Why hasn’t Bambu Lab announced a resin 3D printer?
To date, Bambu Lab’s devices fall exclusively in the FFF world: filaments only. One might wonder why they haven’t announced something on the resin side of the world.
Their competitors certainly have. All of these major providers have both FFF and resin options, some for many years:
- Anycubic
- Prusa Research
- Creality
- Elegoo
Prusa Research in particular made a big splash a few years ago when they introduced the SL1, which was later updated to the SL1S.
I believe the strategy is that companies might believe they can serve more customers with a broader set of products. For example, an FFF operator might want to begin resin printing. Their obvious step would be to buy a device from their favourite FFF manufacturer, if only to use the same online services, slicing software and apps for convenience.
Why doesn’t Bambu Lab want to get in on this game? Do they not see a resin option as a way to sell more devices?
I’m sure they do realize they could sell more machines, but Bambu Lab is a bit different from their competitors.
Bambu Lab was launched with different objectives than the other companies. The company was created by folks that came from DJI, the world’s largest manufacturer of drones.
DJI succeeded by entering a market filled with overly-techy products that were challenging for most people to use. Their strategy was to simplify the machines so that anyone could use them. This is a very different approach from most manufacturers that focus on technical aspects, not the user experience.
My belief is that the former DJI execs now running Bambu Lab are executing a similar strategy: enter a market filled with overly-techy products that most people can’t use, and create new simpler products to overcome that barrier and take over the market.
That’s precisely what Bambu Lab is doing. Doing with FFF technology, that is.
Is there space in that strategy for resin 3D printing?
My thought is no. The reason is that resin 3D printing is fundamentally different and far more challenging.
Why? For starters, resin is toxic, and must be very carefully handled. I can’t tell you the number of resin machines I’ve tested that are essentially designed to get resin all over you and your machine. I’m convinced that at some point in the future there will be plenty of lawsuits against designers of resin equipment that wasn’t safe for general consumers.
Perhaps Bambu Lab sees this as a possibility as well, and is staying clear of resin. Remember the extraordinary steps they took when there was a design flaw in their A1 3D printer? They had to accept returns of thousands of A1 devices, likely at massive cost. In fact, CEO Dr. Tao himself told me that was the biggest challenge of that event: where do we find the money to handle it?
With that event written into corporate memory, it’s not a surprise they are staying clear of resin, at least for now. Who gets sued? The biggest companies with the most money. Who is the biggest company? It could be Bambu Lab, one of these days.
It’s also possible that they have not been able to develop a resin handling system that is foolproof. Any resin systems I’ve seen that are relatively safe are far more expensive than desktop 3D printer operators would want to afford.
For now, I expect Bambu Lab to proceed without resin options.
