 'consumer' printers today.
I'm glad 3D printing is taking off, but I think we've reached an inflection point where we need to go from possible to easy.
Not only that. General stories have led me to be HIGHLY skeptical of any Kickstarter projects that make extreme claims. The more far-reaching the claim, the lower the chances I would even consider investing. This one meets my personal criteria for "I'd get a better return just burning the money, at least then I'd get some heat."
Does the market need a cheaper printer, or a better one?
These are not mutually exclusive; and I'd go so far as to argue that they are necessarily linked. You will not get better printers (within reasonable price reach) without the market growing to increase scales of production, and you won't get that without bringing in more consumers -- which is precisely what the race for cheaper printers does.
This is not the better printer you are looking for, but it is helping to bring about that possibility.
And, minor nitpick:
All the printers had ugly, clunky software
A huge section of this kickstarter is devoted to showing off their user-friendly software.
I have to agree. At this very moment I'm printing on a consumer grade Afinia, and its an absolute nightmare. I'm just printing a 4" by 2" enclosure, and all the corners are curling in and the whole thing's a mess. And this is my 6th try. You have to wonder what the testing is like at these little companies, "well, it sorta works. Let's ship 'em."
Though, $250 was just too good to be true, so I went against instinct and bought one anyway. :D
Yeah, I think you're partially right, here - but I think we're going to see a spread of price points, just as we have with, say, cameras. $500 for a small, decent printer. $1000 for a jumbo or deluxe model. $2000 for one that does this and that and the other thing, and then you move on to pro models. But it's good to have iterative hardware like this because it puts pressure on the manufacturers to keep on improving.
You are assuming that "the market" is one homogeneous mass, which it is not.
>Does the market need a cheaper printer, or a better one?
Yes. Some are in the market for a cheaper printer as demonstrated by the popularity of this kickstarter. Some are in the market for a better one. There is plenty of room for both.
Would you mind sharing which printers you've used? I'm looking at alternatives, but so far it looks like I'll have to wait at least one more generation before they get to the "just click print and wait" stage…
Well, I for one as a casual 3D printer enthusiast, would really prefer a cheap one which works with ease. It doesn't even need to be accurate to .5 millimeters, but I'll still like to buy it as long as it works for my big hobby projects, and helps me to understand and explain 3D Concepts better.
I've used 6 types of 3D printers. (Extrusion type, ABS or PLA) 3 from the 'consumer' grade and 3 from the 'pro' grade. Each of the consumer grade printers was an exercise in frustration.
All the printers had ugly, clunky software, but the pro printers would almost always make the thing I wanted.
The consumer printers I've tried take 3 or 4 failures to get 'set up' then a few more tries to find the bugs most of the way through a build, and eventually you might get one nice print. (After 4-6 hours)
The difficulty of getting a good print scales dramatically with the initial footprint, and not as much with height.
I have no intention of actually buying a printer until I've seen one work that I can afford. I can't manage the cost of most pro machines, but I can't accept the headache of 'consumer' printers today.
I'm glad 3D printing is taking off, but I think we've reached an inflection point where we need to go from possible to easy.