iammaxus

There are post processing steps in injection molding. As you can see in the video, parts come off with gates on them that need to be removed. In the case of these printed parts, you can wash 1000 in one 10 minute cycle.

A full accounting and comparison of cost and time including post processing, in a general way that applies to many parts, is tough to do well.

The margin that a reseller/distributor/retailer has on a product goes mostly to sales and marketing of those products in one form or another (ads, placement in a store, training of staff on the product, etc). If an OEM lets that margin get squeezed by low cost resellers (like a crappy ecommerce only company), their other resellers will also get their margins squeezed and therefore can't spend much to sell that product.

One common response to this is to charge different wholesale prices to different channels, but this can also be difficult to control or subject to price-fixing regulations.

Keeping the margins high for resellers = spending more on sales and marketing for your product.

I don't think non-commodity products in competitive markets should be subject to price-fixing rules in terms of setting the market price, but that's how it is in many jurisdictions today.

Comments 1 and 2 sound like you have only experienced hobbyist-grade printers and not high quality, easy-to-use, professional tools. Engineers can waste time fiddling and there are many things that make sense to outsource during development, but try a Form 2 and see if you still feel this way.

3 is actually an excellent suggestion. It's important to communicate with production suppliers early and often. But outsourcing early stage prototypes to prototype shops usually doesn't help that much (unless your final production volume is low)

4 and 5 are not true for low cost systems if you have even a small amount of printing and value the speed of your development team.

6. Doing as much digitally/on paper as possible is also an excellent suggestion. Too many engineers rush to build stuff Simulation and other tools are constantly improving. But for full functional testing, ergonomics, industrial design, etc, there is still no substitute for physical prototypes.

Full disclosure: I work at Formlabs https://formlabs.com/ and our mission is basically to solve all of these problems.

Depending on the data that you look at, NYC and Boston are pretty close. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/global...

More importantly, Boston is much heavier into manufacturing technology, hardware, B2B software, etc whereas NYC is more focused on consumer, retail, fashion, etc. Boston is pretty clearly a better choice for GE.

In reality GE's HQ in Boston will represent a tiny fraction of their global employees, though, so it doesn't really matter. https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/03/11/huge-but-its...

These are some good warnings. The way I like to think about it is that the actual free cash available to spend from the grant is on the order of 1/3 of the sticker price when you fully account for the costs of getting the grant, administering it, and fulfilling the requirements which inevitablly do not line up exactly with your business goals.

Many companies get stuck in a kind of grant hamster wheel where they end up only producing enough from a grant to be able to get another grant, and not advance in commercializing their technology. I think there are few companies that make the transition from being primarily grant funded for a period into a high growth success.

Sometimes it's your only option for funding, but ideally, it makes up 0 to a fraction of your R&D funding so that it doesn't dilute your focus.

This advice is specific to companies that have a path to be VC-fundable, high growth, commercial success. There are many other (most) companies that can be funded by grants and build their technology incrementally over time.

Formlabs cofounder here.

Of course, there is a difference between a demo focusing on implementing new features then the software that we are shipping. But yes, it was extremely impressive and it's no surprise that he is leading much of our engineering team (beyond software, as well) today.

I believe the parent may have been referring to Stuxnet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet

It is indeed possible that if the NSA used a very different strategy with vulnerabilities, Iran might be further along with its nuclear weapons development.

High-speed gearing is indeed very difficult, but jet engines already typically have two separate, concentric rotating units (spools: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbofan#Basic_two_spool). Also, as the article mentions, turboprops (essentially jet engines connected to a propeller) already commonly use gearing. I guess you can think of it as a turboprop with a duct.

The reality is probably just that this is a solvable problem that just wasn't worth the work while there were easier efficiency gains to be had.

Not exactly. We raised a seed round of $1.8m a little less than 1 year before the Kickstarter. We probably could have built and shipped the product off of the crowdfunding proceeds, but we couldn't have had such a successful crowdfunding campaign without spending some of that money to design the product and market it well.

Formlabs

Somerville, MA (Boston)

Formlabs is bringing ground-breaking professional 3D printers to the desktop of every designer, engineer, researcher, and artist in the world. We pioneered the desktop SLA printer and now have the largest installed base of SLA printers in the world. Our team has tripled in the past year to over 100 people today and counting.

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Electro-Optics Systems Lead

Formlabs is hiring an electro-optics systems lead. We’re looking for a hands-on engineering leader who has technical depth & breadth as well as excellent project management, product development, and team-building skills. This person will lead an interdisciplinary team to design and manufacture electronics, control systems, and precision optics inside the next generation of desktop 3D printers. This a great opportunity to join the team that’s building breakthrough products and an awesome engineering culture.

Apply at http://grnh.se/na45lx

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SW engineers - Linux, Embedded, Algorithms, Devops

Software at Formlabs is beyond full stack: bare metal firmware, embedded Linux, signal processing and controls, 3D algorithms, UI/UX, scientific computing, web applications. Software is critical at every stage in the pipeline that transforms 3D digital models to beautiful physical form. We’re building a team that’s the best in the world at rapidly developing complex systems into elegant and accessible products.

Apply at http://grnh.se/63alih

The author is somehow making a connection between what "doomed" Makerbot and why they went closed source. Makerbot biggest growth year was 2013 (approximately quadrupled booking rate over the course of it), the year immediately after going closed source.

If you are interested in a job that would expose you to a wide range of disciplines inside and outside of CS, please send us your resume at [email protected]

We are proud to say that Ben Katz, one of the leaders and designers of the project interned at Formlabs over the summer and used our printers to make a beautiful detailed model of the roller coaster.

http://formlabs.com/en/company/blog/2014/08/15/formlabs-engi...

I'd be interested to learn more as well [email protected]

Formlabs - http://formlabs.com - Boston (Somerville) - Full time and intern

Formlabs makes the easiest to use and highest resolution desktop 3D printer. This requires a fusion of advanced hardware, software, and materials, all while developing an entirely new user experience.

We are growing quickly and hiring across all parts of the company

On the business side:

  * marketing
  * sales
  * operations
  * finance

on the product side:

  * electrical engineers
  * software (both desktop/3D/algorithms and web dev work)
  * mechanical engineering
  * industrial design
  * materials
  * manufacturing

Yes, that's a really wide range of roles and that is the beauty of working on 3D printing in a small company. It is extremely cross disciplinary.

apply online at http://formlabs.com/pages/careers or [email protected]

Actually, it wasn't the headquarters of AT&T and not even the headquarters of Bell Labs (a part of AT&T). The headquarters of Bell Labs was at another massive (though less beautiful) complex in Murray Hill, NJ

http://newprovidencedailyphoto.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/8...

Defining the output quality and resolution of a 3D printer is a subtle thing. Sticking to DPI, laser spot sizes, and layer thicknesses is somewhat akin to comparing clock speeds of modern processors. The question is a lot more subtle than that.

When we talk about minimum feature size, we are giving a rough guide for the finest pillars or walls that you can print (see the fingers of the Neptune figurine in our photos). By this metric, the Form 1 is comparable to the best high end SLA and inkjet machines, and well beyond any FDM machine.

-Max Co-founder, Formlabs