Tucson hi welcome my name is Jason
babbler I'm the creative director at
Maker media make magazine and the lab
manager maker Media Lab which is where
you are today is this who's been here
before about half of you okay yep you
work here have you you don't count so
the other half of you welcome if you
don't know about this place used to be
the exploratorium I don't think anybody
been to the exploratorium when it was
here okay great when they moved out this
place was taken over by innovation
hangar which is kind of the landlord and
they really want some innovative
companies in here and they reached out
to us at maker Media Lab and said would
you like to you know set up shop here
and we graciously said awesome yes love
to be here so what would what usually
happens here because this weekend's a
little different is this is where we
build all the projects for Make Magazine
there's a bunch of magazines in the back
feel free to rifle through them but
please leave them here for other people
but make magazine we teach people how to
make things and we have interns and
that's what usually happens here but
this weekend special this is we're
working on our last issue of the year
which is desktop fabrication for the
last three years we've actually tested
3d printers and this year we opened them
up to some desktop mill machines cnc
machines some vinyl cutters and a couple
of laser cutters and that's what all
these machines are so I welcome you
after this talk to please go and look at
all the machines talk to some of the
testers who will introduce very shortly
and you know the only thing don't stick
your fingers in there if you can they
might get burnt so you might have a good
story to go onto but anyways welcome and
let me introduce to you Rafe Neil me
he's our new editor-in-chief of make
magazine he's going to MC this joint so
let's give a big hand
coming out and thank you for the awesome
italian soundtrack for our printers I'm
ready Needleman I'm the new
editor-in-chief here I've been about a
month and it's really awesome and I want
to thank you guys all for coming out
here we're just as Jason said just now
finishing our long weekend of testing 3d
fat 3d fabrication printers CNC Mills
and cutters and we thought that while we
had some of the world's best experts
probably more 3d printing experts
together in one place at one time we
would have this little event let you
talk to them hear what they say about
the state-of-the-art 3d printing and
have a good public conversation so we've
got a bunch of people in the audience if
you worked on 3d printing please raise
your hand here people from make to work
on 3d printing please if you're one of
our testers please play raise your hand
thank you and to introduce the testers
here I want to introduce Matt Stults who
is the guy the Czar of 3d printing
testing and make who organized this
whole thing Matt who do we have with us
and tussle about yourself how you ended
up here and who we have here ah thanks
right so as he said I'm Matt Stoltz I am
the 3d printing digital fabrication lead
here at make I helped to organize all
this event I could not have done it I've
got to have a big hand to Elise thank
you so much for helping me put all this
together so it's been amazing but I have
been a member of the testing team for
the past three years and this year I
kind of took over as lead for make and
it's it's been a blast and we've had a
really really great great year a lot
different than years and past of of
having the extra machines and it's been
really exciting there she is so with us
on stage we have some of our our testers
everyone is crucial everyone's important
but some of these guys really can kind
of speak a little bit more detailed
about some of the things that we did
this weekend and directly to my right we
have Casey halter grin
she is pretty small things on
thingiverse kind of made her 3d printing
named making small little furniture but
she has been our master of data for the
weekend we spent a lot of time this year
trying to get get get this process down
to more of a science and a lot of that
was thanks to kc beside kc we have Luis
Rodriguez he has spent the past two
years as part of the the testing team
and this year he was really crucial to
making sure there are CNC operations
were work well done and that we knew
what we hit we knew what we were doing
and able to pull off everything that we
were able to pull office this weekend
beside him is Chris Joey this is chris's
second year also chris has a ton of 3d
printing experience Chris buys every 3d
printer he can he can get at his his
cheap cheap price point so and love
loves everything 3d printing we couldn't
keep him off every machine in the the
building this weekend and then we have
Jason like who's part of also my Rhode
Island team and Jason spent a lot of a
lot of time this weekend by himself back
in a back room making sure that we did
something that that I don't think in any
previous year we ever thought we would
do at a 3d printing testing weekend
which is making actual furniture so the
chair that you see beside Jason was
actually produced by Jason using digital
fabric fabrication tools this weekend so
all right great thanks so I'm going to
start off this conversation with a
couple of questions if you have some
give me one or two to warm up and then
let us know if you're watching this on
