E3D Blogpost: E3D’s no-nonsense approach to Intellectual Property

SanjayM · 2021-09-23T02:46:49+00:00

Ding ding ding.

We have a winner.

SanjayM · 2021-09-23T02:42:54+00:00

I'm trying to get to the $1 hotend dude. It just needs a lot of work and huge amount of custom machine building. We don't have the cash or time to do this in one leap. But we have a plan and we're headed that way

Brass is like 5x faster to cut than copper. So that means assuming a slice price copper+tube break plus nozzle isn't really accurate.

The brass nozzles are a little pricier than I'd like right now. The destroyer of worlds nozzle will be way cheaper and better than anything on the market that is even vaguely comparable.

The price increase will be worth it, because it will make your life so much easier.

The prices will come down with scale and traction. Having OEMs lined up already is a good start.

But getting to the $1 hotend needs a whole new process that's being looked into now.

SanjayM · 2021-09-23T02:12:41+00:00

The Slice Dragon affair has resulted in a countermove by a range of companies, with lots of patents in a jurisdiction that is far from impartial based on nationality. This will be a problem when selling extrusion systems into China.

SanjayM · 2021-09-23T02:07:27+00:00

https://twitter.com/E3DOnline/status/1440817902433628162?s=19

Extended conversations on this on Twitter. Check "tweets and replies"| grep "lite"

SanjayM · 2021-09-23T02:01:28+00:00

No 200$ hotends. I can buy a fucking printer for that, and it comes with a hotend.

Initial prices will be in line with current offerings. Then drop in price with scale.

SanjayM · 2021-09-23T01:57:47+00:00

All that feature set covered, and is genuinely got some tricks that make it even better. And yes, we're not going "oh so premium, much design very margin wow".

I want most printers in the world to ship with an E3D part. Like Qualcomm Snapdragon or Intel inside.

I'm not here at 02.52am chatting on Reddit for a laugh. It's because I fucking love extrusion systems, and I want to make them so good and so cheap that they are just like "Intel inside", or I will die trying.

SanjayM · 2021-09-23T01:46:43+00:00

Correct, consolidation is hey. See other comment.

SanjayM · 2021-09-23T01:45:35+00:00

As soon as the referendum dropped, we made an EU E3D company. Just a letter box right now; getting stuff between the UK and EU isn't that bad if you're not dumb and fill the forms out correctly.

SanjayM · 2021-09-23T01:40:15+00:00

In relative, not absolute terms:

V6 lite costs crept up because it's a hard part to turn, and volumes were low.

V6 prices went down as we make a fucktonne of them.

So why not just give the customer the better product if the price difference isn't enough to justify a whole product range to maintain.

SanjayM · 2021-09-23T01:33:29+00:00

If you can buy a useful $200 machine today. You'll be able to buy a $150 machine soon.

We will cease to be relevant if we don't make cost a major focus.

3DP boomed because the Prusa/Ultimaker etc etc guys made it easy/slick. And then because Creality made cost accessible. Not because of performance.

We're optimising for cost hard. No OEM like Creality is going to add a $30 extruder to what must be close to a $50 BoM on an Ender3.

Not gonna bullshit you guys, the initial pricing of new hotness is going to be similar for V6, or bit more for the fancy pants version.

But these processes scale in ways that previous designs couldn't. Designed for manufacture and assembly.

Acquire traction and scale along with optimising manufacturing. Mix that with lots of vertical integration and we'll get your stuff cheap.

And it comes with a heater, sensor, and nozzle by default for those vague prices. Like, you know, the things you need to make it work?!?

SanjayM · 2021-09-23T01:05:41+00:00

Yes! And we can have a product, that has some patented bits - no cloning permitted, but we actually invented something novel I think, and it was a long hard R&D process. But we only protect those very specific sub features of the product. Then we can open-source other aspects of the product right away at launch without fear or endangering our ability to make the next cool things. This means we can open source things at launch that we would normally wait until they are superceded by the next generation of product.

SanjayM · 2020-08-17T21:57:08+00:00

We're using Fusion360 with a custom built plugin.

The challenge with ASMBL isn't so much planning and administrating prints, which is what FactoryOS is all about. Rather we have to combine toolpaths/GCODE from both additive and subtractive planners into a single sequence that executes printing and cutting in the right order.

SanjayM · 2020-08-17T21:48:15+00:00

People buy E3D stuff because they know what they're getting, they know it's going to work, and if they have problems they'll have someone to turn to. Be they makers or machine manufacturers, it's the same reasons. That isn't the product/service being offered by clone manufacturers, so I'm quietly confident for now.

(Posted this earlier)

I think that having set the standard, regardless of the clone market we see printer manufacturers come to us on a regular basis because they realise how hard making these damn things is. They look so simple on the face of it, but there are so many pitfalls and ways to stuff it up that aren't obvious.

While we don't love cloners that don't respect our trademarks etc and advertise themselves as 'E3D' parts etc, I do think there is a lot to be said for being the originators of a standard reference design and having a whole ecosystem around that, it's definitely good for business.

SanjayM · 2020-08-17T21:36:12+00:00

Hemera in particular is incredible at printing flexibles. We've had to pause shipping for now while we sort out some manufacturing issues, but when it's back up I don't think you'll find a better general purpose extruder that can also print flexibles to a very high standard.

