In a program that has since ended, MakerBot has also pioneered crowd-sourced manufacturing. If you had some way of making the pulleys they needed, be it on a MakerBot or otherwise, they would pay you $2 per pulley. They would, in turn, sell those pulleys in the MakerBot kits they sold.

(http://blog.makerbot.com/2009/08/06/makerbot-is-pioneering-d...)

Just in case some people are interested in doing this as a DIY project, it's based on the RepRap (http://www.reprap.org/).

You can also do the makerbot yourself, as it's also fully open source.

My favorite thing about these printers is the ability to print replacement parts for parts that you know will wear out first. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1553 Hardware bugs that can be solved by emailing a model file. :)

Sounds like the eventual goal of the Reprap project. "RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid-prototyper. It is the practical self-copying 3D printer" - See http://reprap.org/ for more info.

That's not surprising, since MakerBot founder Zach Smith is a RepRap contributor and also runs the RepRap Research Foundation (http://www.rrrf.org/). MakerBot's fabricators are based on RepRap designs and software, and they also sell RepRap parts in their store.

The two projects still contribute code and ideas to each other, for example: http://blog.reprap.org/2009/08/one-of-my-partners-at-makerbo....

The video on the homepage showed the finished product. It's a set of salt and pepper shakers shaped like eggs. You can plainly see that it's built layer by layer. I think MakerBot is really cool, but it fails to please the eye with rounded surfaces.

That'll change eventually.

Web apps had clunkier interfaces than desktop software ~10 years ago. Personal computers had less computing power than mainframes 20 years ago. They all had their disadvantages at first, but they make up for it by advantages along other dimensions while slowly eroding their disadvantage.

When something like that becomes cheap enough for kids and hobbyists to get their hands on it, you should keep your eye on it.

The only thing I would challenge is the comparison to the speed of development in computer hardware/web apps. PC's have been a multi-billion dollar business with hundreds of million in investment since the Apple II. 3D printers are still a niche r&D tool 20 years after their invention. For instance 3D systems, the #2 player in the market only spent $8MM on R&D last year. Assuming the 4 majors did the same it is still under $40MM. More has been spent on real time web R&D this year.

That said, I hope the pace increases.

To be fair, in an industry that's as encumbered by patents as this one is, you can't expect things to innovate that quickly. There _are_ some innovations coming down the pipeline, however. Expect to see costs fall rapidly in the near future, making the tech even more accessible...

There's even business method patents on half of this.

Computers were still a niche tool 40 years after their invention.

I think that once people realise applications that apply to the mainstream they will become as cheap and as widespread as inkjet printers.

We have a more expensive version of these machines in our lab. After we print the part, if we want a finished surface we brush on super glue to make the part stronger and smoother. Then we sand and paint. We're also looking into using Bondo.

If you're into playing around with materials... check out this blog.

http://open3dp.me.washington.edu/?cat=6

This dude is on the cutting edge of new material stuff. A lot of it is for Z Corp stuff, not FDM, but you might find some interesting nuggets there.

The FDM process is one of the rougher ones, but the end parts are much more durable. A little bit of sanding goes a long way.

This.

Just a little bit of sanding, some filler, some paint... it yields a pretty nice product.

I wish the photos weren't so craptastic, but my friend rob made a plastic combination lock on a high-end 3D printer. While the resolution is certainly a lot tighter than MakerBot, it still is easy to tell it was printed in layers. Even the high-end rapid prototypers do this.

Have you seen a V-Flash print up close? You really have to be looking to see the layers. That goes for stuff like Z Corp, too.

And you're not even going to be able to see the 10 micron resolution on an Object machine.

Wow. I meant "Objet," by the way. Apparently, I can't type it. When I wrote that first sentence, I thought it through, and slowly typed "Object."

I've seen the dragon head they printed at the 26C3, and I was quite disappointed. It is still a cool toy, but not by far what I would have expected.

Still, it can only get better - I guess if you know what to expect, you can also pick things to make where the quality is adequate. Won't be printing sleek iPhone casings for now, though.

The bet uses of it I've seen have been related to projects where aesthetics didn't matter much. ex. I know a student who used it to prototype chassis for a robotics class. The MakerBot let him quickly and cheaply iterate his design and the final finish didn't really matter. You are right that the action figure market has nothing to fear in the short term.

I'm a member of CCCKC, a hackerspace in Kansas City. We picked up one of these a while ago, and one guy is even using it to print out parts for a RepRap Mendel.

I find it inspiring that this project was born right out of the hackerspace concept via NYC Resistor.

I wonder what their profit margin is per unit.

My guess is probably around $100-150 per unit, and I'd also guess that the main part of the profit is in the laser-cut parts, at $200. Now, they take quite a bit of time to cut, and laser cutters aren't cheap, but look at the numbers. That's a lot of profit.

My hackerspace mix-and-matched a whole bunch of stuff from makerbot industries because one of our members had a laser cutter and could make those in his basement. The MakerBot "Laserless kit" is modeled after the order we put in.

We compared a lot of part prices to those found in catalogs, and the price difference was so negligible that it would have been more of a pain in the butt than anything to buy all those parts (hardware, motors, microcontrollers, pulleys, bearings, belts and the like) from catalogs. Sure, they order in bulk and get a discount. There's profit being made on the small stuff, but I'm still betting the laser cut parts are the cash cow for them.

Actually, compared to 3D printers themselves... laser cutters are pretty cheap.

Not $750 cheap.

Ours was cheaper :-)

(Ok ok it was a dead one from craig's list that we fixed)

http://www.andrewkilpatrick.org/blog/?page_id=914

I knew you guys had a laser cutter at hacklab, but I'd never heard the back story. Thanks! That was a great read!

Of course. But give Neil Gershenfeld another year or two. He's working on it.

Their BOM is open source so you could figure it out with a little Sparkfun sleuthing. In any case I would guess they are at least ramen profitable.

I would search on Digikey or Mouser instead. Sparkfun is pretty expensive.

Or octopart (a YC firm).

Does anyone know what next cheapest 3D printer is, after the Reprap and Cupcake? I imagine in the 5-figure range, so at $750 and quite a bit of self-assembly, the Cupcake is an absolute steal - and very much affordable for schools, or even an individual, creating a new market where there was none before.

If you're really on a budget, you might also want to consider leasing. You can get them as cheap as $300/month, roughly.

5 figures is right, but low five figures. A uPrint starts at $14,500. However, for really low cost stuff, check out a company called M-Cor. They're not available here yet, but coming soon. They print with regular A2 printer paper and glue, and you end up with a material that's comparable to wood. If I remember right, the machine is $30k, but you're talking a dollar or two per part.

Here at the Metalab in Vienna, Austria, there is quite a MakerBot clique doing very interesting things .. OpenSCAD integration with MakerBot is also very intriguing, in that OpenSCAD gives you a platform to design things on the basis of formula, and then quickly print it out .. so the screw-lock boxs and other mathematically integrated devices are all the rage around these parts, lately. Good for stash-boxes! :)

It has been very fun to see the MakerBot rise in Metalab, from the mad-cap getting-ready-for Roboexotica days to the 'hmm, if I make one small tweak this will become that' enthusiasm to be had in Metalab late on a Friday night ..

Best use of a Makerbot/RepRap yet: printing replacement parts for Nintendo Game & Watch battery covers! :P