Desktop 3D printer manufacturers face a choice going forward.
The choice is whether to focus on DIY-oriented 3D printers, or instead move towards more fully automated solutions that tend to remove the need for tinkering.
The primary driver that’s changing things here is the increasingly powerful automation that can be built into modern desktop 3D printers. Early devices from years ago were entirely manual, requiring considerable expertise and time to achieve proper printing. Nowadays you simply open up the box and turn on the printer and it works perfectly.
Nevertheless, there are still plenty of people interested in tinkering with their machines. Some want to squeeze the most value and performance from the machines, while others simply enjoy the tinkering.
However, the ratio is changing. As machines become more automated, the number of non-technical buyers increases. In other words, the proportion of DIY tinkerers is continuing to decline.
How does a 3D printer manufacturer react to this? Should they continue to serve the DIY market, as they largely have done for a decade? Or should they embrace automation and focus on the far, far larger non-technical market?
The risk in staying with the tinker market is that it is relatively small. A competitor selling into the other larger market would end up with far more resources and economies of scale, likely giving them the ability to easily outrun smaller competitors.
You can see there is great pressure for desktop 3D printer manufacturers to pursue the larger automation market, as doing otherwise effectively seals the fate of the company in the long term.
Some companies have visibly made their choice, while others are still struggling with the transition. Recently we gained insight into this decision from a Reddit AMA by Anycubic co-founder and CTO Dr. James Ouyang.
The AMA is quite interesting, by the way, although it was flooded with a range of specific support questions. However, one question stood out to me. User GonzoDeep asked:
“Why did you insist on making your own Makerworld/Orca Slicer/ Klipper Copy/Fork?”
Dr. Ouyang responded:
“For tinkerers/makers/DIY, we will open source the slicer and firmware, but for other users, we are trying to offer an easier user experience, and we can continue to improve that.”
In other words, Anycubic is trying to do both.
Is that a good approach? Time will tell, of course, but in the meantime, trying to do two different things on a single machine will make things more complex in terms of design and support. Anycubic could probably make a better and more cost-effective solution if they focused on one or the other markets, but that’s not what they’re doing.
They are not the only desktop 3D printer manufacturer taking that path.
Via Reddit
