Tiko 3D

[PxT]

Yet another Kickstarter printer, at a very low price:
http://www.tiko3d.com

[Mooselake]

The price is good (even including the $65 shipping), and they're well on their way towards being another million dollar Kickstarter 3D printer project. I wonder if they can actually make them for that little, or they'll end up like a lot of other low budget KS 3D printer projects that don't meet expectations or essentially (or completely) fail. It doesn't help that they look a lot like a Buccaneer. They claim December delivery, so expect one in about a year or so, if not two or three. By then you might be able to buy a mass produced 3D printer in WalMart.

I like the basic design and use of injection molded parts (but getting the tooling and parts made is tricky and expensive, worse if they didn't have design help from somebody who is familiar with both injection molding and the type of mechanics in that delta). It's a bit worrisome they start calling extruders "liquefiers" and do away with cooling in an enclosed chamber with no obvious ventilation. Comparing their production cost with consumer devices made in multi-million quantity by experienced manufacturers is another red flag. The pop-off plastic print surface is isn't. Proprietary software is not the place for a startup to waste their time when there are so many other options, and is a distracting waste of their resources.

One of my daughters (a medical devices entrepreneur) has been in a couple of those business accelerator programs, so their company potentially has help when they run into problems. Looks like Tiko got marketing help from theirs.

I wish them a lot of luck and hope I'm wrong (y'all know I'm cynical about these...). If you're a gambler order one.

Kirk

[Mooselake]

[etxbkst]

You should check out the ask me anything thread they did on reddit.com/r/3dprinting. Folks on that sub are understandably wary of kickstarter printers, and this one seemed to really raise some red flags.

[PxT]

[MartyS]

Most glaring thing I read in those responses was skipping of a stepper motor causing arms to break.
Makes me think "you get what you pay for" is going to apply big time to this thing, if it ever ships...

[Mooselake]

Thanks for the link, Pxt; that's an interesting read, with lots of comments from names I recognize as knowing what they're talking about. Rough crowd.

My kid's experience (or at least the interpretation of the explanation to the old guy who really isn't capable of understanding these new things ) is that business incubators are pushing you patent quick, start selling equity early for fast development, make your pile by selling out as soon as you can, and end up like Smaug lying on a heap of gold. Sounds like that's Tiko's approach, mildly innovative unproven product, go with law firms and ad agencies, make comments like how they justified their choice of wireless (not to mention delivery schedule, etc.) that show they're still in the idealistic wet behind the ears phase. My kid spent several months in India working with injection molding specialists, and what the commenters said about IJ suitability, schedules, and experiences matches what she learned. No way Tiko's going to deliver on time or budget. The disadvantage of KS over experienced venture capitalists is that KS's for idealists, VCs introduce unfun reality into the equation since they're risking their own money, and then they're only right less than half the time.

Wasn't the Makibox injection molded and done with experienced overseas manufacturers? Look how that worked out.

Kirk

[orangefurball]

Well, I had a whole response typed but Tapatalk decided it didn't like me anymore and quit working.

Anyway, I would back this if there was any indication that it would actually ship.

A few other things were weird in the AMA. One that really stood out was the lack of USB. On my Thingystock I have a USB extension running from the top to bottom, total cost for one cable.... $1. It would not add much cost. But I have a feeling it will be locked down for some reason from that WiFi chip.

Oh well, it's an interesting design. I'll give them that. Seems a bit fragile though.

[MartyS]

Yeah, the lack of USB or SD card is a killer. As well as relying on cloud services.

The other thing that occurs to me is that without a cooling fan on the extruder, how could it do even short bridging?

[orangefurball]

[PxT]

[MartyS]

[PxT]

[Bob-StPaul]

I have seen a prototype in person here in Minneapolis. They have teamed up with a local ad agency that has a guy developing a specialty working with companies doing crowd funding. And it does seem that they have the marketing side covered - at least in terms of interest generation. It was a "special event" at a local maker space. Now...lots of things happen on the road that can cause you to be late - and they were over an hour late showing up and the Tiko reportedly broke on the way so they didn't print anything and didn't have any printed objects from it to show.

But it looked really cool and did light up when plugged in.

As I understand it - you have to use their on-line service. They swear up and down that there will never be a charge to use their service to print to your printer...NEVER they say.... There were some other interesting questions that came up where the answers seemed a bit...lacking in substance - (and perhaps having spent my career in technology sales I'm just overly suspicious of certain words and ways of answering questions.) As I recall - they do not lock you in to using only their filament though using their spools is easiest since the spool is sized to fit within the top of the unit.

