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3D Color Print

www8.hp.com

334 pointszwieback139 comments

It's funny how I and other people see hp and immediately think of bad business practices that lead to a bad experience with the brand.

Relates to the concept that you optimize for what you measure. Not factoring in that screwing over customers will have some impact down the line is also like some sort of debt (as in tech debt). It's like long term brand debt.

You seem to imply that they don't realize something might have impact in the future (because it's not what they measure).

It's also possible that they are very aware of it, but just don't care. The modern corporate system, especially in the US, is set up to incentivize favoring short term results over the long term.

If it will make their numbers look better this quarter at the cost of damaging the brand down the road, unfortunately many company will choose that path, even knowingly.

The corporation is run by people and people favor short term results when they expect to be in their position for a short period.

Just as it's far less common for the regular working (wo)man to stay at the same company for decades, it's less common for CEOs to do so as well.[0]

If a CEO/president expects (through loyalty/control of the board, or otherwise) to be at the company for a long time, they will naturally make long(er) term decisions.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hewlett-Packard_execut...

I believe this is why companies often go downhill after the original founders leave and “professional management” takes over - founders generally take a less short-sighted view.

>> see hp and immediately think of bad business practices

I see terrible, bloated drivers

Drivers that you may also need to pay for when upgrading your OS even though they only work with an HP device that you also paid a lot of money for.

Citation?

I can't readily find a citation online, but my personal experience with both my parents and grandparents' computer was that there was no free Windows 7 driver but was a for-purchase Windows 7 printer driver for the HP printers they had.

There was a workaround, which was to massage the Vista drivers to get them to install on Win7. Sorry if the details are fuzzy; it's been several years.

I'm not overly anti-HP, but this did leave a very bad taste in my mouth for the company. I still print on an HP3600 at home and think it's a great home printer; would buy again.

It's a bit depressing too, considering what the HP brand used to be. They used to be synonymous with the some of the most cutting-edge, best engineered test equipment and other electronics gear you could buy. Gear from that era like the legendary HP3458 multimeter still commands very high prices on the used market ($5000 or more if calibrated).

Really that part of HP still exists at that level of quality, but they spun it off as Agilent and later Keysight. Hard to believe they squandered the original brand so completely, though.

I remember attending a talk at my physics student union about 15 years ago, by an alumni who worked at HP. IIRC, he was applying his former astronomy knowledge of dust-particles to make physics simulations for figuring out how toner particles actually behave. It was a lot more interesting than you might think.

It is actually amazing that printers (inkjet, laserjet or the various 3D ones) work as well as they do; there is a ton of really advanced technology under the hood there working at micro- if not nano-scales.

Funny thing is that said HP still exist.

What people are complaining about is the bottom of the barrel consumer products hawked out of very storefront the world over.

I have seen similar sentiments aimed towards Acer, yet i have seen Acer business market laptops survive for ages.

Basically companies like HP and Acer have multiple product ranges with different QA protocols and different margins. Yet people keep buying the cheapest consumer offerings and expect something mil-spec.

There are companies that refuse to dilute their brand or sully their image:

- BMW, Lexus

- Tiffany's

- Rolex

Tech companies just think that they are immune to the market forces that keep other high end brands from skimming off the lower rungs (or at least doing it with their marquee brand).

The examples are just the first ones from different markets that came to mind.

I don't think any of those companies -- all luxury, high-cost/high-profit, consumer brands -- can be compared to a multinational, high volume, consumer- and business-facing IT company.

Perhaps there are better examples?

Apple.

I feel like many tech companies have to support a much broader audience with more varient use cases than the companies you listed.

Luxury watches sold by rollex only have to do a few things very well, and look nice. Some major tech companies are constantly under pressure to not only maintain quality of existing features, but to develop new features to stay competitive (all of this on updated hardware).

Im not defending any 'bad' products that major tech companies put out, but i dont think the companies you listed are very comparable.

> I feel like many tech companies have to support a much broader audience with more varient use cases than the companies you listed.