the live stream you can tweet me
questions at rave that's at raf e f
isn't Frank are a fe by the way our 3d
fabrication issue comes out in november
it's the last issue of the year it
arrives around november and the test
results will go up on the web at the
same time so don't miss that one it's
your Christmas shopping list it totally
is you buy one thing and then you can
print or
presence okay so first up I want to ask
Matt why are we test we're not just
testing 3d printers we're testing other
stuff what else is here and why so again
in the past we've always tested 3d
printers and one of the things that we
wanted to do is really show the
expanding universe of digital
fabrication tools you know digital
fabrication tools some of these tools
have been in the public hands for a lot
longer than 3d printers you know people
have been working with CNC machines and
vinyl cutters and things like that a lot
of the explosion of 3d printers came
from people using laser cutters to even
build 3d printers but they didn't quite
get the popularity until 3d printers
made such a big explosion that that
people wanted to look into other tools
and these tools have become better and
better through the years and more
accessible so we wanted to show that
that these tools are starting to get to
the point where they're affordable
they're accessible and and they're
they're easy enough to use that
hopefully they can they can come into
people's home workshops and help expand
that their abilities in their shops so
are they ready to use and who is working
mostly on the on the mills yeah so so um
yeah are the mills caught up to the 3d
printers I think they're getting close
yeah I think it's definitely by the time
the issue comes out maybe some little
quirks and things that we're noticing
this weekend will be gone but I think
you'll be able to buy a machine use some
introductory software to get your
learning curve sort of ramped up and a
lot of them have options for sort of
medium level and expert mode which you
know you're going to want depend
what you're doing I mean I don't
remember this many males last year I
mean certainly have version twos and
threes of things but all of them are
beefier none of them had catastrophic
failures you know but I do feel like
it's a good time to jump in if you're
into that and wide range of price points
okay I so I'm the sculptor in the group
or one of the sculptures in the group so
I'm always thinking about this as you
know how do I produce objects or sort of
a more art like things i think the the
thing with the cnc routers that the
hurdle i would like to see it get over
is that undercut i'm always looking for
how do we how do we make this more
dimensional how do we get more out of it
so i think it seems like the equipment
is there the this sort of the the
hardware is a pretty good quality but
there is still that nice feature of 3d
printing where you can get much more
versatile in what you have the ability
to print with so let's talk about the 3d
printers in particular how they advance
since last year is the hardware better
as a software better is it time to buy
do I need one in my home right now I
will confess I don't have one yet I know
right but are they ready for us they're
just about ready for everything right
now there are printers out there that
can be used by just about anyone but if
you are the person that wants these
super customized super tweakable machine
those are still available as well there
are printers for every person every job
every home every office there there's a
model little work and we're seeing the
other machines come along too in that
fashion there's still the machines are
highly capable night one of the things
we're seeing is
the software for them that's it's
definitely something you've seen with 3d
printing and now on the CNC side we're
seeing that the machines are all very
capable but it's that software curve of
we've already come up to speed on the 3d
printing side were well versed we're
seeing that same kind of hurdle and
that's going to help when you get the 3d
printer the software is what's going to
help bridge that curve for you in the
beginning and we're seeing that in the
3d printer world taking advancing year
after year so the software's catching up
yep and the hardware still has a way to
go it could be better where I mean I
know you I know I know you say they're
ready but what do we have to look
forward to in terms of 3d printing
advancements we keep seeing the quality
and improve and improve and improve okay
the quality of the princeton the the
parody that we're seeing amongst the
machines we're getting a lot better in
my opinion we're getting a lot better
between the wide range of machines are
getting built quality yeah there's
there's definitely the usability side
it's getting easier and easier every
year we're seeing more functionality
auto-leveling and becoming more more and
more common as well as you know
simplified software that makes it so
much easier for everyone to use because
that's that's really still one of the
sticking points as people want that kind
of point and click the point and print
experience that they get on a on say a
laser printer or you know a deskjet
printer you know for printing normal
pieces of paper and 3d printing isn't
quite there but it's getting closer and
closer to that stage but there's a lot
of advancements that we're going to
