Olo 3d printer fake

ONO: How the alleged "Biggest 3D Printing Scam" of All Time Unfolded

Following on from the 2013 to 2014 boom, optimism in the 3D printing industry in early 2016 was rife, and backers were clamoring to support Kickstarter projects claiming to revolutionize the sector. Many fledgling Kickstarter projects became extraordinarily successful. Formlabs even went unicorn.

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The Mysterious World of 3D Printed Homes

This article is an opinion piece and reflects our own research into, and thoughts on, the ONO project. Under legal threats by the ONO team in July 2021 we would like to clarify that this article is an opinion piece — and in discussing the word “scam” we are not proposing this as objective fact, but merely quoting what backers of the project have voiced.

But some projects bordered into naïve, buoyed by fashionable buzzwords and heavily padded announcement videos. Several projects raised over a million dollars, sometimes based only on ambitious – perhaps far-fetched – targets and little evidence of feasibility, and as the months drew on, never even produced a final product for backers to be disappointed with.

One project however stands head and shoulders above others for its disaster: in magnitude of failure; amount of money lost; and emotional turmoil. It has been called the “biggest 3D printing scam” of all time, taking $2.3 million from 16,180 backers. For the next four years, they relentlessly teased supporters that they were days from receiving their printer, just to let them down again.

Here’s how it unfolded. This is the story of the ONO.

OLO: The first days

The OLO 3D printer campaign went live on Kickstarter on March 21^st, 2016, promising a $99 resin 3D printer that used your smartphone screen’s light to solidify resin and create a finished model. Back in 2016 resin 3D printers started at a few thousand dollars, and even in the present day $99 is absurdly cheap – but OLO said they could do it for less than $100.

Normal resin printers use a powerful light source to cure and solidify resin. Instead of using standard UV resins, OLO’s phone printer system used a daylight-sensitive resin that your phone screen’s comparatively weak light source could still polymerize. The tech made sense in theory, and if perfected anyone with a smartphone could 3D print. OLO made 3D printing accessible, and at the lowest prices the world had ever seen.

The world noticed. OLO targeted $80,000 to make the project a reality and deliver the technology to market. Kickstarter campaigns run for 30 days, OLO hit their target in 33 minutes. The project was a roaring success.

The First Cracks

Some were still sceptical amidst the hype and optimism. Angus Deveson, better known as Maker’s Muse, was unconvinced. As the campaign hit $1M in funding, he posted a video outlining his concerns about the project’s feasibility.

Firstly, the resins. Low cost resin printers at the time often used DLP technology – Digital Light Processing – a technology also used in cinema projectors. The light source used is immensely powerful as to cure photo-sensitive resin, and exponentially more powerful than a smartphone’s screen.

Using your smartphone’s comparatively weak light source, prints could take a whole day – possibly longer than your phone’s battery life. This is time where you cannot even look at your phone, never mind use it. Could people handle that level of inconvenience?

Additionally, the OLO Kickstarter video and photos shows clear resin bottles for their daylight-sensitive resins, which would cause the resin to instantly cure and harden in the bottle far before you could print with it. Resins are always packed into matte black containers to avoid this.

OLO original Kickstarter image, with clear resin bottles.

Most dangerously, Maker’s Muse highlighted the blatant safety errors in the video: resins are harmful and should not be handled without gloves and goggles, and not just washed in water as the video demonstrated.

In a grimly prophetic statement in his 27^th March 2016 video discussing the project, Angus surmised that he felt OLO was a world away from being production ready: ‘You may be waiting a very long time to get this project. ’ The campaign was only six days old.

Fake it till you make it?

It is unofficially accepted that for many technology campaigns on Kickstarter, creative liberties are taken to show supposed market-ready prototypes. This is not necessarily bad, executing a precocious vision is requisite for greatness, and it is difficult to get people excited about a project if you do not have the funds to create said exciting project. Therefore, companies seeking investment tell white lies, show what the product will look like post-investment, rather than how it is now.

Many of the 16,000 backers were aware they were bridging the gap between vision and reality with their support. So, when Maker’s Muse pointed out that many of the objects shown in their campaign were clearly laser cut rather than printed on their machines, it did not cause the outrage that perhaps it should have. Slick marketing blurred the lines between fantasy and falsity, between hype and fraud.

One thing deducible from the laser cut parts was that OLO was not a working prototype. The parts the OLO team said their machines had printed were assuredly not printed by those machines. The question was not whether they did print those models, but whether they ever could.This part looks laser cut rather than 3D printed, as echoed by Maker’s Muse.