Perhaps the examples of BMW and Lexus, which were provided by the previous poster, would be a better comparison than Rolex for you? Car companies like those two, which focus their (multiple) brands for different levels of the market rather than diversifying the levels of the market covered by their brand, are a great example of keeping people thinking that one brand is "only for X type of buyer" while maintaining a presence across all corners of the market.

> BMW

Oh, BMW certainly has had its fair share of lemons and... unconventional cars, as well as involvement in shady dealings.

The difference to other carmakers (e.g. VW!) is that their overall quality both in build and in service is extremely high and that, while BMW was involved in shady stuff, they didn't get remotely as low as VW did with gassing apes with diesel fumes...

> Basically companies like HP and Acer have multiple product ranges with different QA protocols and different margins. Yet people keep buying the cheapest consumer offerings and expect something mil-spec.

Yes. It still surprises me that most people I know - personally or otherwise - didn't figure it out yet: the lower bound on price for a consumer good is "just barely functional enough so that you can't sue the vendor for false advertising". And it's not that people expect milspec hardware. They just expect it to work decently, for a while. But those expectations are still too high.

"The H.P. Touch Computer (1983)" video[1] is nice proof how HP was great. Interesting part is around 2:30 when they don't pitch new touch screen technology(in 1983), but the way how they applied it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-THdG5gVTw

Reminds me of Apollo. I was working at HP when they bought Apollo, a workstation vendor. Sun was #1, HP was #2, and Apollo was #3. After HP bought Apollo, Sun was #1 and HP was #2. That's how big a lead Sun had.

5 years later I was in the grocery store and by the checkout register there was a stack of boxes on sale: Apollo Inkjet Printers. So that's what they did with that brand name.

That HP still exists. It's called Agilent and Keysight now.

Yes, as I said, that part of the business is now Keysight for the electronic test equipment and Agilent, which focuses on life sciences equipment.

I wouldn't buy an HP product if my alternative was to do everything by hand.

Garbage company, garbage products, and garbage management.

I have the same intuition, but was recently surprised about their laptops: Even though (or maybe because) they look like from last century they have pretty decent hardware connectivity (USB, video, ethernet etc.) and good linux support as well. It's boring but functional, like you'd expect from a business-oriented machine.

I got a spectre and was extremely disappointed. This is after getting the signature edition Windows so it would be bloatfree. The touchpad is really bad.

Perhaps there is a reason why they offer a mouse with the same design language?

> The touchpad is really bad.

To be fair: I cannot stand any kind of Windows touchpad. They all pale in comparison with Apple stuff.

It's not only the size (which makes many multitouch gestures possible) or the firmware quality (I have hit an unintended combo maybe four times on a Mac in two years, while it was a daily occurrence in the Windows world), but also the "feel". Apple trackpads use a glass surface, nearly at level with the case, while Windows laptops seem to only offer plastic at 1-2mm inset. In addition I manage to get every Windows laptop really really dirty and the touchpads stained, I have yet to achieve this goal with any part of a MacBook...

Huge part of why I refuse to switch to a non-macbook laptop, despite not being at all happy with the direction they've taken the pro in with the latest iteration.

The question is: why doesn't any laptop maker employ this technology aside from Apple?

At least Samsung and Sony should have the competence in-house from their smartphone departments, so this should not be an issue with patents.

I have also wondered this. After I switched my thinkpad with a touchpoint to my macbook I can't stand using any variety of non-apply laptops. We have a few in the lab and its always a source of frustration. My Samsung and HTC phones all seemed to work fine so I agree this should be solved.

Tbh, the closest I got was the touchpad of my X1 Carbon Thinkpad. Except from very minor tweeks I had to do, I felt like on a Mac.

As if it that wasn't enough, HP also actively promotes apartheid and colonialism [0].

[0] https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-hp

Is this really how people feel about HP?

I've always associated HP with printers — the LaserJet line specifically. I still use them for just about everything. They've always struck me as well built and reliable. Pretty good network/web UI. I've used some of their large formats too and those have been pretty nice.