probably be saved bc coming over the
next few years I mean obviously
materials which is not something that we
tested here per se because there's just
so many different materials in so many
variations but but that's a big thing is
if we'd have this conversation if two
years ago we would have said oh well you
know you have a choice of three or four
materials now you know it's 30 or 40
materials that you could you could use
on your machine or more than that so
materials are definitely making a big
big change but there's other
technologies you know everything that we
tested this weekend is what we call F F
F or F DM machines fused fabrication
filament machines but SLA SR are
becoming more
common we are testing SLS for the issue
we just don't have them here this
weekend because we realized that that
they're kind of messy and we already
knew that with all the sawdust and
everything else I was coming with the
CNCs that now we didn't didn't need to
code everything with a layer sticky
resin that was then covered in sawdust
and we would have practically been
tarred and feathered by the week by the
time the weekend was over but SLS is are
coming to market to and hopefully next
year when we when we're sitting here
again one of the machines sitting in
this room will be an SLS also so you
know lasers binding powder so talk to us
about this is a lot of 3d printers and
and 50 fabrication devices but it's not
all the 3d printers so how do we make
the cut why are these printers here and
not others so when I was setting
everything up this year in deciding what
machines we would have along along for
the ride and you know who we were really
reaching out to we did a couple things
we we knew kind of in years past we took
every fdm machine we could get our hands
on and we tested those we didn't really
see a reason this year to test models
that have been tested once or twice or
three times you know in past years we
really wanted to kind of test machines
that had either made maybe it was the
same model but it had major improvements
to it in one way or another or they were
brand new models that were coming to
market again we're a magazine and
there's only so many pages unless we
ship encyclopedia and so we needed to
make sure that as we were making more
space for the scene seized and the laser
cutters and the vinyl cutters and things
that that we weren't just spending time
rehashing over the same printers over
and over again we were going for things
that were new and things that the team
was excited about trying or you know
seeing how they worked so there's some
old favorites that that aren't here but
that doesn't mean that they aren't
amazing machines it just means that we
still know that they're amazing we
didn't have to test it again so Casey I
think this one might be for you talk to
us about how we did the testing because
we had a pretty rigorous methodology
this year
go go through that yes so from year to
year we keep sort of building on this
process and last year we developed a
handful of test models that tested
various qualities kind of answered this
question of what is print quality
because unlike you know your average
paper printer just talking about DPI
like there's no equivalent it's not just
layer height there's a lot more that
goes into a good-looking print and so we
had a really nice sort of database of
probes that we had designed and tested
and we built off that library we made a
couple of changes and so that the
objects are easier to score for the
average person because that's really our
goal is that we don't want you to have
to be an expert to look at a print and
be able to score it and so we're testing
those same same test models and some new
test models this year we also sort of
added in a layer of an amenity to our
process the way that we logged a part of
it is you know we have what 15 machines
here 15 to 20 like machines we print
like 10 test models it's a lot of models
by the end of the weekend and it's
really tough to keep track of all these
make sure we attribute him to the right
machine and that we've got information
on them like what the print settings
were and who printed them and what
machine they came off of and so we
developed a system this year of logging
these prints in an anonymous way so for
the most part I kept my sort of head
down in the 3d printing world and hung
out with the laser cutter throughout the
weekend and then took to scoring the
prints today without having a lot of
information about how these printers had
been performing so we were trying to
take some of that bias out of the
process certainly bringing in people
from the team to discuss and
double-check and review but
really trying to make sure that our
reviews are good we don't have any
biases and that we're evaluating sort of
each print on their own without you know
knowing what machine it came from now
the idea of testing the way we're doing
is in part to make it the test program
exportable so we're going to make our
models or the probes available to other
people to print out and tell people how
we tested them so people be able to
evaluate definitely I mean last year we
released all the test probes and we'll
do an update this year to release them
again and this year we're also working
on a little bit better of a guide to
help people along a description only
goes so far and we have a really nice
database that we're building up of