Though in the Kickstarter campaign it was claimed to be a San Francisco-based project, OLO’s founders are in fact Italian. The two founders, Filippo Moroni and Pietro Gabriele, claim to have 15 years’ experience in the 3D printing industry in a company called Solido3D, as well as founding a 3D printing network called Fonderie Digitali. While on face value this adds prestige, further research unveils red flags.

From OLO to ONO to Oh No

Following the successful campaign, patrons waited excitedly for their OLO printers, having been promised delivery within a few short months. A few months later, on August 29^th, 2016, OLO posted an update detailing how a similar-named company had contacted them with their grievances, and that therefore they were changing their name from OLO to ONO. This was perhaps symbolic for the four following years.

Resin 3D printers use a print bed which, upon finishing each solidified layer of resin, descends a small amount so that the next layer of liquid resin can be solidified. OLO’s original design controlled the print bed by plugging into your smartphone’s headphone jack and sending audio signals that act as directions, communicating when to move the print bed as each layer finishes. Many felt this was unnecessarily complicated and they should just use a Bluetooth method, but they pressed on with the headphone jack plan. It had already delayed the printer’s release due to issues with some phones having headphone jacks on top, while some had them on the bottom.

However, as they scrambled to fix these issues, phones were beginning to cut the headphone jack out entirely. The iPhone 7 released in September 2016, the highest profile of early phones to ditch the headphone jack. Suddenly all ONO’s planning was obsolete. A Bluetooth device was eventually decided on.

On March 22nd 2017, almost nine months after the original shipping date, ONO announced they would start shipping units the following day, on the 23rd. However, after going silent they eventually posted an update on April 10th discussing a last-minute issue with their electrical boards. The ordeal meant that a year after their promised delivery date, no printers were arriving on any backers’ doorsteps.To reassure backers, pictures such as this one were posted showing their production facility in China, producing units.

Take a deeper dive into the OLO team’s claims and some interesting information arises. Regarding the claim that the founders have 15 years’ experience in 3D printing, in another interview Filippo says he himself has 15 years, while Pietro was new to the 3D printing industry, his previous business experience concerns running a jazz club.

On further inspection of Fonderie Digitali, most of the companies the team claimed to comprise the Fonderie Digitali in their email sent to Maker’s Muse network are now defunct, and were already defunct in 2016 when they sent the email. On visiting the website now, none of these other companies are mentioned, only Solido3D and ONO. It does not appear to be a network, but an extra brand name to promote the team’s existing enterprises. The only legitimate, active company claimed in the 2016 email to comprise Fonderie Digitali was WASP, known for making delta 3D printers that print extraordinarily fast, as well as for ceramic 3D printing. WASP no longer feature in any part of the Fonderie Digitali website or contacts list.

On ONO Founder Filippo Moroni’s LinkedIn page, Solido3D and Fonderie Digitali are absent. In fact, despite claiming to have 15 years’ experience 3D printing, his LinkedIn employment history is non-existent between graduating from the Politecnico di Milano in 2002 and founding OLO in 2015. It is therefore impossible to verify any job history or experience when, according to his LinkedIn, he has never worked.

Joel Telling - 3D Printing Nerd

@joeltelling

It's me, @makersmuse, and a real @ono3d #3dprinter! https://t. co/On5zHL4fBK

9:06 PM · May 19, 2017

Suddenly, at New York Maker Faire 2017, 3D printing YouTuber Joel Telling – also known as 3D Printing Nerd – posted a video on October 1^st titled “ONO Resin 3D Printer – Working!” with a member of ONO’s team, exclaiming he had seen a working prototype. Joel Telling’s reputation for honesty and reluctance to promote anything sub-par to his fanbase made this all the more reassuring.

ONO cut a hole in the side of one of their printers to show footage of the actual printing process during the vlog. The time lapse showed the print process in detail — they appeared to have a working prototype. Backers were happy. Such a powerful co-sign, as well as demonstrating proof of concept, meant surely it was just a matter of time until their ONO arrived.

But then another year passed, and now two years after the original delivery date, nobody had received a printer. The controller board issues were still blamed, but even beyond this, months of updates concerned various difficulties involved in gaining the requisite certifications to ship the printers. Surely, if everything was safe and above board, this should not have taken so long.

StartEngine

Despite claiming they were readying to ship, an ONO campaign suddenly appeared on fundraising platform StartEngine in 2018. The campaign aimed to raise up to $1.07 million, offering Series B shares for $10 each. In the campaign, ONO declared that when you invest in them, you are betting that the company’s share value will exceed $30 million. They were yet to ship a printer. Perhaps most interestingly, they claimed to have 20,000 printers in their Shenzhen factory ready to ship, enough to deliver to all their backers with almost 4,000 spares to sell through retail.

