1 Topic by Tin Falcon

  • Tin Falcon
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Topic: Printerbot closes its doors

As of today printerbot  closes its doors . Poor sales is the attributed cause.

http://printrbot.com/

Sad brook was at ERRF.

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2 Reply by mark.giblin

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Re: Printerbot closes its doors

The actual cause... any number of situations like ...

the bubble burst,
market is saturated,
the current economics of today mean that people have less money to spend on higher priority things like food and paying rent and mortgages.

I am going with all three.

Bob's your uncle (and likely your father too...)
I laughed that hard, I burst my colostomy bag.... (When I got my GeeeTech Pi3 ProB)
Prusa i3 MK2 clone by GeeeTech aka Pi3 ProB with a GT2560 board on MX17 Linux.

3 Reply by yizhou.he

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Re: Printerbot closes its doors

Sorry for saying this, but I disagree. look at the sale of monoprice printer and CR-10 printer, it is blooming. Let's face it, the reason printerbot closes its doors because they don't outsource their production to China. Brook Drumm is a great hacker and tinker and developer, but he need his Tim Cook and Jony Ive.

printerbot 3D printer looks like lab equipment, strong and durable as lab equipment, priced as lab equipment, and the sale will most likely as much as lab equipment.

(Da Vinci 1.0, Jr. 1.0 RAMPS, miniMaker) X4, (Creality CR-10S, CR-10 mini, Ender-3) X4, Anycubic MEGA X4, Anycubic Chrion X1, ADMILAB Gantry X2 (MonoPrice Maker Select V2, Plus, Ultimate)X4--Select mini X1, Anycubic photon X4, Wanhao duplicate D7 X1.
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4 Reply by pirvan

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Re: Printerbot closes its doors

Not really,  I have/had a few PrintrBot printers, and they were not "lab equipment".  They were well made, Brook insisted on having everything assembled here, but most of the parts were outsourced.  The prices were also pretty reasonable.

PrintrBot was fine when it was competing against similar low cost kits, from places like Geeetech or Amazon, or eBay & AliExpress because his product was already assembled and tested, and he had a good support team.  However, when companies like MonoPrice started to offer already assembled printers AND offer money back no questions asked guarantees, that's when he started to loose clientele. 

Unless you have a niche product, competing agains these guys is tough.

I for one an sad to see them go.  I met Brook on a a few occasions and thought he was a really cool guy.  I hope there's nothing more sinister behind this.

To print or, 3D print, that is the question...
SD3 printer w/too many mods,  Printrbot Simple Maker Ed.,  FormLabs Form 1+
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...and too much time on my hands.

5 Reply by yizhou.he (edited by yizhou.he 2018-07-20 20:37:39)

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Re: Printerbot closes its doors

Sorry for the confusion. When I say lab equipment, I meant equipment used in lab (biomedical lab for example), not equipment in experimental stage. They are well made, good quality, but did not made with cost control in mind (lab equipment are usually sold at high price so that they don't have to control material cost). Also, the appearance for lab equipment is less important, printbot printer does not look like consumer product in many way.

It will be hard to control cost if he insisted on having everything assembled in U.S. due to cost of labor. Actually, most high quality but competitive electronics product (not necessary 3D printer) are designed by U.S. company and buy parts from Japan or South Korea and assembled in China and use U.S. standard quality control.

I just read in one of the articles that "The Printrbot Easy was going to be a modified and rebranded FlashForge Finder, a final acknowledgement that the only way to compete with the Chinese manufactured 3D printers was to sell one of your own."

https://hackaday.com/2018/07/19/a-farew … printrbot/

(Da Vinci 1.0, Jr. 1.0 RAMPS, miniMaker) X4, (Creality CR-10S, CR-10 mini, Ender-3) X4, Anycubic MEGA X4, Anycubic Chrion X1, ADMILAB Gantry X2 (MonoPrice Maker Select V2, Plus, Ultimate)X4--Select mini X1, Anycubic photon X4, Wanhao duplicate D7 X1.
iNSTONE Inventor Pro X2, CTC Dual X2, ANET-A8, Hictop 3DP-11, Solidoodle Press, FLSUN I3 2017X1

6 Reply by Tin Falcon (edited by Tin Falcon 2018-07-21 00:54:34)

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Re: Printerbot closes its doors

It is unfortunate he felt like he had to close the doors.
With all the technological advantages we have in this country we should be able to compete on the global market especially in the domestic market. He was considering re branding a printer. I can only assume he decided against it. 

It is difficult to compete with all the cheap junk imports out there .  It is even more difficult to compete with cheap printers that actualy work.
Solidoodle attempted an outsourced printer it likely killed the company.

Soliddoodle 4 stock w glass bed------Folger Tech Prusa 2020 upgraded to and titan /aero extruder mirror bed
FT5 with titan/ E3D Aero------MP mini select w glass bed
MP Utimate maker pro-W bondtech extruder
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7 Reply by mark.giblin

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Re: Printerbot closes its doors

Google 3d Printer bubble burst and get about 5 million results on the subject on how the 3D printing bubble burst.... in 2016

The industrial sector were feeling it a couple of years before the hobby market.

What will survive are those that have an established base and those machines that have specific targets because of what they can do.

Bob's your uncle (and likely your father too...)
I laughed that hard, I burst my colostomy bag.... (When I got my GeeeTech Pi3 ProB)
Prusa i3 MK2 clone by GeeeTech aka Pi3 ProB with a GT2560 board on MX17 Linux.

8 Reply by Tin Falcon (edited by Tin Falcon 2018-07-28 16:39:19)

  • Tin Falcon
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Re: Printerbot closes its doors

From what i see the big players are refocusing on the educational industrial    market.

Some will argue the consumer market never existed. I nave to agree it is more of an enthusiast /hobby market

i know of two people that are somewhat interested but both entrepreneurs and really too busy to take the time to select one.

And with any technology one need to find that sweet spot that really works.
And then when gold is stuck  the hype will rise and many large companies will jump on the bandwagon ........

Soliddoodle 4 stock w glass bed------Folger Tech Prusa 2020 upgraded to and titan /aero extruder mirror bed
FT5 with titan/ E3D Aero------MP mini select w glass bed
MP Utimate maker pro-W bondtech extruder
Marlin/Repetier Host/ Slic3r and Cura