Maybe I'm alone, but I'd trust HP to make a decent 3D printer.

I feel this way because I assosciate them with printers. Every possible touchpoint between customers and (all) providers in the printing space is unpleasant. They're constantly scamming people with pricing models, their software is terrible, both on-device interactions and drivers. They're terrible for the environment, as replacing your printer is often cheaper than buying more ink, and always cheaper than buying a replacement part, unless your printer cost several thousand dollars.

It's just... awful.

That’s how I feel about inkjets, not HP. They are all crap though in my opinion. I had a few as a kid in the 90s but only ever bought one and then never again.

I’ve got HP LaserJets that are 10 or 15 years old and good as the day I bought them. The driver is built into most OSes.

> I’ve got HP LaserJets that are 10 or 15 years old and good as the day I bought them. The driver is built into most OSes.

Sure, but HP from 15 years ago is not HP from now.

While I am sure the HP solution will run circles around this, in both quality and in price, but XYZ Printing has introduced a (low cost) inkjet+FDM 3D printer. Basically it prints a layer with the FDM printer, then prints a layer of color with the inkjet.

Now, it seems pretty hard to find any good reviews on Youtube about it. Obviously their marketing material shows it printing fabulous vibrant prints, but the "3D printing professor" did a review of it, and he ran into a whole slew of issues. This is his success video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFxKxdGvV0w

Interesting stuff, but looks to be at the infancy stage.

Ha, if you think filament is expensive NOW, just wait until you have an HP printer!

That said, they do provide some interesting cost values which make it sound like this will probably be in the ballpark of low 6-figures:

>1. Based on internal and third-party testing for HP Jet Fusion 580 and 5403D Printers, printing time is a fraction of the time of the printing times of comparable plastic fused deposition modeling (FDM), stereolithography (SLA), and material jetting solutions from $20,000 USD to $120,000 USD on market as of June, 2017. Testing variables for the HP JetFusion 580 3D Printer: Part quantity: 1 full build chamber of parts from HP Jet Fusion 3D at 10% of packing density versus same number of parts on above-mentioned competitive devices; Part size: 30 cm3; Layer thickness: .08 mm/0.003 inches. Competitor testing variables are comparable.

>2. Based on internal testing and simulation, HP Jet Fusion 3D average printing time is up to 10 times faster than average printing time of comparable fused deposition modeling (FDM) and selective laser sintering (SLS) printer solutions from $100,000 USD to $300,000 USD on market as of April, 2016. Testing variables for the HP Jet Fusion 4210/4200/3200 Printing Solutions: Part quantity: 1 full build chamber of parts from HP Jet Fusion 3D at 20% of packing density versus same number of parts on above-mentioned competitive devices; Part size: 30 grams; Layer thickness: 0.08 mm/0.003 inches.

>3. Based on internal testing and public data, HP Jet Fusion 3D average printing cost per part is half the average cost of comparable FDM & SLS printer solutions from $100,000 USD to $300,000 USD on market as of April, 2016. Cost analysis based on: standard solution configuration price, supplies price, and maintenance costs recommended by manufacturer. Cost criteria: printing 1 build chamber per day/5 days per week over 1 year of 30-gram parts at 10% packing density using HP 3D High Reusability PA 12 material, and the powder reusability ratio recommended by manufacturer. Based on internal testing and public data, HP Jet Fusion 3D 4210 Printing Solution average printing cost-per-part is 65% lower versus the average cost of comparable FDM and SLS printer solutions from $100,000 USD to $300,000 USD on market as of April, 2016 and is 50% lower versus the average cost of comparable SLS printer solutions for $300,000 USD to $450,000 USD. Cost analysis based on: standard solution configuration price, supplies price, and maintenance costs recommended by manufacturer. Cost criteria: printing 1.4 full build chambers of parts per day/5 days per week over 1 year of 30-gram parts at 10% packing density on fast print mode using HP 3D High Reusability PA 12 material, and the powder reusability ratio recommended by manufacturer.