Backers who invested $500 earned the first reward: an ONO t-shirt. Invest $2,500 and you earned a $99 ONO printer. Perhaps the wiser move was saving $2,000 and going for the t-shirt – you might have actually received that. Still, the campaign raised $42,825.

Many will question why a company that raised so much capital would return to any kind of fundraising institution. This usually happens when a company has run out of money. We can only guess where over $2 million went, and question strongly whether the money was spent creating 20,000 supposed ONO units, as none were being sent to those who invested their hard-earned savings in good faith.

Dig deeper into Solido3D, the founders’ supposed previous venture, and perhaps the strangest discovery is that this is not the only Solido3D. Another Solido3D, a 3D printer manufacturer, exists. This other Solido3D’s explosive existence included releasing the SD300Pro 3D printer back in 2009, riding high on $11 million in funding by 2010, and becoming insolvent in 2011, laying off all their employees. Their website has since recently been hijacked by gambling sites, but as of 2016 when ONO’s Kickstarter was in full swing, was alive and appeared respectable. Most would assume these two companies are the same company operating in two different geographies, and Maker’s Muse’s video about OLO displays the other Solido3D’s website, assuming that this company is the founding team’s previous venture, an easy mistake to make.

In fact, they appear to be different companies operating under the same name. Any would-be backer doing their due diligence on the founding team’s history that found the multi-million-dollar-backed, 3D-printer-releasing Solido3D, could easily mistakenly assume this was ONO’s previous venture, trusting the team based on a venture they were not involved in. If they named the company deliberately to create confusion with the 3D-printer-manufacturing Solido3D, this could be deduced as deceitful.

The Italian Solido3D claims to offer 3D file and 3D printing services. 3D printing services only require the possession of a 3D printer, which are no longer massive investments; offering a 3D printing service does not make you a high-flying manufacturing aficionado. ONO were contacted to comment on a variety of questions including whether the names were deliberately similar, but did not respond.

On the 25^th of July 2018, two years after they were supposed to ship, ONO proved they could indeed print, and streamed a three-hour octopus model print live. At the same time, a supposed nine ONO printers were sent to beta testers. One beta tester, Chris Northwood, posted several videos detailing the printing on his ONO printer. A video uploaded on the 20^th August 2018 showed that ONO did work, but the prints were of worse quality than even the cheapest FDM 3D printers, despite being far slower and using expensive resins. The printers were certainly not the finished article.

ONO eventually fell silent on StartEngine. Backers waved their e-pitchforks and filled the publicly available comments with demands for refunds. But ONO were nowhere to be seen.

Photo from ONO’s alleged China production line.

Final Update

Fast forward to March 2^nd 2019, ONO’s final update on Kickstarter (as of June 2020). The title featured an ancient Chinese proverb which loosely translates to “Wading across the river by feeling for stones” and claimed they were “advancing carefully”, and “step by step”. It was introduced as a romantic and nostalgic look back at the last few years, like a now-old rockstar reminiscing about the drug-addled debauchery on tour in his youth. The only difference was there was no success to look back on, just 16,000 backers out of pocket and over $2 million squandered. Even then, they maintained they were making 100 units a day and that they would eventually deliver, and included photos of several dozen units in what appeared to be a factory. Producing 100 units per day, they could have fulfilled every patron’s order within six months. There is no evidence that anyone except the beta testers ever received a printer.

Beyond this, silence. In the absence of any admission, we are left to infer ourselves what really occurred. What follows is my personal take on what happened behind closed doors.

What could have really happened

There are some key events that portray a genuine attempt to deliver a product. Although not to be blindly trusted, Founder Filippo Moroni said several times in updates that he could deliver the printers, but that they would not be completely ready. He constantly said things like “I don’t want to send you a brick. ” He seemed genuinely concerned with meeting backers’ high expectations. It is hardly a Peachy – a 3D printer Kickstarter project that raised over CA$600K before abruptly announcing that the game was up. The reason: one of the founders had embezzled over $300,000 to build himself a mansion. The similarities are there – Peachy was also a resin 3D printer, and cost $100 – but ONO just does not feel like an intentional scam, just naïve and incompetent leadership.

The pressure to deliver perfection could explain why delivery was constantly delayed, spliced between app releases and other fluff. The polar opposite to a minimum viable product (MVP) in start-up terms, refusing to release the printer until it was absolutely perfect meant it never released at all. I can understand how anxious it must feel having thousands demanding you to ship something that consumed so many years, yet still was not ready. But, if I were a backer, I could not forgive this as a reason for not delivering. Perfectionism is not an excuse here.

