It’s hard to overstate the impact desktop 3D printing has had on the making and hacking scene. It drastically lowered the barrier for many to create their own projects, and much of the prototyping and distribution of parts and tools that we see today simply wouldn’t be possible via traditional means.
What might not be obvious to those new to the game is that much of what we take for granted today in the 3D printing world has its origins in open source hardware (OSHW). Unfortunately, [Josef Prusa] has reason to believe that this aspect of desktop 3D printing is dead.
If you’ve been following 3D printing for awhile, you’ll know how quickly the industry and the hobby have evolved. Just a few years ago, the choice was between spending the better part of $1,000 USD on a printer with all the bells and whistles, or taking your chances with a stripped-down clone for half the price. But today, you can get a machine capable of self calibration and multi-color prints for what used to be entry-level prices. According to [Josef] however, there’s a hidden cost to consider.
From major development comes major incentives. In 3D printing’s case, we can see the Chinese market dominance. Printers can be sold for a loss, and patents are filed when you can rely on government reimbursements, all help create the market majority we see today. Despite continuing to improve their printers, these advantages have made it difficult for companies such as Prusa Research to remain competitive.
That [Josef] has become disillusioned with open source hardware is unfortunately not news to us. Prusa’s CORE One, as impressive as it is, marked a clear turning point in how the company released their designs. Still, [Prusa]’s claims are not unfounded. Many similar issues have arisen in 3D printing before. One major innovation was even falsely patented twice, slowing adoption of “brick layering” 3D prints.
Nevertheless, no amount of patent trolling or market dominance is going to stop hackers from hacking. So while the companies that are selling 3D printers might not be able to offer them as OSHW, we feel confident the community will continue to embrace the open source principles that helped 3D printing become as big as it is today.
Thanks to [JohnU] for the tip.
I hear people talking a lot about Voron, but haven’t investigated it yet… How does it compare to modern commercial desktop FDM printers?
You can make a competitive machine (feature wise) from the Voron designs. You can even make it better (for your specific use case). It’s most likely a bit more expensive than a commercial one and a lot more tinkering is involved. If you want to just print a pretty thing you saw on the net: get a commercial printer and rely on support and spare parts. If you have a specific use case or love the challenge: build your own Voron/RatRig/etc.
You can also buy a complete Voron from a company that builds them and then rely just on COTS (commercial off the shelf) parts and not proprietary parts.
COTS is Voron design ethos.
You kept buying electronics, steppers, ICs, hot plates and everythig else from china, now they’re fugging you without a lube. Who could’ve predicted that?
You enabled chinese by buying cheap clones of STM32 microcontrollers instead of genuine stuff made by STmicroelectronics in their EU fabs.
i think i agree with the punchline at the end of the article
i feel like when something becomes truly popular, people get a funny view on it. 15 years ago, it was a thousand people hacking on it and 0 people buying off the shelf products and now it’s a thousand people hacking on it and a million people buying off the shelf products. and people are crying about the end of the hacking, but truly it didn’t go anywhere.
same pattern happens again and again all over technology.
i started with a reprap kossel kit a decade ago, and when it died i bought an off the shelf printer. but i was really barely hacking on it…i did print replacements / upgrades for a lot of the components, but that was because they were crap, not because i had novel ideas about how they should work. i was just copying the real innovators then, and i’m just paying a company to copy them now.
only regret i have is i bought a fancy hot end i never bothered to install, and now i probably never will because the stock hot end on my $170 printer is so nice!
I’m still using my scratch built Mendel90. Except I’m not because I have upgraded it multiple times. I suppose it is a little less open source now than it used to be because my current extruder is not. That’s about it though.
If I was convinced to buy a factory built closed-source printer… it would be one that I felt I could work on. And as time went by I would be keeping it up to date by applying open source upgrades.
I’m kind of reminded of the desktop wars by this discussion. Linux desktops hold a very small minority share right? That is so often the excuse for hardware or software manufacturers not supporting it. But I started using computers in the 80s, I remember that. There were companies making money then. But how many people had a home computer in those days? Probably fewer than run a Linux desktop today. It didn’t make it un-profitable!
Long live OSHW!
A harsh reality is that if you make something commercially successful that others can freely replicate. You will get a lot rushing in to do just that. Exploiting more favorable logistical/labour conditions and not having to invest Time and resources in its development to undermine you in the market. With the constant risk that eventually a party may seek to hijack the development and wield patents to force the market into becoming practically “theirs”.
And yeah. While quite a few will care and stick by your creation out of principle. Most people are just conditioned to go for whatever seems like a good deal with no care about what went behind it. Even if knowing that can avoid regrets later like BBL’s little stunt where they locked down an API to only listen to their own apps.
I found it really strange that Joseph was using the Chinese firms’ patent applications, which surged in 2020, to tell a story about uncompetitive behavior. The number of patents issued are usually used in economics as a proxy for innovation.
I’d bet my bippy that the top yellow line in # patents is Bambu, and I’d bet that a good percentage of those patents actually represent actual innovation. I bet 2nd-highest is Creality. They’re not sleeping either.
The big Chinese firms are focusing not on copying, like they used to, but on pushing out new features — at least as far as reliability and ease-of-use are concerned. And that used to be Prusa’s niche, so it’s no surprise that they’re feeling the heat.
Whether they have unfair advantages in the form of gov’t support, I can’t say. They certainly have a home-turf advantage by being located in Shenzhen, like the US computer firms used to have in Silicon Valley.
But as always, the real innovation — the real left-field, wacky new ideas stuff — comes from our community, and we see that every week on Hackaday. Whether this is good for business, either Prusa’s or Bambu’s, is kinda moot for us?
“Many similar issues have arisen in 3D printing before. ”
Reminds me of MakerBot’s story with Bre Petis announcing in 2012 that their next 3D printer will not be open source
https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/pulling-back-from-open-source-hardware-makerbot-angers-some-adherents/