A Take on "Entry" Printers

  The most prominent 3D printers on the market today are what I would deem "entry" level printers.  They are affordable, simple, and readily available.  Starting around $300 dollars these printers can be found everywhere now, from Amazon to Staples and at every major university and hackerspace.  I myself own one of these little printers - a Prusa i3.  For only $500 dollars I was able to assemble a pre-cut wood frame with all the hardware and electronics needed to make my very own 3D printer, and I was up and running within a single day.  But why haven't these little machines taken off and replaced modern manufacturing as we know it?  What's stopping them from reaching the "printer in every home" goal of Bre Pettis, the successful leader of Makerbot?

  As I see it there are three key factors holding these machines back and preventing the common consumer from simply downloading and making everything he or she could ever need.

1) Reliability 

   The success rate of my prints is abysmally low by any manufacturing standards - and I've been tuning continuously for the last 6 months.  Unfortunately there is no such thing as a simple "plug-and-play" printer right now - each one will need some care-taking to remain running smoothly.  But to the hobbyist this probably isn't as much of an issue since the aim in owning a printer for them is not just to use the printer, but is the experience of working on the printer itself.

2) Quality

  For most FDM printers the current advertised range of z-layer resolution (the thickness of each layer) is between 0.1 and 0.3 mm.  By comparison, the resolution of the Objet Eden350 is a minuscule 0.016 mm.  That's  over 6 times as detailed a finish as that from a consumer printer, but even though this comes at the cost of well over $100,000 it's the quality and resolution which is required for professional prototyping.  Now some low end printers can in fact get down to 0.05 mm resolution, but only after months of fine tuning, often by one who is very proficient in FDM machines.

3) Knowledge

  Few people are aware of the prevalence of 3D printers, and even fewer have a working understanding of them.  For an individual to just pick up a printer at the store and expect quality prints within hours is unreasonable, but that is the promise large printing companies such as Makerbot are giving.  Even Makerbot printers, which are marketed as an easy-to-use, reliable machine, have their faults.  The same issues that plague other printers such as bed adhesion, temperature settings, vibration, and constant readjustment and leveling still affect the Makerbot.  So when people expect these machines to work great right out of the box but end up fighting them for months they become deterred from the holy grail of home manufacturing that was pitched to them.

4) Applications and Expectations

  There tends to be a "honeymoon" phase when it comes to printers in which the user ends up printing every overused toy, trinket, and gimmicky item they have files for.  After that interest in the machine fades as it becomes just another tool to be used in specific situations in the shop.  So unless the user is a continual tinkerer or DIYer the effective applications soon plummet, resulting in the negative stigma of printers being only good for those trinket items.  But if that user does have a significant use for their printer it can be an invaluable tool for model prop making, test fitting, and affordable replacement parts, among other things.

The problem arises when the user has an unrealistic expectation of the machine's capabilities and applications.  3D printers are currently most effective and practical as tools - for the shop, for marketing, or for personal projects and design.  They should not, however, be expected to replace the entire process of model making in one fell swoop.  This is where the many people may turn to criticizing printers for not being wonder machines, while in fact the machine performed as was designed but was marketed to be something it's not.


So how should these problems be overcome?

  First and foremost I believe that the first step in remedying the image of rapid prototyping machines in the eyes of the vast majority is changing how these machines and their uses are perceived.  In their current state, entry level printers are not an end all be all solution to replace traditional manufacturing of parts.  It seems to me that any great decentralization of manufacturing will not come in the next decade, but rather in the next few decades.  Secondly printers need to be marketed and publicized as what they are - tools.  They are roughly on the same plane of equipment that CNC mills are, except they add material rather than remove it.  Finally they need to be produced at a similar quality across all price ranges.  A lower cost CNC may not have as many bells and whistles as a higher end one, yet it still performs the job without troublesome, job stopping issues.


I hope this didn't come off as too much of a rant, but the current state of 3D printers is one of misinterpretations, so I wanted to make points that are grounding (or even sobering) to the people who may not yet have extensive exposure to these machines.  I hope this was an informative post, I promise the next one will be in a much better spirit!


- Cam