photos of these prints like what does a
like really stellar awesome like
bridging print look like and what does a
pretty sloppy one look like because
there's a really wide range for all of
these when we talk with give a score
from 1 to 5 the ones are not so good and
the fives are you know top of the line
and we give the fives way like with
trepidation and only if they're
extremely well deserved a lot of these
printers you know print in the three and
four range my printers at home
definitely printing that's solid for so
you know even printers that are
performing in that range that's like
pretty good if we're giving out fives
they're like awesome so for all of you
guys without giving away any brand names
or anything because you have to wait
until November to log on or by the issue
were there any big surprises from the
test prints or cuts or what have you
they're better they're kick for sure
Casey doesn't really know the surprises
because again she doesn't know what
machines the the prints were coming off
of but there there were a couple things
in here in my opinion in the good and
the bad machines that that we absolutely
shocked us because of how good they were
for some reason that we did not expect
them to be quite that level as well as
machines that we
you know expected to perform really well
and while they may still have done good
they didn't shine and quite the light
that we expected them to I think so yeah
it's it's always a surprise every year
coming in and taking a look you know
there's again there's there's machines
that we know and that we love and we
know you know the quality of its going
to come off of them but it's it's nice
to come in and and you know really
really find some of the shining lights
that they come here new every year Lewis
Chris or Jason anything I would have to
say on the whole I did you get more for
your money now again all of the prints
improved but yeah some of the cheaper
ones I was surprised how well they how
well they perform one of the other
things there there's still people coming
up with new ways in new printers new
ways to print and new printers coming
out every year there are a few printers
that shock a little bit in the it's kind
of a total break with the norm we're all
kind of used to start out with the
Cartesian BOTS and then you you see the
very the subtle variations there but
then you see these new machines coming
out every year and there are a few this
year that's still managed to kind of
shake things up a little bit you guys so
one of the debates I had yesterday with
what some of the testers was or
discussion we had was that these are
these are affordable machines for the
most part they're not you know impulse
purchases but if you want a 3d printer
and you have an income you can get one
of these and put in your in your garage
or your home so question is is there a
level beyond this where you see better
quality better speed better reliability
or is this like the state of the art for
3d printing right now what one of the
interesting things that that's kind of
happened over the past few years is you
know a big explanation here is is in
case you aren't aware I'm hopefully you
are is 3d printing isn't new 3d printing
has been around for a long time desktop
3d printing home 3d printing is has only
been made possible by the patents
expiring from the big boys that have
allowed smaller companies to kind of
come in and start making these
now the big guys are still making you
know 5,000 10,000 quarter of a million
dollar machines that have all different
kind of varying ranges of what they can
do what they can produce but one of the
the popular assumptions is is you know
if I get a high-end machine from one of
the big companies that means it's got to
be better than the five-hundred-dollar
printer bought or something like that
but interestingly there was a test
recently done where where a gentleman
actually decided to print a teacup and
compare the print quality of his teacup
off of his five hundred dollar printrbot
versus his his $5,000 it wasn't it was a
mojo right I believe yeah and not only
look at the print qualities but the the
cost of production and what he found was
is his his $500 printrbot produced a
teacup for less than a dollar that was
nicer than the five thousand dollar mojo
that produced a teacup that cost
twenty-five dollars to produce so you
know these these aren't just toys these
these are very useable capable machines
that are becoming better and better
every year we're the guys who who are
still holding on to the old ways holding
on to their patents um really may not be
innovating the way that the small
companies are pushing things forward I
if anybody has questions or topics you
want to raise to learn about 3d printing
or the products that are here please
raise your hand love to make this
conversation the absence that I will
happily keep going yes can you all hear
you please step up to the microphone
soon as we are recording this thank you
without giving anything away can you
tell us which SLA printers you tested so
the SLA s are still in process but we
are working on the da Vinci noble one
we're working on the Titan the
full-spectrum laser beam Nick's I
believe there's the Phoenix of the
Pegasus and I can ever maybe something
like that I can never remember that keep
the two of them straight so and there's
