Topic: Why Buy the Da Vinci?
Disclaimer:
I do not come from the hobbyist or maker world, I'm not a hacker (if that's even the right word in this context) so I don't have a background in DIY 3D printing.
My Background:
I come from the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm an Engineer from Silicon Valley and have been using 'commercial grade' 3D printers for many years now. I didn't like the initial quality of SLA printers and didn't like the mess of the baths and all the post processing needed to get a clean print. So I ignored 3D printing for a few years.
I then started using fused filament printers with ABS in a laboratory setting to build fixtures for experiments. Never had the time to play around with them as a hobby. But I liked the idea that I could design something in Solidworks, do a minimum of work in the Preprocessing software to place the model in the right orientation, and send it to the printer and go to sleep. When I woke up, I had a part with less 'post processing' needed than I used to deal with when I used SLA.
That Laboratory work convinced me that it's time for 3D printing to become mainstream. Over the past two years, I've noticed all the 'maker' activity and the DIY activity . . .
When I quit the lab to start a partnership and create a 'virtual' company, I was convinced that this technology would play a large part in the business.
But what to buy?
Why I bought the Da Vinci:
The company is just getting off the ground and we are avoiding investments. The thought is to invest our own money and effort and bootstrap it ourselves. We had a hard time deciding how much to spend on a printer, and an even harder time figuring out how much time to devote to learning how to use it. - ah, 'tune' it. I already knew 'how to use it' in the business, but my partner was really skeptical about us having to spin our wheels tuning a 'low end' consumer printer.
I looked at the sub $1,000 printers, my partner looked at the $5,000 to $10,000.
When I saw a $500 printer, I decided why not? I was about to spend $500 at a 'service bureau' just to get some parts printed, and I figured it would be an easy gamble with the Da Vinci.
My partner was against it, so I just bought it myself.
So that's why I bought the Da Vinci.
My question is why would someone who has used the other printers, someone with experience with the DIY printers, someone who has used some of the other, more 'open source' printers buy a Da Vinci.
It's not lost on me that this forum has it's roots in the solidoddle printer. I'm also aware that SoliDoddle and Makerbot and other companies have come a very long way since their first printers were built and shipped to their first users.
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I've watched 'Print the Legend' and was amused to see a you tube video about printing a dress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdRswasftfI
I have a friend who was scanned (for a dress she was told) several years ago, but I don't think her scan went anywhere but towards miniature artwork.
The dream of 3D printing has a long way to go, but technology is approaching the dream from opposite directions: Large companies selling very expensive printers, and makers doing it themselves, and now small companies beating a path to a consumer market.