Fusion printers are even more expensive. You can only re-use the leftover powder so many times before it needs to be thrown out. The particles start to clump and melt making your prints less accurate.

We use HP jet fusion printers to manufacture end use parts (see https://www.jabil.com/insights/blog-main/3d-printing-reality...). They are impressive machines, and I'm excited to see the full color ones in action. Also, the MJF API is pretty well designed.

Do you work for Jabil or are you just using that article as an example?

How do you find the mechanical properties of the parts? Do they vary print to print? Do they suffer from the same problems that cheaper 3D printed parts do - principally either very low strength across the layers (for FDM prints) or very soft materials (cured epoxy and most of the SLS prints I've dealt with).

Not affiliated with Nabil or HP, but I have done a fair bit of research on the tech for this printer line. It is pretty fundamentally different to FDM or SLA. Closest to SLS, but still not really the same.

Mechanically it should be very similar to SLS, but uses a deposition style more like SLA. So in theory it should besomewhere in between.

The material I've read and demo material prints I've seen so far back that up. Should be good for small run cosmetic and functional demo prototypes, but you want see it used for mechanical short run production parts.

MJF is used for production parts today.

I was recently at HP labs and got to see the mono color printers in action. The process is very consistent, and they told me that the parts are very uniform. Given my own observation of a bunch of finished parts and the active process, it produces very consistent results.

The pieces were pretty damn durable. (I couldn't break them by hand). They used either Nylon or Glass Fiber reinforced Nylon.

BTW, the printer I saw had made ~70% of itself. So, the parts coming out of it were good enough to produce many of the parts it requires to operate.

Currently work at Jabil building software for managing 3DP at global scale.

Can't get into the details on evaluating part quality other than to say that I personally think MJF parts are awesome - completely different thing than FDM. Just considering look and feel, MJF part density and texture create the perception of quality.

ballpark cost?

Question totally off topic, related to writing rather than 3D printing!

They call it not just the "HP Jet Fusion 580 Color 3D Printer", but the "HP Jet Fusion 580 Color 3D Printing Solution"

When I myself would be the target audience, "3D printer" sells better than "3D printing solution" I think.

Do you know what the true target audience they are writing for is, and if it really genuinely is so that there are such audiences where adding words like "Solution" helps the sell? Can you please elaborate on that and give intuition why?

Same applies for some other such words, like adding "Technology" to something that is more like a specification, and of course "Enterprise".

Thanks! :D

To help with the perspective, the fine print states that they were making comparisons to comparable products that cost between $100,000 and $450,000.

Probably includes software or more than just a "printer".

>Do you know what the true target audience they are writing for is, and if it really genuinely is so that there are such audiences where adding words like "Solution" helps the sell? Can you please elaborate on that and give intuition why?

They're selling to product design studios. HP aren't selling a 3D printer, they're selling a solution for making 3D prints. The word "solution" matters, because 3D printers have a reputation for being janky as hell. You'll pay a premium for the printer and the consumables, but the promise is that you won't have to dick about for days to get a decent print.

I’m not even typing this in on a smartphone. I’m typing on a mobile computing and telephony solution.

Like its alternate meaning, the word “solution” tends to water-down and muddy what is actually being sold.

I feel like the printing solution verbiage could be fitting since current 3d printing workflows include steps like cleanup, chemical washing or baths and heat curing before having a finished product. Compared to a current desktop printer where you press a button and have the final product. Definitely curious to check out this model and other tech coming soon!

Maybe HP is doing there best to steer clear of anything that might result in Stratasys suing them.

For a company about to spend ~$250,000 on the ability to fabricate 3d models in house "3D Printing Solution" does message better. A 3D printer is just an expensive tool that requires expensive software and expensive people to make it work. A 3D Printing Solution implies a complete suite from installation to software to support that doesn't require investing in specialized skills.

It makes sense that someone who uses "message" as a verb would think "solution" is a good way to brand a printer, 3D or otherwise.

/I kid! I kid!