The working prototype in September 2017’s New York Maker Faire and live stream in 2018 proved the technology existed. ONO could print. But there were clear underlying issues – if it printed consistently, it would have shipped. The error rate in manufacturing is briefly mentioned in several updates, so there appeared to be some reliability issues, and beta tester videos show an unfinished product with low print quality. And the fact they had to launch a second fundraiser suggests that these faulty printers drained them dry, leaving them unable to finish the project and deliver serviceable 3D printers. Perhaps he was projecting his frustrations when he stated he did not want to send 16,000 people a “brick”. 16,000 bricks could build a house, but $2.3 million could build a whole neighborhood.

View this post on Instagram
Delivering. #ono3d
A post shared by filippo_moroni (@filippo_moroni) on Feb 1, 2019 at 6:39pm PST

For the record, I believe ONO have a moral duty to ship whatever they currently have in stock, even if it is just a brick with some added sentimental value. But I also do not believe that backers will ever receive their printer. ONO’s updates include photos of packaged units as well as boxes of unassembled ONO parts, therefore at least around fifty ONO printers exist, possibly far more. Every printer they have produced should be sent out, no matter its functionality. Too much time has passed to allow time extensions to get it right, just send the bricks.

To conclude in one sentence: naive, overambitious and excitable team, unexpected (yet standard in a start-up) problems, and splurging money until it was all gone. The result: 16,180 rightly angry backers who have lost sizable investments.

But does it even matter now?

Since the campaign launched four years ago, 3D printing technologies have advanced tremendously, especially in resin 3D printing. If ONO were to ship now, the technology would no longer be standout, but mediocre. Current LCD 3D printers starting at $200 far outperform ONO, and it will be infuriating to give up your printer for 8+ hours as your peers create better quality models effortlessly and in a third of the time.

The blame sits squarely on the shoulders of the founders, who gladly took life-changing amounts of money without the expertise to deliver. But backers also only saw what they wanted to see, and we all know what they say about things that seem too good to be true. In their excitement and haste, many glazed over glaring red flags: the clear resin bottles; opaque walls so you could not monitor your print; and safety errors in the launch videos portraying a lack of knowledge about 3D printing. Maker’s Muse pointed out all these flaws in his early video, but the campaign continued to garner support. It is a painful and expensive lesson in due diligence.

Four years on, the continuing vague hope of receiving an ONO printer makes the whole ordeal even more traumatic. ONO has been the worst kind of abusive partner to over 16,000 people all over the world, an abuser that shows the occasional glimmer that they can be the person the victim felt they knew originally, preventing the complete loss of hope that would finally let them move on. The extremely slim yet non-zero chance of receiving a printer maintains ONO’s unwanted occupancy in the untranquil gardens of aggrieved backers’ minds.Screenshot of comments on the OLO Kickstarter. One backer claims that one of ONO’s original Co-Founders has distanced himself from the project.

But it persists, in four years of excuses and uncertainty following on from one month’s slick marketing. There are talks of lawsuits, and some have complained about ONO to the Better Business Bureau. One Kickstarter backer claims to have spoken to Pietro, the Co-Founder, and claims he said he distanced himself from the project two years ago, and no longer speaks to Filippo. Filippo Moroni himself still posts ONO-related content on his Instagram page (@Filippo_Moroni), though he conveniently does not reply to any ONO-related negative comments on his posts. The OLO Kickstarter now has over 11,000 comments, many containing expressions we cannot post here.

Perhaps ONO’s refusal to give up is the most unforgivable part. If they announced they were done, insolvent and penniless, I suspect the reaction would be one of relief, not just of anger. Finally, we can just forget about this and get on with our lives. Hope can be damaging in that regard. Let the project die so that people can grieve their monetary loss, reach stoic acceptance, and move on, free from any thought or hope for the project. Let the people give up hope.

The End Of The ONO 3D Printer « Fabbaloo

The ONO: a dream that did not come true [Source: Kickstarter]

One of Kickstarter’s more notorious 3D printing campaigns has finally called it quits.

Remember the ONO 3D printer? I hadn’t thought about it in years now. In 2016, the OLO 3D printer debuted, promising an easy, portable resin-based 3D printer powered by your smartphone. Renamed the ONO shortly thereafter, the project drew great interest, gaining huge popularity on Kickstarter. A glance at the long-since-ended crowdfunding campaign notes:

“16,180 backers pledged $2,321,811 to help bring this project to life.”

Well — the backers pledged, but the project didn’t come to life.

I was, as it happens, backer #6,192. I pledged $129, which promised me:

OLO – 3D PRINTER + PRO PACK + EXTRA RESIN including:
- 2 x OLO RESIN (WHITE 80 / 100g bottle)
- OLO PRO-PACK
- OLO STICKER SET
- Dark Shadow Edition Printer- KS campaign only limited

Delivery was estimated for September 2016.

