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Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

josefprusa.com

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Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#321

Post by dkdcio »

ajmurmann wrote: post #143
dkdcio wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A planned economy would be some government committee deciding what specific startups and how many of them should be started up in any give year, and no one else can create a startup." no it would not be...where is this definition from?

That's how planned economies worked under "proper" communism in the Soviet Union or pre-Deng and how we ended up with stories about factories only baking giant screws to meet weight quotas to the switch to tiny screws to meet quantity quotas while no medium-sized screws people actually needed for produced. Two distinct words night be useful to distinguish between planned without any market feedback and heavy industri…

fair enough —- I need to read up more on the usage, but I find it surprising for “planned economy” to imply the former

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#322

Post by f1shy »

thayne wrote: post #264
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think relying on trade secrets for many things would actually be an improvement over what we have now. You could still keep your recipe secret, but someone else could come up with something similar with no risk.

Not to mention that patents are so (intentionally) difficult to understand that even patented technology is basically trade secrets now anyway. And the useful designs are protected by NDAs.

Where I work it takes months of lawyers, just to understand of one idea we have is an infringement or not. Is a mined field, on purpose.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#323

Post by buzer »

f1shy wrote: post #311
jandrese wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's telling that before the Patent system the solution was secretive guilds that jealously (sometimes lethally) guarded their secrets to avoid competition. This was obviously terrible since it greatly slowed down innovation. I'm not sure what the correct solution is to this problem. We want to avoid anything that causes a return of the guild system, but at the same time we don't want small inventors steamrolled by l…

Was really so (specifically “lethal”? Do you have sources? I know trade secret was much more important. Also the spirit of patents is to allow development by making all public. But do they?! I’m tired of trying to extract useful information off patents, they are empty of content and full of BS is laywer language. Real important details are kept secret, as long as possible. The current system is de facto not working p…

> Was really so (specifically “lethal”? Do you have sources?

Pretty famous example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_glass#Island_of_Muran...

> Glassmakers were not allowed to leave the island without permission from the government. Leaving without permission, or revealing trade secrets, was punishable by death

Though importantly this was enforced by state.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#324

Post by abawany »

MobiusHorizons wrote: post #286
unethical_ban wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking a snarky thought reading another comment in the chain: "DJI and Anker aren't Chinese brands, because they're good and they have brand reputation". "Chinese" in my ape brain is Harbor Freight junk, or cheap houseware from Amazon with names like "KRLFOCGY".

Honestly, even harbor freight has some pretty good tools these days. They do have disposable level crap, but even one level above that is quite serviceable.

One thing I've noticed and have also seen on Project Farm YT tool reviews is that Harbor Freight tiers tend to be by country: lowest end is often from mainland China but the next higher tier is from Taiwan.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#325

Post by overfeed »

simpaticoder wrote: post #11

The real story here is that IP ownership is capital-intensive when it shouldn't be. Open-source and community-led IP contributions are grossly under-protected because of this, and those with capital become unopposed predators. This is a special-case of the more general observation that the justice system is capital-intensive when it shouldn't be. The answer is something you very rarely hear: the US (especially) needs…

> The real story here is that IP ownership is capital-intensive when it shouldn't be

The backbone of the US economy are services and software, which depend a lot on IP. Deliberately or not, "low-value" American manufacturing was sacrificed for these high-margin industries[1]. AFAICT, it's impossible to turn back the clock on manufacturing without disadvantaging US software/services both on the legal regime and trade fronts

1. Which is why SWE salaries are higher in the US that RoW. I don't think trading high-salary service jobs for low-paying manufacturing is a good decision, but lots of people - including the current executive - think they can get it all. My working theory is Europe and China are not dumb and without agency and are just biding time for decoupling, should their manufacturing industries be undermined by US policy.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#326

Post by kiba »

jwr wrote: post #250
hyperbovine wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want so much to like Prusa ... but the Bambu printer at my local makerspace costs half as much and is better in every way than the MK3S+ sitting in my basement. I'm fully aware that this is the result of shrewdness on the part of the Chinese, plus incompetence in the West, and it's so frustrating.

