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Comment by jglauche | Hacker News Reader

I'm under the impression that a LOT of companies are currently thinking that they miss their market right now if they don't bring out a 3d printer. Actually, the market is not that big and over-saturated with printers right now. The vendors (this goes especially to the big ones) are missing one critical point: They haven't made it easy enough for Joe User to create printable 3d designs. The "mass" will not buy a product like that if they don't understand why they need it for and also not if they don't have access to easy and powerful tools to make actually good use of it.

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My sense is that alot of companies are trying to get ahead of the curve on 3d printers. The major advance that will make 3d printers mass market items is probably going to be in the moddeling software, and the "model store" ecosystem. This makes the printers themselves largely commodities from the start, so if a company already has a couple of prototypes done to the point where they have a solid printer, they are ready to ride the wave of mass 3d printing.

Of course, this is assuming that someone solves the hardware problem, otherwise it is likely just a failed investment; but that just makes it a risky investment.

Over-saturated is an understatement..it is getting pretty bad.

http://www.3ders.org/pricecompare/3dprinters/

I am sure that is not nearly all of them :)

The design is always an issue when printing too. Customers rarely design their models to be printed because they don't fully understand the process. If you design correctly you can get away with very little support material and still get very detailed models..if not then you end up with either a poorly printed object or significant detail loss on the surfaces from support material removal.

Maybe some plugins for popular CAD programs might be helpful...at least some sort of "ray" plugin that would show where your trouble overhangs/support material generation will be located. At least for training purposes.

More often than not it is a print quality issue with a lot of them. At least what I've run into.

Operator knowledge is very important. I often tell people "It is like a table saw...not a toaster" "Just because you have one doesn't mean you will be able to use it right away"

Also, typically the less you spend on a printer the more time you spend tuning or failing prints. You can make a $600 in parts printer do very well if you know what you are doing...but it is much easier if you spend more on parts. Things like linear rails and proper leadscrews go a very long way...as does a proper hotend.

Spot on. This is something that I find myself telling to people: money buys you time. The more you pay, the less you have to spend figuring out how does it work.

I'm not sure a few pages of 3d printers covering a price range from $140-$846 000 is really any evidence of over-saturation.

How do we determine this? An equivalent list of 2d printers would be significantly longer.

The market for 2d printers are also several magnitudes bigger, presently.

    > They haven't made it easy enough for Joe User to create
    > printable 3d designs.

As the top comment points out - not only the modeling is difficult, but printing is difficult to. What comes out of a 3D printer is not equivalent to what comes out of a blister pack.

    > Re: market saturation

At the low end, everyone seems to be providing FDMs. 10 years ago, I would have put my money on Z-Corp style parts at the low end (though they are not really practical for use at home without some significant post processing).

SLS would also give you higher resolution with the option of materials, little waste, and a nearly ready-to-go part out of the machine. Anyone know if there are attempts to bring that to homes?

Yeah, we have the past two MakerBots, which work decently, and their 3D scanner which is unusable.

easy and functional designs. PLA toys are just a novelty.

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