Printable View
I'm just recently being turned on to this company. Whats the history behind Hyrel? I went to the website but there wasn't much of an "about us" section. How long has the company been operational, and when was the first printer created? I just have people coming into my shop all the time asking questions about 3D printing companies, so any extra info I can get on any manufacturers helps me help them :)
Hi, Larry.
I know our website is not the best. This link can be hard to find: http://www.hyrel3d.com/about-us/
Let me know if you have more questions.Quote:
Who are we?
We are a small group of designers, engineers, and business people who make automated machines for the semiconductor industry.Here’s a Quick Tour of Our Shop
What made you get a 3D printer?
While designing the newest generation of equipment for the semiconductor industry, we were looking for other sources and suppliers to do some prototyping for us. This would allow us to develop and support multiple products immediately, while keeping our research and development costs low.As a stroke of luck, this is when we uncovered 3D printers. We recognized instantly a 3D printer could print out our designs into physical prototypes, saving us thousands of hours of development, setup, and tooling time.
Why did we decide to make the HYREL 3D printer?
We bought a 3D printer kit and when it arrived, we assembled it…
… printed a few sloppy pieces and kept calibrating it to get it right…
… and then the electronics board failed (and after pulling teeth to get a new board)…
… the new board arrived, but the factory installed firmware was wrong…
… and because the shipped firmware was wrong (and no process available to update it)…
… we had another request for the firmware or a new board (more teeth pulling…)
… toward the end of this adventure, the 3D printer kit itself started to fall apart.
Considering what we purchased was one of the higher priced, pro-sumer 3D printer kits, we expected a much higher quality 3D printer. We expected customer service would have returned our emails within a week, not two months (and not with hostility). And when our journey was just about finished, we expected to have a fully operational 3D printer… not to be sold on the “next, latest and greatest 3D printer” they had in stock.
In our (other company's) main line of business, if your machine does not work flawlessly out-of-the-box and is not highly reliable, you’re not going to be around for long. And most of the time, if you mess up once, you’re done. You’re gone the moment the purchasing agent starts looking for something similar or potentially better.
Because of the way we were handled, we jumped in because we saw an opportunity. We were tired of seeing other companies sell sub-standard products to the consumer. We were tired of being told “this is just the way it is,” “the market just isn’t mature enough yet,” “if you really want it, you’ll need to spend $50,000+ USD to get what you want…”
We knew this was hogwash when we opened up their machines and recognized the parts they were using to create their 3D printers. We discovered sub-standard parts, sold at an outrageously, high premium. Further, some of these companies had the audacity to include a fine print with their 3D printers which tells the consumer to design and print off their own replacement parts immediately because of the sub-standard parts used to first create their 3D printer!
This is why we created the HYREL 3D Printer.
We’re changing the 3D printing market by delivering a true 3D printer solution. A robust, reliable, and economical 3D printer with quality parts enables makers, inventors, designers, and dreamers to create, innovate, and transform the world.
lol, I totally missed that on the bottom of the page sorry :)
Interesting, and at the same time, a pretty cool story. You guys sort of accidentally found yourself making 3D printers :)
Yep, that's about how it happened.