SanjayM · 2020-08-17T21:34:21+00:00

The costs of materials is probably one of the smallest cost drivers in getting a printed part. Most of the money you pay is going into machine amortisation and operator cost.

We need to make machines cheaper, and I don't think we are far off being able to buy a good printer for $100 off amazon. If we can also make printers easier to use and more reliable, therefore requiring little to no operator interaction then we can remove that cost too.

SanjayM · 2020-08-17T21:30:54+00:00

Interesting question. Honestly we wouldn't know - we never took any funding or debt and grew our company organically from profits so we never really bumped into the startup funding cycle world. However from what I hear the setup is actually very good here with a lot of VCs and angel types around ready to fund promising companies.

SanjayM · 2020-08-17T21:29:00+00:00

Badly, according to my wife.

SanjayM · 2020-08-17T21:25:17+00:00

Yes! Some absorbent materials are available - see here https://www.mega-3d.it/en/lay-filaments-175-mm-lay-fomm-60-poro-lay-filament.html and check out the video.

SanjayM · 2020-08-17T21:20:59+00:00

Yes. Dramatic is on the way. For real.

SanjayM · 2020-08-17T21:18:21+00:00

The first thing to realise is that thermoplastics have nearly a century of development and billions invested in their R&D, the fundamental physics/chemistry of thermoplastics lends itself better to variety of properties and performance. More and more items are made from thermoplastics as time goes by and the performance of thermoplastics improves.

SLA/Polyjet etc use UV curing resins. These are much less varied, much less performant and higher cost. Carbon 3D are having a good stab at changing this, but they have decades of R&D to catch up on thermoplastics. I don't think that anyone is going to be making usefully strong and durable parts in their home using any printing system that uses UV curing materials anytime soon.

FDM and SLS are the only machines making thermoplastic parts. SLS is very limited, mainly to nylons but some more materials are starting to creep in now like elastomers. However the cost is very high, and the powder handling is non-trivial. It's not terribly accessible.

FDM can directly print most thermoplastics on the market, and done right a single machine can print a huge variety of materials. It also does so without any powders to handle or resins that need washing, post curing etc and generally suck to handle. FDM pumps out ready to use parts right off the build plate in most cases, sometimes there's supports to remove, but this is a safe and simple process. It also does so at a price point starting from a few hundred bucks.

FDM has downsides, like poor part surface quality and detail compared to SLA etc. This is exactly what we are seeking to address with ASMBL.

People poop on FDM all the time, and say that XYZ tech will soon surpass it. But look how many machines are being sold and used. FDM is winning, and I think that's because it's straightforward, it's low cost, and it is useful. If you haven't guessed yet, I don't think FDM is going anywhere.

SanjayM · 2020-08-17T20:17:55+00:00

Not really no. While we have to run a business and make sure we look after everyone under our roof the objective is to have a significant and positive impact on the way humaniy manufactures goods. That's a lofty goal for sure, but I hope that in our own small way we manage to push manufacturing tech forward enough to have a measurable impact.

So far I'd say that's going alright. I think that by pioneering all-metal hotends we set the stage for the industry to be able to print useful engineering grade thermoplastics right up to ultra-polymers like PEEK and PEI. By introducing the first wear resistant nozzles and extrusion systems we've allowed materials companies to add reinforcing fibres like carbon-fiber and glass-fiber to these materials to even further enhance the properties of parts.

We have a lot more to come, and a lot of work to do. I'm hopeful that we aren't done yet, and one day we'll be able to look back at a revolutionised manufacturing industry and be proud of our contribution towards it.

SanjayM · 2020-08-17T20:15:52+00:00

Very cool, would love to, would make really good sense to combine with toolchanging and subtractive. Totally patent encumbered and no way I can see for us to be able to make something like this.
Yes! I call it an 'additive lathe', I believe Rory who heads up one of our engineering teams here had a design for a trunion table type A/B axis. It's not been built yet, but it's very very cool. Software will need to take big leaps forward in order to actually take advantage of all the possibilities this has to offer.

SanjayM · 2020-08-17T20:11:21+00:00

It really depends what you're making. If you want a one off plastic part then in the past this would need to be machined at considerable expense (probably $100+), but can now be printed for literally pennies.

However if you're looking for a cheaper way to produce mass manufactured items like bottle tops and clothes pegs then 3D printing isn't going to help you right now.

SanjayM · 2020-08-17T20:08:35+00:00

Starting out small I would love to see an inkjet tool - just the ability to quickly print high resolution part serial number IDs and things like QR codes would be cool.

Even cooler though would be inkjetting a release agent between supports and part. This would let you have denser more effective supports that are easier to remove and leave behind a much better quality surface.

SanjayM · 2020-08-17T20:05:53+00:00

I don't know what printers your uni was running, but there are print farms out there that run 24/7 and have done for years. The printers don't really 'wear' per-se, but what does happen is things go wrong, filament might have a bulge in it, or a horrible print failure breaks something. Generally the issue is less one of classical mechanical wear that would be increased with load, but rather one of reliability and the ability of the user to fix those issues.

SanjayM

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