Kickstarter crowdfunding has become a familiar way for new 3D printers to introduce themselves to the world, with nearly 40 having successfully hit their funding goals on the site so far.
One of those projects was Robox from British company CEL, which raised £280,891 in December 2013 for a product that aimed to “demystify” 3D printing and make it accessible to more people.
Just over a year later, CEL has shipped around 6,500 of the printers around the world, and grappled with the service and support issues that selling to a mixture of experienced users and complete novices entails.
“It’s been a massive learning curve, with huge positives and a couple of small negatives,” says Chris Elsworthy, chief executive of CEL and inventor of the Robox.
“We had a huge number of really excited people on board who wanted to help us develop our product, but at the same time, all our successes and failures along the way were exposed to all those people,” he adds.
“We didn’t realise how public everything was going to become, and how much effort we’d have to put into managing the situations. It’s unusual: having to tell all your customers about all your trials and tribulations. But it’s great that everyone wants to be involved.”
When it launched on Kickstarter, Robox was pitched as “the simplest, most reliable and comprehensive 3D printing platform available” – a printer that would sit in an office or workshop and do its job without a fuss.
“That’s what customers want: print this part, come along later and pick up the part and walk away. That’s what 3D printing has been missing until now,” says Elsworthy.
“The early community was great in that it was people who were well educated in engineering and electronics, who could dedicate their time to making these printers work and tinkering. But 90% of users out there aren’t interested in that: they’re interested in getting results.”
In some cases in the wider industry, those results haven’t come as easily as many people had hoped. One of the challenges facing 3D printing is the gap between the hype around what’s possible with this technology, and the reality of what many people can actually do once a printer is in front of them.
“I blame you!” laughs Elsworthy. “Well, the media in general. In some ways, the media hype around 3D printing has helped us massively: the whole world knows about it now. But there’s often now an expectation that people can go home and print a new kidney for themselves, which is all good to go.”
Clearly, it isn’t. “3D printing is a well-tuned prototyping technique that is just moving into manufacturing as a whole. It’s still very niche, but the media have hyped it up as the next industrial revolution that will see us all printing our own consumer goods by the end of the decade,” says Elsworthy.
“And it’s true, that will happen. But what’s never advertised is that there’s a long way to go now with early adopters working with 3D printing, tuning the process and making it easier for everybody else.”
With kidneys a no-no for now on the average 3D printer, what will people be printing? That’s another question mark around 3D printing in 2015: many people think the technology is cool, but can’t think how it’ll fit into their lives.
Elsworthy hopes that the industry is on the cusp of answering these questions, and stresses that he doesn’t think it’s just about the ability to order products and print them out at home.
“It’s not just about getting things cheaper. Everything you produce can be customised to your requirements, whether it’s pastry cutters to make the holly for your Christmas cake exactly the shape you want, or to print 100 forks of a dining set with each one different from the last,” he says.
“It’s giving people the ability to make anything they like in any fit they want, customised to their own needs.”
He adds that better services showcasing 3D designs and sparking people’s imagination will also be important, as well as tools to help them create their own models without needing a training in computer-aided design (CAD). Elsworthy cites the Tinkercad website as one example.
“You can go from not knowing anything about 3D drawing to producing parts within a few hours. My oldest boy, who’s 10, went through the tutorials, and afterwards went straight on to drawing himself a model of a shark with an articulated joint,” he says.
“All these kids who are playing Minecraft: those skills are so easily reproduced in producing three-dimensional parts for a 3D printer. And when I’ve gone in to talk to children at my sons’ school, they all have lots of ideas about what they’d want to print, and none of the barriers of adults.”
CEL has also worked with the My Mini Factory website, where people can browse, buy and download 3D-printable objects, with popular items ranging from tanks and models of weapons from console game Destiny to a tooth-shaped toothbrush holder.
Elsworthy thinks that the more people browse these kinds of websites and see what can be done with 3D printing, the more ideas they’ll have to customise those items and make their own.
“There’s a growing community of makers in the world, and until recently they’ve been on the outskirts of society. But there’s going to be a huge change: people who are makers and want to make their own things and customise their own stuff will become the foreground,” he says.
“I’m really keen on making everybody a maker, not making it geeky. Why can’t we print our own things and make our own stuff? And when it becomes socially acceptable to talk about things you want to make in your own home, without being a geek, this will be as commonplace as 2D printing.”
Part of that process will be the price of 3D printers coming down. Currently, Robox costs £999.90, which still makes it one of the cheaper models available. Elsworthy agrees that prices will inevitably come down over time, but says the cost of a 3D printer is about much more than the hardware.
“We could probably bring down the price if we just looked at the technology and its material value, but we have to consider how much support each printer is going to need, and how much new content and extra development will go into keeping the system alive,” he says.
“A lot of the money we’re charging is for future development and making sure customers get the best support. The worst thing we could do is sell it at a really low price, and then never offer that customer good support. It’s not just about owning the hardware: it’s about owning it and making sure you’re comfortable with it. It’s no good to sell it at £300 and say ‘you’re on your own!’.”
It’s that comfort that Elsworthy thinks will help to swell the ranks of makers using 3D printing for personal and commercial use alike. He also thinks that as more and more creations are shared publicly, more people will gain the confidence to customise them and create new things.
“When I see a product, my first thought is often ‘if only it had this, or if only that part was shaped differently, it would be much better’,” he says.
“When I was younger, I used to take all my Christmas toys apart to see how they worked. Maybe I’ve never grown up! But this is what 3D printing can deliver, and it’s not just for geeks or the design industry: this is now available for everyone.”
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