There's at least one company in every sector that brands its products as "solutions," instead of products.

Copy machines, insurance, databases, plastic food containers, consulting, shipping, etc...

Everything is a "solution" these days. Often to problems that don't exist.

It's very similar to the Projet x60 (formerly ZPrinters) or projet 4500 series printers from 3D systems. The printer lays down thin layers of powder material then goes by with a bonding agent and color as it prints. The prints are relatively cheap because after the print you can vacuum up the excess material and use it in subsequent prints.

Interesting to see HP jumping in here. They certainly have the positioning/deposit/chemistry expertise to make this work.

I would love to be able to print things on one at the local copy/printing center, but I'm wondering if they have moved enough down into the price point to displace what the current SLA shops offer.

And while I've posted things to Thingaverse there is an interesting opportunity for a curated source of soft 'things' that you could order from a local service bureau. Shapeways is nice but it doesn't seem quite there yet.

They are already in the 3D printer market, see https://youtu.be/F2fIOBtdojY from 2016. Research and development go way back of course. The new thing is the color.

Disclaimer: I worked at HP in the past.

Full color is nice but it always depends how colorization is handled. If you ever have to go into 3rd party apps to "paint" colors on, its not worth it. It needs to be able to handle coloring from the exported file ie color it in solidworks or creo or whatever.

Maybe my understanding of "Reinvent the wheel" is wrong, but I always took it as "spend time inventing something that already exists", basically wasting your time. Didn't think it was a positive term you want to put on your landing page.

I see what you mean. I suppose what they're going for is 'this product is so revolutionary that it's equivalent to someone inventing a replacement for the wheel'.

See for example Michelin "reinventing" the wheel [1]. Taking old stuff and recreating them with new kind of internal structure which is made possible by 3d printing.

[1] https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/07/michelin-vision-biodegra...

Just for the record/FYI, they already re-invented it as the "tweel" a few years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweel

http://www.michelintweel.com/

and it is actually available (and works just fine in some specific application).

It's a tounge-in-cheek line here.

I believe the phrase ``reinventing the wheel'' emphasizes the difficulty of optimizing something that is fundamental, widely used, and has been tackled by armies of engineers.

It's amazing to think that not long ago we marveled and scoffed at the prohibitive cost of 2D computer printing, going from simple monochrome printouts to highly detailed full color physical manifestations.

I recently bought/built a really cheap 3D printer to see what it could do, and I'm finding it more useful and easier to use than I anticipated. I'd say it is the 3D equivalent of the dot-matrix printer, and this HP beast is the 3D equivalent of the first colour laser printers.

I think 3D printers will be a much smaller market than paper printers, because the number of things you need printed is much less than the number of pages we (used to) need printed.

And although this HP machine looks amazing at first sight, lets look at the specs: it does about three times the resolution of my 3D printer - and colour - for A THOUSAND times the price. (Anet A8 0.2mm resolution for $200; Jet Fusion 0.08mm resolution for $x00,000 according to comments below). OK, colour is cool, but you could employ an artist to hand-paint your creations for a tiny fraction of this cost.

I get that this is first to market, but I think they are missing an opportunity to price lower and build mindshare while they learn the lessons required to build the cash cow: a consumer machine that does twice the resolution for ten times the price.

And this needs to happen fast - Brother won't allow HP anywhere near the lead they got with laser printers last time around.

How much is the ink?

Ink? Relax, no ink! Just HP Proprietary Multi-Agents (source: HP video on youtube link below)

I order material cartridges for my lab's Stratasys Connex 500. There are a lot of different materials at a lot of different pricepoints... but generally $125 - $250/kg of material. I would expect HP to price in that range.

Can you imagine how much they would charge for the "ink" on these things?

My thoughts exactly. And since it's for corporations, it will also feature a display and have a really slow and buggy Java UI. It will randomly crash and have badly translated error messages for a premium price of 130'000 USD.

And of course, you will only be able to use HP filaments!