For its size and price it provides a big print area. And if they can deliver on their price it is a very interesting product.

They wouldn't let us turn it over to look up into the case to see how they were driving it or really any other details of it's mechanical components. And since it wasn't operational at the meeting there isn't too much more to report other then they are live bodies and had a unit to display.

The founders are certainly passionate about their baby and seem earnestly interested in delivering a good product.

[MartyS]

[Bob-StPaul]

The founders are still in college. Young and inexperienced with road shows. You live and learn that live demo's are risky and that you need to be very prepared with back-up plans like printed objects and video to play... Most have to learn those lessons the hard way.

I imagine they learned a lot from the trip.

[Mooselake]

I hope they learned to bring two or three units to the big demos...

Weren't we all young, inexperienced, and knowing everything?

I had teenagers to let me know I'm now old, experience doesn't matter, and that I know nothing

Supposedly the average entrepreneur starts 10 companies before they succeed, from my entrepreneurial daughter. They only have 8 more to go...

Kirk

[BigLazyb]

I have funded several Kickstarters, and I always get really nervous when a campaign response is an order of magnitude greater than the goal. Great for the press, but the companies actually providing a product always seem to underestimate the amount of work involved with fulfillment - even independent of the actual manufacturing. QC, packaging, shipping, payment processing, customer support, returns and breakage replacement. These things cost real money that is linear with regard to the unit count -- you can't outsource this, or push it on your foreign manufacturer.

In situations like this, the fulfillment is months (or years) late, communication from the company is initially great, and then gradually erodes to poor or nonexistent, and a lot of backers end up unhappy.

After reading through their AMA responses I think they are in for a rough time, regardless of what I think of their design. My middle age self has to smirk at their optimism and lack of concern for many of the little things that will end up hurting them dearly.

[Mach-Chris]

I had backed them, then backed out after the AMA for many of the same reasons outlined here. I'm all for supporting Canadian startups, within reason. I worked closely with and backed mosaic mfg because they are a very bright team with a well though out approach and strategy, not to mention they developed an awesome product. But I feel Tiko has a lot of ground to cover still. Not saying they won't get there, and I don't want to knock them down by any means, I just feel they have a long journey ahead of them, and a lot of unforeseen hiccups to address.

[Mooselake]

Well, kinda necroposting, but Tiko's still talking big while pushing off their delivery dates. Now they're having liquefier nozzle issues (huh? What's so different between them and extruder nozzles, just a hole in a screw-in gadget) that are holding up production. I didn't look too deeply, but all3dp's opinion is sometime past February's Chinese New Year's month off.

Hope they make it and don't join Maki or the pirates (or the nano drones or the not so coolest coolers). Perhaps if they'd just used an extruder instead of a liquefier they'd be shipping by now.

Kirk

[Mooselake]

No real update from them since my last post, but from a the comments section they're still alive, still can't extrude (er, liquefy), but are getting some of their parts produced. Just went poking around KS 3D printer projects for grins.

They had a long discussion about how you can't use software solutions for device safety, but still don't appear to have found the simplest and most widely used device to keep their liquidy thing from slagging down, or maybe they' they ahve and are just waiting to patent it. Thermal fuse, made by the kazillions, and in every coffee maker and dryer I've ever taken apart.

Kirk

[evanalmighty]

I backed this one back in November. Should be receiving it later this month. The first batch of the smaller printers already shipped.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ra ... d-printing

[Mooselake]

Went poking around Kickstarter a bit, amazing what people will go for. $1500 5W semiconductor laser engraver (Mr. Beam II) that's raised $422K? My 40W CO2 K40 was under $400 (that came in less than a week from ordering), and you could roll your own 5W semi for vastly less than $1500. Sure, Mr. Beam claims to cut 4mm plywood, but it'll take a whole lot of passes.

Despite a claimed 3D printer slowdown, the $300 all metal Trinus has raised $578K, a $100 smartphone based DLP printer, $2.1Mill, the $1200 DLP SLASH, $254K. Common factor seems to be a very slick campaign page.