Sample prints from the ONO team and the few backers who received actual ONO 3D printers show promising quality [Souce: Kickstarter]

By the summer of 2018, it was abundantly clear that there was something majorly wrong with the ONO 3D printer campaign.

Now it’s three years later. Time to revisit the ill-fated campaign, apparently. Backers, myself included, received a message this week — the 72nd update to the campaign, and the first in more than two years.

Let’s back up to update #71, from March 2019, when backers were told:

“We are completing about 100 units a day, it was our goal, we succeeded. Now we are aiming for quality: we have reached 2% and we are working for 1% defect rate (which, industrially speaking, is an excellent result). We had to select a team of workers to be sure that the quality of the machines is constant: as you know, in fact, to reduce the cost of production, we decided to control in person all the processes: suppliers, assemblers, warehouse and logistics.”

ONO components [Source: Kickstarter]

Filippo Moroni, ONO’s CEO since late 2018, added into the lengthy message:

“Now I clearly reply to everyone about the state of the company and trying to clarify some things I read online. To accelerate the production and make possible the delivery of your printers, ONO needs capital injection through investors and through the market. ONO must be in good financial health even after the machines have been delivered, otherwise the servers fail, the app fails, production stops, resin distribution dies, no accessories or consumables and no software updates.
If we do not survive, sending the printer would be like sending you a brick.
Personally, I have invested 4 years of my life and all my economic resources: I sincerely have no desire to send you a brick.
ONO is not just a 3D Printer, but a 3D Company: it has to sell, capitalize and find oxygen to continue produce, ship, care, assist all the customers and ONO worldwide. And develop the new ones.”

The idea was to make a company. The result was less than a brick, as it happens.

It sounds like Filippo has thrown in the towel with this week’s update. As the full text is available on Kickstarter only to backers, we share here the message in full (addressed to the dear backers, dear patient supporters and angry detractors, dear tech lovers and weird ideas freaks, dear creatives, dear students, dear friends and dear haters):

“We invented a new printing technology 5 years ago and created a wonderful product together with our team. Thanks to all of you we have collected the interest and the financial support of a huge community from 52 different countries. We have worked like crazy with dozens of people to make this project real, we faced unexpected complexities, unfaithful suppliers, consultants who took advantage of it …and obviously made several mistakes, like so many other projects.
I personally made the biggest mistake giving the management and control of the US funds to the wrong person and for this we respond morally to all of you, but despite all that, two of us struggled to the end with our own resources to avoid disaster, saving peoples’ jobs and recover from this nightmare.
After a long absence and an incomprehensible but inevitable silence due to legal issues, I managed to got rid of the CEO and partner, take back 100% of his shares of the company, close the pendings with suppliers for almost usd 600+K out of my own pocket. So I have saved several jobs, paid off tax debts and secured all of the merchandise.
The tragedy is that ONO is now a bankrupcy safe but resourceless company, with a warehouse in China full of components, about 5K ready-made printers, and a monthly server and warehouse costs that we can no longer afford without a perspective.
The ONO project and related patents are now yours, all the supporters, and I have therefore decided to release them to open source: for anyone of you who has interests, energies and resources for the ONO future and the Direct Display Daylight 3D Technology is more than welcome to this technology by writing a proposal at: [email protected]
To All of You, for your trust, for your criticisms and advice, for your help to elevate an idea to a product, and to give us such a challenging opportunity: THANK YOU.
(for now) This is The End.
Filippo and the ONO Team.”

Looking through the many updates, it seems that in August 2018 a whopping nine backers did receive their ONO 3D printers. One German backer even went to Shenzhen to see the factory for himself and claim his ONO in person, following an open Kickstarter invitation to do just that. (Apparently it was a surprise to the team that the gentleman, Frank, took up the invitation.)

Backer Frank went to Shenzhen to see the ONO facility and actually receive his 3D printer [Source: Kickstarter]

Now there may be a future for ONO in the open source world. However, as many commenters have pointed out…nothing has actually been released. There’s no GitHub link or other sourcing for the open source decision.

All we can really say anymore about the ONO 3D printer is… well. Oh, no.

Via Kickstarter

Personal impressions of the 3D printer MAESTRO (vs MZ3D-360)

It's already been 4 months since I have a new printer from Perm from the Show-Design company in my studio. More precisely, this is the second device, but let's go in order.

I started printing more than a year ago and I need a printer to make very specific tools of my own design - these are low and not very complex geometric products made of PLA plastic.

My first printer was and still is the Moscow MZ3D-360, with which I will involuntarily compare my new device.

The photo shows the first device that came to me in June.