> HP Jet Fusion 3D 4210 Printing Solution average printing cost-per-part is 65% lower versus the average cost of comparable FDM and SLS printer solutions from $100,000 USD to $300,000 USD on market as of April, 2016

Depends on how much you believe that statement I suppose?

If you look at the fine print they compared the "default mode" of the other printers with their "fast mode."

I've evaluated a few 3d printers and from what I recall the default mode is usually fairly high quality (read uses more material.)

We were about ready to pull the trigger on a competitors printer (~100k machine) but at the last minute figured out that the media would basically cost us the salary for a full time employee. Instead we're running a cheapo FDM machine for parts where quality isn't critical and outsourcing the highend stuff to shapeways (who are mentioned below.) Overall I've been really happy with this strategy.

To be fair they are weighing an unreleased solution in the most optimal configuration against nearly 2 year old data. For 100k shopping right now it would be interesting to get an apples to apples in the entire market because that is what people purchasing this will be looking at

If it's anything like the rest of their printer line, it will be cheaper to just buy a new one than it will to refill the ink.

That has never been true, even for the cheapest consumer printers. The "starter" cartridges that printers come with only contain about 10% of the ink of a full cartridge.

I owned an HP Laser Printer recently (paid $250). The starter cartridge lasted me 4 years, and when I went to replace the cartridge ($50), it didn't work. The printer is now out of warranty, so I'll be buying a new printer.

That's essentially what happened to me. The cartridges got down to 1% and around the same time it started jamming. I bought a replacement Black cartridge and it continued to jam. I wasn't about to spend $200 on the color cartridges at that point so I bought a brand new printer instead.

I bought a LaserJet CP1525nw for ~$250. The "starter" cartridges lasted me just over 4 years. Refills for it cost $340.

I bought a brand new LaserJet M452dn for $212.

What you just said doesn't refute notatoad's point.

Those $340 refills will contain more than double the toner than the starter cartridges. The fact that the starter cartridges lasted you 4 years is more of a testament to how little you print. A refill probably would have lasted you 8+ years.

> Those $340 refills will contain more than double the toner than the starter cartridges.

The M452dn came with "introductory cartridges" all rated at ~1200 pages. For the CP1525nw, the black 128A is rated at ~2000 pages and the colors are ~1300 pages.

The new printer was ~60% of the cost of a set of replacement cartridges and the starter cartridges are 60-92% capacity of the A cartridge replacements for the CP1525nw.

So yes it cost me less to replace the printer than it would have to replace all of the cartridges.

In reality it cost me a bit more. The CP1525nw actually started jamming on me constantly when the black got to about 1% and the colors at around 5%. The diagnostic codes indicated it was a problem with the ink so I stupidly bought a replacement black which cleared one error code but not the jam. I got a quote for a diagnostic and it was more than the cost of a new printer.

My HP Color LaserJet cost me ~600. Bought the cartridges for another 175 each (x3) + 125 for the black one. The printer died at 1 year 1 month, never even got to use the $650 in cartridges. They're just sitting on my shelf as a reminder that I will never buy another HP product as long as I live.

I got a Dell MFD color laser printer a few years ago. The machine was around £150 and a replacement set of cartridges (3rd party - lasts around 1500 pages) is under £20. I’m not a heavy user, but for my occasional home use it’s great.

Last year I wanted to get another one for my office, but it turns out Dell got out of the printer business in 2016. Samsung sold their printer business to HP, so there’s now only really three companies making laser printers now: Brother, Xerox and HP.

That's a shame about Dell, I wasn't aware that they left the market. Canon appears to still sell Laser printers.

It gets closer to true if you print very infrequently and buy the absolute cheapest of printers.

The media will definitely be expensive and proprietary. That's part of how they control for the "jenkyness" associated with 3d printers in general.

And because it's HP they're also doing other nasty stuff too. You know how most 2d printers put invisible tracking dots in their prints to prevent counterfeiting? Well HP's 3d printers are going to do the same for 'security', anti-counterfeiting, and DRM purposes. They can print whatever pattern of color they want inside the part, so that one can scratch off the surface layer and determine who ran off illegal copies of mickey mouse action figures and when.