And Tiko's now saying their accelerometer lost it's hard plastic backing and breaks solder connections when fastened to their bowden tube. Huh? How did all those bowden extruders ever work in the past without an accelerometer. Can't they glue on a tab (there's this great stuff called epoxy) or 3D print a fix if it's so critical? Guess it takes a lot to make a liquifier liquify.

I'm starting to sound like a skeptical grumpy old moose...

And a disclaimer, I supported a Thingybot, but I've got more faith in Matt than slick glossies. Not worried, it doesn't have a liquifier

Kirk

[Mooselake]

Went and looked at Tiko again. Wow, they've gone and set up their own factory in China now they've solved the bowden tube popping out major issue. Supposedly starting to ship before July 1 (tomorrow!) so they should be on desks everywhere real soon now.

Being a skeptical moose I have to wonder how they'll manage to produce and ship all those printers before they run out of money, what with all the unplanned travel to/from China and now their own factory. Hope they prove me wrong and they don't need to liquefy themselves before shipping all the liquifiers.

On a slightly different note you can order today and maybe even have it before anybody gets a Tiko. It's even got an ARM based controller (alas, not open source), LCD display, and wireless with a firmware reflash from the Chinese maker. Heck, they're even having a 20% off sale that makes it $160; excuse me while I go do a cable inventory and order up some stuff. No printer, with the TB that'll be enough to keep the mooselab humming for a while.

Kirk

[Mooselake]

Tiko's in the wild! They've shipped at least a few of the initial 100 printers, and a couple users are reporting they've received one. Print quality is fair in the pictures, but that's to be expected until they learn how to properly tune their printer.

So 2 or 3 down (or maybe even the first $100...), and if I counted right about 16,000 more to go. Don't believe all the 3D printing is dying articles, hope Tiko delivers the rest of their rewards. Anybody here received one yet?

On another OT note, I just supported the MIne Kafton Drone KS project, and was a supporter of their initial KS a few years back (even Moose try a little social responsibility every now and then). On the Thingybot project Matt's gone quiet, but hopefully that's because he's not getting any time off from assembling Thingybots.

Kirk

[WayTooManyHobbies]

I backed the printers in the next batch of Tikos, so it should be soon. This was slated as a Christmas (2015) gift, so it will only be in my hands for initial testing.

Tiko was originally planned to run with only its own slicer, and use of another slicer would void the warranty. They recently rethought that position, and most of the good results coming out from the first 100 printers make use of Slic3r, Cura, or Simplify3D. It looks like the hardware is at least reasonably competent, and most of the beta bugs that people are reporting in the comments are being resolved without too much pain.

[Mooselake]

Did another occasional drive-by on the still not shipping Tiko KS project. New update. Wow! The temperature sensor in their amazing liquifier, after a month of incredibly hard work, is now as good as an off the shelf regular 3D printer thermistor. Which, by the way, can be had in small quantity for like $0.20US each. Progress! So! Much! Data! It sure made them feel small, according to their update. Guess they never discovered Marlin's (open source...) auto-pid command.

Yeah, a bit of cynicism. Perhaps starting out with lawyers and marketing agencies isn't yet the best approach to designing 3D printers. How did Brook (and Matt) ever do it? Is the Liquifier going to be as good as a cheap E3D clone? Only time can tell...

Kirk

[orangefurball]

[Mooselake]

Tiko may have bit the dust. Out of cash, laid off most of their staff, in over their heads, "but we're just trying to get back on track". Not sure if they're liquefying.

On another note, the furball suddenly went silent in late December (shortly after his last visit here) with only 2 or 3 printers delivered. No idea why. I was one of the lucky ones (backer #2) and very happy with it.

Kirk

[WayTooManyHobbies]

According to the Kickstarter comments, Tiko is planning to post an update today regarding their status. From their comments it doesn't sound promising.

I am one of the lucky few to receive a Tiko, but it was a (very overdue) Christmas present for my nephew. I didn't even open the box before handing it over. He's at school now, so I don't know how much he has used it. It did get set up, and created a blob.

I hope OFB is OK.

[Mooselake]

Another Tiko check. If you didn't get yours you likely never will, and if you did perhaps a 50℅ chance it worked. Sad to see it go down in flames.

Technology marches onward. Monoprice will be selling a small delta for $150US, had it been available a while back Tiko may not have even reached their goal and certainly not blown through the $3 million of KS funding plus another borrowed (if the comments are true) million. Guess lawyers and PR firms, and a cocky attitude, just wasn't enough to pull off a Printrbot type success.

Kirk