There is already a review of Maestro on 3dToday, but let me repeat something, here is my personal opinion.

The first thing that catches the eye and arouses admiration is the packaging. The printer arrived in a solid plywood cube, inside of which there were foam mats covered with a film, which ensures the complete safety of the printer, and at the same time there are no annoying pieces of electrified foam. The printer, as many have noted, is visually similar to Picasso Designer, but apparently it just coincided.

The printer kit is standard, but as a person with an artistic education, I want to note that a palette knife is not the most convenient tool.

Much more comfortable stainless scraper like the MZ3D - it is more comfortable, sharper and wider.

But I was very pleased that the spare nozzle was with a bit for unscrewing with a screwdriver or by hand - the other day I changed the nozzle and it was convenient - without keys, like in MZ3D, which are probably made of plasticine and no longer hold the fuser, as it breaks the hexagonal notch key instantly. Very soft metal on the keys...

I was very pleased that the plastic on the coil is hidden inside the case and closed with a magnetic lid. Comfortable. However, there are two disadvantages at once associated with filling plastic:

The printer has a filament sensor. When overcoming it when loading, you have to try to push the thread through without breaking it. On a new coil, this is difficult, as the coil strives to spin. Straighten, slightly bending the tip of the plastic - a must!
Long tract of the loading tube approaches the head at an angle of 90 degrees. I got used to refueling, but by frequent bending the plastic to the limit - fortunately, with slow bending, the PLA does not burst, but only squeezes. I don't print with flex or ceramo...however, this can be problematic for them.

So, the plastic is refilled and you can test the print.

I've tried a lot of slicers, but Slic3r works best for my purposes. It builds the paths of head movement on my models as logically as possible, allows you to quickly make changes, and since I have a Mac Book Pro, I calmly cut everything both at home on W10 and in the studio on a poppy.

The print profiles that I spent months honing on MZ3D did not fit here at all and I want to express my special thanks to the guys from Show Design for preparing standard Mac profiles for Slic3r for me. For the standard program (finished RepeaterHost) does not run on it - it is only for Windows.

I would especially like to mention the G28 command in the code. Each G28 at the start of printing leads to another table calibration. And in the end (as it is in the Slic3r slicer code) - leads to terrifying consequences:

The printer finishes printing and the code says to it - and calibrate the table again. And he dutifully goes to move the table, breaking everything in its path. The stepper motors are trying to tilt the table to reach the nozzle, but sorry - the 80mm part gets in the way . .. In short, check the print end code!

I always print remotely from the computer, from a flash drive.

The printer has one control knob and a display. All control is just by pressing and turning the knob. On Maestro's first printer, the pen didn't 'click' when turned, and I flew past it a million times. Then it turned out that it depends on the supplier of parts. That with clicks is, and that - is not present. What we put in is what we use. Not very good. But thanks to Dmitry Shumkov, a representative of the manufacturing plant, who replaced this penny part for me on the first device during his visit. And that was the reason for the visit.

The printer is equipped with a table calibration system. It is currently not disabled and each time the printer calibrates the table before printing.

After 4 months, I want to say responsibly that this is sick, but seriously! I understand perfectly well that the table should be flat, but it is always calibrated before printing and . .. always in different ways.

Everything is cool in theory - denzo sensor, three mounting points, stepper motors on 2 out of 3 corners ... And there is the only explanation that I have not yet tested in practice - what if I have crooked glass.

However, my table remains skewed... Always.

That is, one corner - slightly raised, and the other diagonally - failed. Because of this, when printing the first layer, I don’t have extrusion somewhere and the filament sensor is triggered (like the thread doesn’t move, check!), And on the other hand, it doesn’t press, but the plastic 'fits', and on the 2-3rd layer everything wonderfully flies off away from the table... and started winding...

I tried to put various flat objects under the glass, I twisted the glass, but I couldn't achieve perfect printing. Bottom line - I always stand next to the printer until the end of the first layer. And this is my time!!

The menu has a fine table level calibration - Z-offset in 0. 01mm increments, and, dear reader, I had to move it from -0.20 to +0.15 ... which is insanely much, considering that I I don't print huge details and the first layer at 0.25 is huge for me.

Sometimes the entire thickness of a part can be 0.3 mm in three layers of 0.1... and if in MZ3D I can set the layer height to 0.05 and it will print everything, then it's a failure...

This one corner, for example, failed.

And here - tolerable. With the same print.

In the MZ3D-360, setting the table is done manually using a primitive assistant in the driver and 4 winglets with springs. Simple, but damn it, I calibrate the table quarterly (4 times a year) and print every day without problems with the first layer, where there are never dips and warps (and this is with a moving table!).

These were flowers...