a couple others that were still in the
process of working out the details of
getting the testing done is there one
that you want to see tested
right right so the form 1 and the form 1
plus is great we tested it last year we
know it's great so that that I can talk
about the results on the form 1 plus is
awesome right so one of the products
that we have here when we talk about
desktop fabrication there's a product
here that can literally fabricate a
desktop it's it's the crawl bot and it's
back there in the shop and it it sits on
a four-by-eight form of a piece of
plywood and can and cut it and it's an
amazing device and I wanted to ask Jason
down at the end here who's been working
with it is are these serious shop
products is that a serious shot product
that you could or that you can see a
contract or using day to day let me
introduce without with it without giving
too much away but it's just that the
category sorry man let me interject
before we start this to also say that
Jason teaches woodworking shop classes
at a can I say the University at massart
in in Massachusetts so Jason isn't just
the kind of an average user he's a
college professor and they hit in in in
shot in woodshop so yeah if there's
anyone who I'm going to ask the shop
questions Jason yeah yeah I think this
is a I would love to see this in any
shop it's it's a nice addition to like a
lot of the tools we have back there I
think I don't know how much I can talk
about this it's a good but if for those
for those of you that haven't actually
seen the kraal bought the crawl bot was
released at unveiled at maker faire bay
area and it is a CNC machine capable of
cutting four of eight sheets of plywood
that's a little bit bigger than a bag of
that in size wise is a little bit bigger
than a bag of golf clubs so we don't
know how much it costs right now so we
can't necessarily say that they're still
figuring it out it's the unit the unit
that we have this weekend we are the
first people to try it outside of the
bini that is producing it it is it's not
available anywhere else they got it to
us I that they're still even working on
things so things are going to become
even better by the time it hits the the
public side of things but typically when
you're talking about seeing see mills
that are designed for for cutting large
pieces of plywood furniture and things
like that they are bigger than the sheet
of plywood you you're giving up a bay in
your garage or a room in your home to be
able to operate this this is take it out
in your driveway use it and then fold it
up in the corner of your garage or the
corner of your room or you know your
hackerspace you know sets it up against
the wall this is no longer a machine
that is is requiring you to devote a
large footprint of space to it so it's
it's it's interesting yeah yeah and
that's what made the chair if you want
to continue talking Jason sorry yeah I
it's in the back I'd be happy to show
anybody I love the concept I think we're
going to see a lot more this coming out
on the market this is kind of the first
the idea that using your material as
structure for the machine I think it's
just it's a great idea so that was one
of the most interesting engineering
solutions to to a fabrication device
there are some other oddball products
that I saw here there's one without
rotating and moving print bed the polar
I think what other kind of innovations
in either mechanics or software are we
seeing this year in 3d fab
I mean I have to say ezel from in
venables has to be pivotal I mean we're
all trying to figure out the multiple
workflows for each of these machines i
mean like i said there's sort of a
beginner medium expert mode but with
easel and you know the x cars it's it's
quite literally after you assemble the
machine plug and play you know download
a little piece of software log into a
website it walks you through some
materials it starts off with some
conservative settings that won't break
the machine you can override those and
once you learn that but that that's
radically different from hack together
things or sort of that hackerspace maker
way that we love but this can be in a
school and kids can walk through safety
and then once they read to reach a
certain knowledge level jump over to you
know something that generates complex
tool paths or 3d or whatnot because I
saw a lot of us at least everybody on a
mill go to ezel to generate G code for
it so that that speaks I think that it
wasn't a fallback it was where we
started but but i think it's incredible
that we now have this introductory and i
don't mean that in a bad way
introductory level program that you can
build on and and i think one of the
bigger kind of growing trends the easel
is actually a part of is a movement to
the cloud you know something that we
discussed that so many of these machines
the software that you're using to drive
them is now becoming web-based that you
don't necessarily have to have
everything running on running locally
you don't have to have the in all cases
the power to do things instead we're
driving things from from a cloud base
you know with the the the crawl bot that
cut the chair we were not directly
connected to it was plugged in would be
an ethernet cable so that's a good thing
in some ways but also
as I keep joking until Google starts
flying balloons over top of our heads
covering the entire world and Wi-Fi I
