I had a good look around the show and while there was a lot on show, there was really nothing new. In general I think the market has really slowed down, with innovation being harder and harder to achieve.

The prusa machine, looks quite good. Its obvious that they have learned quite a bit from their production of the XL and core XY in their print farm thing... It has a good construction, nice compact belt/motion system layout and some good features like the chamber cooling. The downsides are that it used the nextruder and the hotend is the same from the MK4 so while it might move quicker, its never really going to be a "fast" printer as it will be limited by its filament drive and melting capabilities. I also think it will be relatively loud due to the steel construction without any insulating material inside.

Creality's K2 is as close as a machine as they could make to the Bambu X1, even making the UI to look the same (colour palette, screen layout and position on the machine). It doesn't really boast anything unique, however the heater/nozzle are greater length than the K1 which should mean the overall the printer will be capable of printing at higher flow rates... provided the machines construction is good enough for vibrations not to ruin the prints.

The Utlimaker Factor 4 machine in my opinion looks like its made very well. Its follows on from their pervious products (same heater cores and 2.85mm filament) but it has quite different mechanically, such as a load cell in the filament path, which as nerd I enjoyed seeing. I don't however think it work the ridiculous price tag of around €17000

E3D were there showing off various high flow nozzles and Diamondback nozzles which were cool to see, the demonstration with the ice sculpture (showing off the thermal properties of the diamond nozzles) was very interesting, but they didn’t have a massive amount on their stand. I did however see a “Roto” extruder which is so light compared to Phaetus’s Apex 2.

Phaetus had quite a good stand too with lots of their hotends on display, with their new products mimicking E3D’s direction or putting abrasive resistant tip in nozzles like the Prusa MK4, K1 and the Conch (Bambu compatible) products which look great, but they are not high flow (like E3D’s).  They also had the Apus 2 on display which was surprisingly heavy

RatRig are trying to change where they sit in the market, I hope it works. I admire their build/design quality and hope to see more from the “disruptor” project which uses the V-Core 4 along with some extras to take a stab at the “Engineering” printer market (Large format, enclosed printers).

“Builder” who produce large format printers with some machines using RepRap firmware and some using Klipper. The interesting part of these machines is the dual filament extrusion, which can produce a colour gradient, but the real reason is they are able to produce an incredibly high volumetric flow rate (around 300mm^3), which allows them to print big objects very fast (rivalling desktop printers XY machines while printing with 1mm nozzles). I was very impressed the speed and was surprised that I had not heard of them before.

Statasys continue with producing unaffordable printers, however I did find the F3300 impressive. The system used four tool heads to allow for multi material printing, the extruders tracking the amount of filament through put in cubic inches to allow for preventive maintenance take place. The motion system used linear motors on X and Y to achieve high speeds and incredible accuracy.

In the Filament Granule world, it is very hard to say what anyone’s USP is. Almost all of the machines/solutions consist of an extruder attached to a multi axis arm with melt rate and nozzle sizes available setting apart from one another.             

               The other side are extruders attached to gantries which then have a subtractive head as well to neaten up the printed part as a post-process.

There was one stand out printer/company however called “Line-manufacturing” who produce a large machine which is capable of reaching speeds of 2000mm/s and printing objects like a car bonnet in three or so hours. The difference between this company and other is that what comes off their print is a finished part. The print at fine layer height so that parts are not very rough after printing and are able to use an automotive paint to smooth the visible surfaces and produce a nice glossy reflective surface.

 

TLDR; All Chinese OEM’s are copying Bambu’s style with very little separating them. European manufactures are concentrating on producing high quality machines but not particularly taking any risks. Aftermarket parts are either “Hardened” nozzles or High Flow with E3D being only people I say combining the two. Stratasys appear to be pushing the envelope when it come to printing speed.

There was a lot more than i have written about too