Berries came out with continuous printing. That is, loading the printer 3-4 tables one after another without turning off the printer and periodically replacing the plastic with other colors.

On the one hand, such requirements should not be impossible for a device costing more than 100k, but as it turned out, there are nuances here too.

In endless correspondence with representatives of the plant, who I want to pay tribute to, patiently withstood my onslaught, a jamb was voiced when, when replacing plastic, in rare cases, the printer lost orientation in space and could not continue printing, but for me it became a system. It even happened that the head was beating against the front glass (door) !!

It got to the point that I could not put the printer on a long print, for example, at night. The printer began to lose its head. That is, for no reason he began to pull it, moving diagonally, and then printing went according to the program, but in a different place ...

Here is the simplest example. The diagonal lines are the process of blowing off the head...on the first layer!

This is already a development of the problem

And this is the apotheosis, after which the question arose of repairing or replacing the apparatus.

That is, when printing, the printer was held only by the dimensions of the frame. If not for them, he would have gone to the next room.

The printer himself put an end to his destiny. One morning it did not exit the self-test mode...

As the manufacturer wrote to me later, the stepper motor connector in the head spontaneously went away...

As a result... the printer was replaced for me and the same, but a completely new device arrived. That's just the glass and guts left me the same as from the first printer. Well, not to complete again...

Speaking of glass. It is not hardened like the MZ3D-360, and after 4 months of careful operation it has terrible scratches. The Moscow printer is already almost a year and a half old and not a single one ... And how I scraped the surface with a scraper ...

Joyfully, I used the new printer for a couple of days ... Until he also lost his head. And after a while I again noticed problems with the adjustment of the table. I grieved, and decided to look for a problem. The main question was - is it in 'hardware' or in 'software'?

After a week of dancing around the printer, I found out that the problem of breaking the head is purely software. Now, I turn the printer off and on every time before printing. I mean, I'm rebooting his brain. And for a long time I did not have a single breakdown. This is progress!!

There is only one problem left to solve - with the table.

And wait, suddenly software developers for brains will add at least some of the functionality that is in the MZ3D-360, namely:

Print speed adjustment - speed up or slow down.
Table and extruder temperature control.
Filament feed adjustment - more or less pressure.
Displays the height of the layer currently being printed (important for me).

That's all for now. There will be questions or suggestions - I will be glad to communicate!

Bought a 3D printer and decided to make some money. What's next?

So, you are thinking about the opportunity to make money on 3D printing. How realistic is this? Quite, although the path is thorny. We purposefully will not consider the opportunities provided by the use of expensive professional installations. This niche has been successfully developing for a long time, because there is a stable demand. The most advanced technologies even make it possible to create parts for rocket engines, but such devices cost a lot of money and are beyond the budgetary possibilities of a simple enthusiast. We will look specifically at the opportunity to earn extra money using an inexpensive FDM or SLA printer.

The first thing to stop at: forget about mass production. It just doesn't suit you. Compact printers are too slow to produce large volumes of products in a short time, alas. There can be no question of any competition with the foundry industry. And it's not just the time spent, but also the cost of production. Once the molds are made, smartphone cases can be stamped by the thousands with minimal downtime. This niche is firmly occupied. But after all, the casting molds themselves need to be made, right? This is where 3D printing can come in handy. No wonder this technology has an alternative name - "rapid prototyping".

Microsoft has gone through hundreds of printed prototypes of the Xbox One controller. But this is a job that is too tough for a home FDM printer

Many articles about making money on 3D printers are written by the owners of these devices in personal blogs.

Prototyping using 3D printing is especially relevant for industries that are constantly changing the look of their products. That is why dentists and jewelers love 3D printing so much. Every day a new patient with their own unique set of teeth. Or another fastidious socialite who needs jewelry to be the envy of everyone. But only unique! And if the Chinese factory for the production of "real Russian nesting dolls" does not show any interest in you or your 3D-printing miracle machines (they most likely have their own), then the nearest dental clinic may well be interested. It is not yet a fact that they are ready to invest in purchasing their own SLA printer and keep a person on staff who would serve it. After all, these are extra costs, extra accounting, extra working space. Much easier and cheaper to use contractors. That is you.

It is quite possible to make money in small-scale production. Again, in order for the foundry process to pay off, it is necessary to produce large quantities of goods. The cost of small-scale production on a simple FDM printer will be lower, because you do not have to invest in the creation of molds, not to mention expensive foundry equipment, workshops, and hiring personnel. If the same private dentist comes to the same Chinese foundry with a request to cheaply cast a batch of 200 promotional souvenir key chains, then they will look at him . .. askance. And here you are quite on the shoulder. You will even be able to compete in terms of the cost of end products. After all, your technological process is extremely simple: draw and print. And if you also master such subtleties as the processing of ABS models with acetone fumes, then your products will not visually differ even from cast analogues.