would still love the option of not
always bringing and doing all of my work
in the cloud so it lack of internet
causes limitations Windows 10 they have
built-in drivers and building software
for three quitting I don't know if that
affects the maker space currently or any
of the so about windows tennis so that
they put the question there I could it
was hard for us to hear so I don't know
if it was there was was that Windows 10
has built-in drivers for for 3d printing
in it windows 8.1 did too um so you know
we're seeing a greater level of support
and I think that discussion I had even
earlier that that trying to get to that
point where it's it's just like your
your laser printer your inkjet printer
where you get print and it just happens
I think the closest we're going to get
to that right now is the kind of like
drivers that we're seeing coming to
Windows where you have just
pre-configured slicing files and just it
just goes if there are more questions
please raise your hand one of the things
I'll ask in past years there have been
some very entertaining failures let's
talk about what we saw in the past and
this year are these machines not failing
so in such fun ways every year we've
seen it time and time again you're going
to have some failures we're working with
machines and to be brutally honest we
know that these machines are sometimes
going to break but then again you can go
to best buy and buy a printer off the
shelf and take it home and it might not
work out of the ball so it's not to be
unexpected and we know that in past
years we've seen we've gone from laser
cut wood machines in
machines with just rods and bolts and
you know kind of a rough frame to wear
now most of these machines are consumer
ish looking machines very sturdy and
we're seeing a lot less of the failures
we still happen and this year we've had
I think the least number at least and
yeah but by far life far less failures
this year and and and really kind of the
point for for this question that that
was driven from this was the
conversation that we didn't have any of
crazy crazy failures we didn't have the
the corkscrew filament a ten-foot-long
coming out of any of the machines that
but that happened last year or you know
extruder heads that we come back from
dinner and they're entirely encased in
molten plastic you know none of these
things happen this year you know the the
failures that that we had this year were
kind of things of like oops we did
something we we miss set a setting or
you know the slicer had a little choked
on something but not these kind of crazy
catastrophic failures it's also going to
say most years who've also tried to do
some sort of overnight print and I think
this is really the first year where
we've been successful achieving that for
the majority of the printers in the room
you know past years we often end up not
even publishing them because we can't
we're here Friday night and we're here
Saturday night and if we can't
accomplish getting an overnight print in
two nights then like we can't like talk
about it because we can't compare across
the board and this year we're there and
it for the most part you know it all
happened the first night we tried a lot
of that's because these printers have
either on board controls they have hard
drives you can transfer to and unplug
there's very few left in the room that
really need like a computer hooked up
all night which was one of the you know
most common causes of a failure because
you're gonna have connectivity problems
the laptop lose power all kinds of you
know user related issues but I think
where reliability wise were much closer
oh yeah that's one of them this would
this was our overnight print this year
so
yeah we we won't tell you what it came
off of but yeah this was our overnight
brain so one one of the things that did
help is we pre thought about our
overnight print instead of deciding it
saturday night at dinner time and so we
knew what we were coming in to when we
chose a print that we hope would give us
a greater success rate for sure but this
this crazy guy kind of prints actually
upside down and we didn't have to use a
ton of support material on him or
anything like that which gave us a you
know a nice a nice good-looking
overnight print but really allowed us to
to test that ability of the machines to
accomplish a I push a button and I walk
away and I don't have to babysit at the
end you know for the entire print job we
got we got prints off of every 3d
printer in house all of them printed
we've got prints off everyone we got
print off of every CNC machine there
wasn't a single machine that failed
totally and on top of that the machines
that we did run into issues with we got
the support or the documentation was
there online to help with a lot of those
issues much better than in years past
that is actually a really good point
that I hadn't thought of yet chris is
this is the first year that there was
not a machine that we had here that that
we just had to give up with zero prints
on it um in the past there were
definitely machine so that we just said
this doesn't work out of the box period
we can't do anything successful every
single machine that we have here has has
produced something this weekend you're
absolutely correct i haven't thought
about that that's that's awesome next
year you got to get him more of a crappy