[0]https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/AUVSI/6322f901-...

From one of the embedded information slides:

Photoluminescent materials visible under UV light

They could print that on the surface but then everyone could see it rather easily.

Is there a solution that doesn’t involve DRM—meaning at least some way to restrict on which devices given model may be printed—yet can enable marketplaces on which independent inventors who specialize in creating 3D-printable items could confidently publish their work and reliably get paid without worrying about theft?

Sad to see the likes of HP taking over 3D printing, who didn't employ anyone who had the clue to even remotely conceive of it.

To be fair, this isn't a consumer product by any stretch of the imagination. HP has been in the business market for a long time on large format printers as well as servers, where the money isn't as much in the media as it is in the premium price tag up front and service contracts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXntl3ff5tc

Good overview. Thanks!

Indeed, it's massive and expensive. But this probably falls in line with some of the floor space/capital budget of the earliest plotters or copier/scanner/printers.

So maybe in ten years every office will have one.

Does every office need one? That's the main difference from 2D printing the way I see it - unless the printing process gets way better it will never catch on enough to warrant low prices. Then again, maybe they said the same about early printers, comparing them to offset press?

I bet, they started with cartridges with anti-refill chip, and only then proceeded with the printer itself

Very neat idea - but trust HP to incorporate a disposable, proprietary ink system with a product like this.

Reminds me of the infographic comparing the cost of HP's black ink to other liquids, the next most expensive shown (at half the price of the HP black ink) was human blood: https://thumbnails-visually.netdna-ssl.com/ink-costs-more-th...

It looks amazing, but at this point, why would I trust HP?

Starting at $130,000 no less. I'll stick with my prusa MK2 for a little bit longer.

They also have ~1500x the build volume (15,643,840 cm3 vs 10500 cm3), so 144x the cost is possibly warranted. They are two totally different classes of machine.

Uh no, HP's build volume is presented in MM, Prusa uses CM. So...

580's build volume: 190 x 332 x 248mm.

Prusa I3 MkIIs build volume: 250 x 210 x 200 mm.

15,643,840 cm3 vs 10,500,000 cm3

If you can put one of these very near (in) Amazons warehouses / delivery network you may not strictly need it in house.

So basically like shapeways

This one has been around for a while: https://www.mimakiusa.com/products/3d-printers/mimaki-3d-pri...

Mimaki is a pretty awesome company.. we have one of their fabric printers, the tx300p-1800.

Sorry to be that guy but their inspirational video to 'reinvent making' feels like it was made by Erlich Bachman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWOGbu5BcT0

Now, if that printer could be part of https://instantink.hpconnected.com it would be great.

Hello HP, Let's work out the bugs with the 2D printers before we move on to 3D. Thx.

Good Lord, these things are humongous. Not your average hobbyist printer for sure.

In the long run I hope that the model for this kind of thing will be 'printing as a service', much like how historically you went to a shop to get photos developed. It'd be amazing to be able to upload a design and pick it up/get it delivered next day, for the 'commodity cost' of the printing.

There are a lot of companies already doing this: Shapeways, Ponoko, Stratasys direct, 3dhubs, proto labs, etc. Most have a 2-5 day turnaround but you can pay to expedite and get parts next day.

I have two 3D printers in-house at my job (Projet 460 and 3500HD) which we use for day-to-day prototyping and we commonly go to outside companies for limited production runs.

Shapeways already has HP Jet Fusion printers (albeit not with the color printing abilities) that they'll print parts for you on-demand with for quite reasonable prices. It's not "next day" delivery, but it's not far off from how mail-order film photo developing/printing works.

https://www.shapeways.com/materials/hp-jet-fusion

Thinking about it, it probably won't cost that much more to officially support basic PCB printing in almost all their printers, right?

Apart - Why they use the url with the "www8." name instead of "www."?

