5000 and counting...
First published in the DigiFabster blog.
Even though it would be impossible to offer all available printers as presets within DigiFabster, we regularly check what new printers are being registered so the next time they come up they do have a preset.
A few weeks ago we passed the 5000 registered-printer mark, so we thought it might be interesting to share some info, buried in that heap of data.
Most of it is in line with what we have come to expect, reading other sources, but there are a few remarkable points, which I will discuss at the end of this article.
But before I start counting a few words of explanation: We offer the following, very popular, printers by default when a new account is started, so they figure much more frequently than they should in the raw data list: Not everybody who doesn’t have them deletes them or even switches them off. I just took them out of the result. One might say they have fallen victim to their own popularity.
These are the printers I took out from the count: ZCorp ZPrinter 250; Ultimaker 2+; Stratasys Objet Eden 260 and Stratasys Objet 350 Connex3; Formlab 2; ConceptLaser M2; EOS Formiga P110.
That said, here are the results, first by technology, then by most popular within that technology (Top 3):
FDM, 44%, most popular: Zortrax M200, MakerBot Replicator, MakerBot Replicator 2.
SLA, 15%, most popular: Formlabs Form 1+, EnvisionTEC Aureus Plus, 3D Systems Projet 7000.
SLS, 14%, most popular: HP MJF 4200 (see comment below), EOS EOSINT P760, EOS Formiga P100.
SLM, 13%, most popular: EOS EOSINT M280, 3D Systems ProX DMP 100, ConceptLaser X line 2000R
3DP, 11%, most popular: 3D Systems ProJet 660 Pro, Z Corp ZPrinter 650, 3D Systems ProJet 460 Plus.
Photopolymeric ink jet printers, 3%, most popular: 3D Systems Projet 3500 HDMax, 3D Systems ProJet 3510 SD, 3D Systems Projet 3500 CPX Max.
Comment: we are creating a separate technology template for a new type of printers which use both a solvent and heat to fuse plastic powder, like the HP MJF and the VoxelJet HSS.
Some observations.
Looking at the printers listed above, I would say that DigiFabster has succeeded in attracting a very serious customer base. The typical skew towards FDM seems to be less than we see with other services, plus, there are a number of state-of-the-art machines in there: The ConceptLaser X Line 2000R and the HP MJF 4200, to name a few.
Furthermore, the EnvisionTEC Aureus Plus stands out. That a small-niche machine like that figures as one of the most popular has to do with the growing attraction DigiFabster has for jewelers. A printer not shown, but illustrating the point, is a Solidscape T66 BT2 which was registered a few days ago.
Coming back to the HP MJF 4200: People who buy those machines have specific plans to break away from the rapid prototyping past, towards the small series future. We are honored to have them onboard and really hope we will be able to keep aligning our product with their expectations.