machines just for fun yeah uh yes sir if
you would well if that's that's it
though the question is can we talk time
we talk about materials that you asked
that question that let me extend on that
a little bit at maker faire Detroit last
weekend I saw a guy who was selling
materials as many companies do including
nanotubes embedded materials super high
temp unsolvable materials so if that's
what you're getting at I can talk all
the online about material
so right so for the past few years I've
actually been doing talks at Maker
Faires in New York and here in bay area
and things that that I like to finally
call my advanced materials for 3d
printing talk which has now gone to a
point where it's it's almost burdens
burdensome to even try to cover it but
three years back or so I said you know
fdm is getting to the point FFF you know
the filament printers are getting the
point where we're starting to see a
level out you know yes there's there can
be some improvements but the the overall
capabilities of the machines are all
starting to to get pretty close to each
other you know as long as there's
as long as they're shipping or you can
come up with a good profile yeah you
know they should be working and so to
really push in my opinion to really push
3d printing to a next level yes we need
to continue working on software
especially design software to allow
people to to become better designers to
create more interesting designs and more
functional designs but especially
materials are really the big leap and
and again when I started this
conversation it was five or ten
materials and now it's it's many many
numerous different materials you know
many of those being hybrids you know PLA
with with carbon you know mixed into her
to pla with other or with metals bronze
steel copper iron you know we have a
really wide range but then there's there
are unique thermoplastic umming to
markets that that are really changing
the functionality that we can get out of
our printers we are actually getting
good conductive materials now so it's
not going to be long before you're going
to start seeing more and more 3d models
that are out there that you know you
just add a couple a couple components to
it afterwards and out of battery to it
you have a functional device that that
has the circuitry printed into it that
another thing since you know talking
about the 3d printers in the materials
we obviously have all the mixes out
there but looking at the larger picture
and one of the things we're seeing this
weekend
when you take a look at the whole swath
of digital fabrication you're printing
stuff when someone says hey can you
print metal yet and the answer is number
one far off in the horizon but now
coming out of the clouds you're seeing a
more tinkering Icarus sort of metal
printing starting to come down much like
we saw with three twenty years ago but
right now you could have a machine in
your house that can do metal wood
acrylic and not just one type of machine
but multiple types you got your laser
cutters you're right Mills right that's
that's one of the exciting things about
opening up to other digital fabrication
tools outside of 3d printers is you know
3d printers are great we can do all
kinds of things with them and everything
else but we do have a limited material
selection because of you know we need to
be able to extrude it through a hot
nozzle when we move into the subtractive
medium into the mills yes we can kind of
lose you know as jason says those kind
of overhangs although five acts of
scenes these are coming to the market
but now we suddenly start to be able to
make things in anything you know we've
got wooden furniture we've got wax here
we you know we have done some metal this
weekend things like that so you you
start to get to that point where if you
want it with the right machine and the
right settings you know you're you're
putting in almost any material you want
to and then being able to produce out of
that
in the same vedas materials and there
being a lot more how did you have any
observations in terms of quality with
the machines that have more of a closed
material ecosystem like cartridges
versus like often market schools so that
that was actually another change that we
made to our testing this year so last
year I think we had a good hearted idea
of what we did is we use one brand of
filament across every machine that that
we could could access or that would be
able to use that that brand of filament
so again it wouldn't happen on the
machines that have closed you know
contain cartridges but it would on on
all the open machines we would we would
use one type of filament and I got
feedback from the actual from are the
actual vendors from the actual companies
that they actually said hey that's not
fair and and I started thinking about it
and I realized it and in all honesty we
were punishing companies for being open
because we said now you have to use this
filament that we chose you that you may
never use it you you know and I talked
to some guys that were like you know we
haven't tested that filament in two
years so just because they were an open
thing and you should be able to use out
of filaments on it it doesn't mean that
they're tests and their profiles cuz
again so much about this quality is now
really coming down to the profiles the
software that they are setting up and
giving you access to so their profiles