I don't even care much about cost, but the Bambu Lab printers are simply better. I have been selling my Prusas (MK3S+ and XL), because they are just too much of a hassle. Prusa has fallen behind in R&D, the Bambu Lab printers work better, are more automated, have more nicely engineered features (having to babysit my XL and wipe the dripping filament off the print heads was such a disappointment). And yes, I have had…

Prusa is good enough for me. I owned both Bambu and Prusa latest generation printers. Both products got their shares of downtime so from my perspective either are pretty interchangable.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#327

Post by londons_explore »

mlyle wrote: post #230
londons_explore wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time limits on cases would really help. Ie. Each side has 15 minutes to explain their side, then the jury has 15 minutes to discuss, then a vote is taken and a decision made. Sure, some more subtle outcomes would be 'wrong' - but does it actually matter?

Usually we need evidence to make a decent decision. It's not debate club.

Sure - but you better fit the evidence inside 15 mins too

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#328

Post by LeifCarrotson »

Ccecil wrote: post #295

I started in Reprap in 2011...frequently spoke with Prusa and many, many others in IRC. Watched the development and commercialization of the whole project through the years. My main takeaway (and one that I attempted to point out often) is that the value of the Reprap project and it's OSHW nature was not to "own a machine"...the true value was the process of building the machine, tuning and evolving. This all began t…

> My current printer I built in 2015. It needs very little work but has evolved slightly through the years...

"It needs very little work" is very different from "an amateur with no knowledge can use it". You're overwhelmingly more qualified to adjust it and keep it running, you even enjoy that part of the process.

I've come to accept that an overwhelming majority of people are not 3D printER enthusiasts, they're barely even 3D printING enthusiasts. They're artists and minifigure builders and engineers and mechanics, and they care about the printer itself just as much as they care about a random screwdriver. Many don't even want to understand how the thing works, they just want it to work.

With those values, yes, buying one off the shelf that's assembled and tuned and adjusted and tested and can immediately begin making parts with decent reliability is better than building one.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#329

Post by Mtinie »

f1shy wrote: post #311
jandrese wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's telling that before the Patent system the solution was secretive guilds that jealously (sometimes lethally) guarded their secrets to avoid competition. This was obviously terrible since it greatly slowed down innovation. I'm not sure what the correct solution is to this problem. We want to avoid anything that causes a return of the guild system, but at the same time we don't want small inventors steamrolled by l…

Was really so (specifically “lethal”? Do you have sources? I know trade secret was much more important. Also the spirit of patents is to allow development by making all public. But do they?! I’m tired of trying to extract useful information off patents, they are empty of content and full of BS is laywer language. Real important details are kept secret, as long as possible. The current system is de facto not working p…

It could be lethal if a guild member attempted to share secrets or sell methods to a competitive guild. An example:

"In 1754 the State Inquisitors of Venice learned that a worker at Daniele Miotti's factory had fled abroad with a copy of his master's books. Fearing that he would divulge secrets—especially in Bohemia, where there were important glass factories—they ordered his death."

Source: Zecchin, P., (2025) “Una condanna a morte di dubbia utilità: Sarebbe stato molto grave, per i vetrai muranesi, se il seicentesco ricettario Miotti fosse caduto nelle mani dei Boemi?”, Journal of Glass Studies 66: 7. doi: https://doi.org/10.3998/jgs.6939

Just how widespread it was for violent and lethal actions to be carried out in pursuit of maintaining guild secrecy, the evidence is murky.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#330

Post by chiffre01 »

immmmmm wrote: post #300

I have a good friend who’s in the “hi end desktop cnc” bizness (with some very cheap models). Asked why he doesn’t do 3D printers (he designed plenty) and he told me the market is SO competitive and products so cheap it’s impossible to compete. Designing a controller for his machines and as much as I would love to put the thing as OH, I don’t even think of it. His company: https://www.badog.ch/

Wow ~$17,000 for a CNC router? You could buy a used Haas/professional mill for that much.
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