3D printer plus acetone bath. Why not a cute owl?

What is most remarkable: recently, “home” SLA / DLP printers have appeared that are in no way inferior in quality to their expensive professional counterparts. They are inferior only in performance, but not so much. But the price difference between compact and industrial devices can be enormous. Take a look at the prices of the nearest professional 3D printing shop, if there is one in your city, drop the price for the sake of competitiveness, stock up on the necessary materials and call the small jewelry business and clinics. Although, it is better to call first, ask. Make an offer, explain the essence. It is very possible that you will find customers. And if you also reinforce the words with a good example... Imagine the reaction of an old, gray-haired master jeweler, who for the first time sees a model of a ring made of burnt photopolymer resin and realizes that he no longer needs to cut out the master models with a drill and a mat. Or an auto mechanic who can offer his customers to exchange broken small plastic parts for printed parts without a long wait for spare parts and at a better price. Yes, and with the possibility of customization. Put the Ferrari logo on someone's favorite chisel? Yes, no problem. Yes, it will look like the real thing. No, not expensive.

This is such a beauty on a home SLA printer. Jewelers will be delighted, we guarantee it

The main problem in small-scale production is finding customers. Let's be honest: few people in our country even know what a 3D printer is. If they knew, then the 3D printing business would grow by leaps and bounds. Are you a minibus driver and your passengers have broken off all the plastic handles on the windows? Contact us, we'll print it. Need a pretty vase to make your best friend jealous? Let's do it. Need a 1:72 scale model of the Wright brothers plane? Can't be found during the day with fire? If there were drawings, we would make a set for the modeller.

But how to find all these people? Or how to make them find you?

This is the main problem. As long as there is no developed market, there is no opportunity for trade. There is, of course, the possibility of advertising - from ads on lampposts to Yandex.Direct. But in this case, you would most likely have to start your own website. After all, it will not work to clearly demonstrate the product and explain the essence of the services in one ad. This is one option. But you don't have to create the market yourself. There is another option - to use Internet sites that sell 3D models. There everything is already done for you, it remains only to lay out your models or take orders. Of course, you will have to pay a commission for sales, but business is business. On the other hand, there is no need to spend time and money on your own website, and traffic will be higher. After all, it is better to trade in the market than in the outskirts?

Have you signed up to be a maker?

Such markets for 3D models are developing quite successfully and include makers from all over the world. Shapeways and Thingiverse are typical examples. There are similar resources in Russia - the same Fair of Masters. Some sites generally use makers as a distributed resource - for example, makexyz.

There is another nuance that cannot be ignored. It is unlikely that you will be able to make money with a 3D printer without having 3D modeling skills. After all, most of your clients will not come with ready-made digital models, but with sketches, physical objects for cloning, even just ideas. Therefore, certain design skills will be required, which, of course, can be included in the cost of products. Can't you do it yourself? Try to arrange a co-op. There will always be a design student ready to earn extra money and practice. And with you the printer and maintenance of equipment. Who knows, over time, such a modest undertaking may well develop into a serious business - there would be orders. Again, Internet sites can be considered an exception. Some of them purposefully rent the capacity of a distributed network of makers. Orders will be provided ready-made, as long as you have the opportunity to print them and send them to the customer.

Smile, it won't hurt at all

Since we mentioned cloning, it is worth remembering about 3D scanners. Large companies such as 3D Systems and MakerBot are building their own ecosystems with might and main: product kits consisting of printers, scanners and online support. Arm yourself with, say, a MakerBot Replicator 2X printer and a MakerBot Digitizer scanner. Someone needs to expand the set of favorite towel hooks that have not been sold for ten years? Here is your niche. Scan a sample and print a custom batch. And after completing the order, why not post the existing hook model in your portfolio on the makers website? Will there be other customers? 3D scanners are somewhat expensive, but they open up a lot of new opportunities, at least in the souvenir business. 3D designing is hard enough already, but to make a 3D portrait of someone, you already have to be an artist. There is no shortage of talent here. But even in this case, the project will take a lot of time. In such cases, scanners are simply irreplaceable. The same 3D Systems Sense is quite capable of scanning a person in full growth. And there will always be those who want to make action figures of themselves, loved ones. If you can Keanu Reeves, then why not everyone else?

"I will print my case for Samsung - there will be a new iPhone"

In summary, the main strength of 3D printing lies in the ability to create unique objects quickly and inexpensively. Use it to produce souvenirs, art, mock-ups, hard-to-find or overpriced spare parts.