were tuned to the materials that they
like to use and so now you know for as
much as we think PLA maybe PLA maybe PLA
that's not always true um so last year
some companies we thought might have
been at a disadvantage because we were
not using their preferred material or
their preferred vendor for the testing
so this year we said we would we went
back and told the vendors you send us in
you know a nice pretty camera worthy
colors no box no whites you know things
like that but a nice nice colors send us
the material that you prefer to use on
your machine
and then we will test on that so we kind
of took away that that advantage that
the the closed down shipped companies
had over the the more open companies and
I actually I actually think it makes
sense I think it helped yeah and in
looking at me I haven't looked we
haven't looked at the quality of the
prince with necessarily the printers
that they came from right now we're
looking at it still the data is still in
an anonymous way but there are really
good prints off of lots of different
printers and it doesn't seem to have a
lot to do with the proprietary filament
I think proprietary filament does
definitely can serve a purpose it can
you know make it easier to load a
machine correctly you know there's lots
of things they can reduce user error so
there are some benefits to that in
certain situations but we're getting
good quality from machines that can
print any old PLA and machines that can
need you know specific high-temperature
PLA your abs I just got a question from
Twitter said can you ask what changes
we've seen in the software 3d printing
software this year we've talked about
software a little but specifically look
at a product that we've known over the
last couple of years how has the
software changed improve uh yeah we were
definitely seeing last year we had a
discussion that a lot of companies were
should be using Kyra that it's just more
user-friendly and easier for for people
to use this year we saw some of those
companies actually adopting and coming
out with their own version of Kyra you
know this is no secret but laws lulzbot
has released lols block Eric Ural else
bought edition and and now we're
actually starting to see more companies
that are are now kind of taking on and
developing their own software also I you
know printrbot is openly said over
Twitter they have developed their own
software and it's it it's coming so I
interestingly enough it seems like even
the open
we can use kind of anything printers are
now instead of just leaving their fate
in other's hands are actually starting
to kind of again in that discussion of
things are starting to little out
hardware-wise we've got it figured out
so the pickiest irials and its software
so they're starting to really you know I
think bring that software in-house and
really start working on it cool um go
hand yes is the different slicer you use
effect like your prick quality and are
you guys testing better the answer is a
definitive yes there is a a difference
but it can actually vary from machine to
machine I mean personal example the
other week I was slicing something in
Kira had what I thought was a ringing
issue at his new printer I'd gotten I am
a famous for the cheap printers so I
usually experience a lot of issues that
I have to overcome the the printer I
thought it was a winning issue ran it in
a pura slicer that I was still tuning so
it wasn't totally optimize its mark but
but it's ran it in another slicer and on
one of the slicers there was a bad
Oregon winged effect i chalked up the
machine printed it with another slicer
before I made them on Joey moved my
trusty amount printed at the printed
with the other slicer before I went in
to modify the Machine and the print came
out perfect like perfect surface finish
perfect print so there is a difference
there and actually that's a great
question because it's one of the things
we've talked about as a team that we
want to start kind of possibly
crowdsourcing the data but work towards
comparing the slicers on the known
machines and so excitingly enough one of
the articles that we have planned for
the issue with the printer reviews is
also going to be a slicer shootout so
we're working on how we're going to pull
that off right now Tom Burton would
our amazing britt has been than kind of
driving that that push and hope
hopefully we'll be able to pull off some
some interesting tests of some
interesting data to show how slicers can
really really affect your prints and
that being said i don't know if i don't
know if there's a one-ring kind of thing
here I don't know if there's I really
don't personally believe that there's
going to be one slicer on it on an open
machine one slicer that's going to be oh
you should use that at every every case
right now sadly I think it's hopefully
we'll be able to determine some of these
things but I think it's going to be a
lot more of a choose the application and
what slicer is best for that application
situation well I think with that we're
going to wrap it up I'd like to thank
Matt Casey Louise Chris and Jason for
joining us up here all the 3d printer
testers who are here Jason babbler and
Elise for organizing this great event
don't miss the 3d printer special issue
comes out at the end of this year and
online and mixing com I'm renamon and
thank you guys all for coming really
appreciate it