Solidoddle isn't too solid

[Mooselake]

Solidoddle's closing it's doors.

Partway down the article is an interesting statement, "Despite spending months in China building the partnership, training workers, and inspecting finished units, the factory shipped units which did not live up to our standards."

I haven't checked Tiko's KS page for a while, but there's some parallel's between both products manufacturing.

Kirk

[orangefurball]

That's a shame.

I almost bought a Solidoodle as my first printer, had been going through checkout entering my card details when I checked Amazon and saw what launched my 3D printing obsession, the legendary Printrbot Simple.

I wish them the best of luck in whatever they go on to do. It seems like they bit off more than they can chew, especially with moving manufacturing to China.

[cacb]

Solidoddle's closing it's doors.

I had a colleague who got me interested in 3D printing. He ordered a Solidoodle, but before he managed to lay his hands on it I had received my (much delayed) Printrbot. My colleague told horrors about the solidoodle, he had to return it. Now he has a Printrbot.

[Boss_Hoss]

I pre-ordered the press back in the day. After I received it 6 months later it was such a disaster, both mechanically and software wise. Their support flat out refused to acknowledge that their machine was flawed and the soliforum community took it upon themselves to fix it for them. Some users had to modify the machine so much that the only thing left was the outer shell. Absolutely nobody was able to get a single print from the machine straight out of the box, as much as Solidoodle wanted to advertise this thing as "plug-and-play." there was so much play in the Y-axis belts that my circles came out ovals, with no built-in way of adjusting tension; it was pure comedy.

Long story short, I ended up getting rid of that POS and getting my PSM. Holy crap talk about night and day difference. Good riddance....

[plexus]

I read the article and they talked a bit about a slowing trend in the "consumer" 3D printer space. I can see this with this forum in the stats which have tapered off but remain stable at lower usage levels. Makes sense - a period of saturation and then slower growth.

[thawkins]

I read the article and they talked a bit about a slowing trend in the "consumer" 3D printer space. I can see this with this forum in the stats which have tapered off but remain stable at lower usage levels. Makes sense - a period of saturation and then slower growth.

I suspect the issue is that the industry is running out early adopters like ourselves, and has not developed enough to be the consumer product that it needs to continue growth.

In the last few years I have been involved it has largely not changed, sure there are some better machines around, but they are not fundamentaly different to the very early machines, the proto-repraps.

Unless the machine designs make a significant leap forward into something that is much faster, less expensive, more reliable, repeatable and easier to use they are not going to cross the barrier from technical toys, to everyday appliances.

Also for the first 5 years, the industry has had free access to open source designs for controllers, firmware, slicers etc, but as we move into 32bit world's, and need more capable tools, those OOS products are drying up. Companies that build thier own solutions are wrapping them up as proprietary solutions, which is thinning out the herd, the days of being able to kick-start a product with a fistful of open-source products is drawing to a close. I know most people don't fully appreciate open source, but it created this industry at this price bracket, without the reprap and Marlin on 8 bit AVR boards, Printrbot would not exist.

[plexus]

I agree with you thawkins. I don't think FFF is appropriate for the success criteria you mention, for all the reasons we know. SLS is more probable however but even the best SLS machines seem to require a lot of maintenance and tinkering. I may be proven wrong, but I just don't think 3D printing is something the average consumer will get a net-benefit from 3D printing or even has a general need for it, considering all the constraints and dependancies. 3D printers are fabrication tools, like lathes and milling machines - consumers don't need that kind of thing.