HP's website is legendarily disorganized and horrible.

www8.hp.com has two A records that point to Akamai. My guess is that it's easier to mess with a subdomain for global CDN stuff than the top level.

Gibson Guitars used to do this too with www2, but it looks like they've cleaned up their act.

IIRC, different internal groups get control of different www{n} subdomains.

Because you have to wwwait for it.

Following some links around i get the impression that this is using laser sintering.

It's a powder bed, like laser sintering, but the melt energy comes from IR light sources. The parts of the bed that were printed on melt under the lights, the other parts stay powdery and can be recycled.

Heh, i knew i should have left the laser part out.

Anyways, would be interesting to see this way of doing 3d printing find its way to the hobbyist market at some point.

Fingers crossed we don't see "PC Load Material" errors..

How does this printer differ from other 3D printers on the market?

Full color. But as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it's nothing new. Printer's with this functionality have been around for 15+ years. HP is like Apple, take an existing technology, sprinkle liberally with hip marketing, and boom! -- act like you invented it.

Their printing process is pretty new. Sure printers that can print in color have existed for a while now, but they weren't able to produce strong parts like this printer does. Other printers that produced similar strong parts also couldn't print as fast as this printer.

I wonder if the target audience of this printer even care about material properties like strength. I mean, what functional parts do you know of, in your car, bike, washing machine, are in full colour?

I feel like the people who want full colour will be making pre-production sample prints for marketing purposes.

This is not correct.

We use HP jet fusion 3D printers to manufacture production parts at Jabil (see https://www.jabil.com/insights/blog-main/3d-printing-reality...) and MJF is quite different from other tech e.g. binder jetting, LOM, FDM, SLA, SLS, DMLS, EBM, CBAM, CLIP.

Differences include cost structures, speeds, material capabilities, resolution, etc.

A 3D printed chain link that can lift a car. That's a pretty strong 3D part...

How much do they cost? What kind of printing technology?

Someone below mentioned $130k, but is it the same product as this article states starts at $50k? https://www.techrepublic.com/article/hps-50k-3d-printer-show...

Powder + ink technology kind of a mix of polyjet and SLS?

The site claims:

> delivering quality output, up to 10 times faster[2] at half the cost[3]

And, reading the fine print:

> Based on internal testing and public data, HP Jet Fusion 3D average printing cost per part is half the average cost of comparable FDM & SLS printer solutions from $100,000 USD to $300,000 USD on market as of April, 2016. Cost analysis based on: standard solution configuration price, supplies price, and maintenance costs recommended by manufacturer. Cost criteria: printing 1 build chamber per day/5 days per week over 1 year of 30-gram parts at 10% packing density using HP 3D High Reusability PA 12 material, and the powder reusability ratio recommended by manufacturer. Based on internal testing and public data, HP Jet Fusion 3D 4210 Printing Solution average printing cost-per-part is 65% lower versus the average cost of comparable FDM and SLS printer solutions from $100,000 USD to $300,000 USD on market as of April, 2016 and is 50% lower versus the average cost of comparable SLS printer solutions for $300,000 USD to $450,000 USD. Cost analysis based on: standard solution configuration price, supplies price, and maintenance costs recommended by manufacturer. Cost criteria: printing 1.4 full build chambers of parts per day/5 days per week over 1 year of 30-gram parts at 10% packing density on fast print mode using HP 3D High Reusability PA 12 material, and the powder reusability ratio recommended by manufacturer.

So, sounds like we're talking something on the order of 50-150k per year or so if you're planning to use this frequently. Definitely not a consumer-focused solution.

Can we please not link the commercials?

Not touching an HP printer with a barge pole. Fuck you HP.

Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

Merely sharing a strongly held opinion here.

HP is the cancer of modern printing - anyone who crossed paths with their “region locked” printers/cartridges - can attest to that statement.

Yes, stating a "strongly held opinion" without explaining why is one kind of unsubstantive comment we don't need here. Adding information, like you did in this reply, makes it better. Adding name-calling, like you did above, makes it worse.

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