Tiko3D $179 3D Printer

[brbubba]

Well they are on Kickstarter now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...ody-3d-printer

Honestly, it looks very well put together, though I'm still not entirely sold on it. With no heated bed, I wonder how it will print ABS. I'm not a fan of the wording they've used for the technical info, frankly, there's little information on how or what they are using to make it work, and seeing those words 'patent-pending' alone makes me cringe. But overall, I wish them luck. It will be interesting to watch.

Edit.....reading through it a bit more, and frankly, some of their wording is a bit far fetched....they claim their hot end is the only one that can extrude PLA without active cooling, and that a cooling fan on a hot end is both expensive and reduces print volume...

That one made me do an eyebrow raise too. New technology equals project delays and budget problems if not already perfected. We saw it in the EZ3D, where they were relying on manufacturing tech to save them but never perfected it and it bankrupted the company. Makibot also wasted valuable resources on new tech (a pellet extruder) which blew through their budget and ship dates eventually bankrupting the company.

I'll happily eat crow if they can ship this thing on time or at all, but the margins are just too thin.

[curious aardvark]

makibox bought the wrong hot end and the almost 100% failure of that as well as costs for putting the hot ends together themselves are what broke the camel's back.

They had no 'shit happens' budget and blew through the shipping money and were then unable to ship the machines they'd already sold. And it all got worse from there.

basically bad business.

The tiko people sound abit more savvy. But common sense would tell you that if you can sell a delta 3d printer for $179 - then you could sure as shoot sell it for $250.
And actually have an 'oh bugger' budget for when things go wrong or get delayed.

[JRDM]

The link to this thread from this story is broken for me:

http://3dprint.com/54740/tiko-unibody-3d-printer/

The link is supposed to be:
http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.php?11486-Tiko3D-179-3D-Printer

The link is actually:
http://3dprint.com/54740/tiko-unibody-3d-printer/3dprintboard.com/showthread.php?11486-Tiko3D-179-3D-Printer

[JRDM]

There are some interesting things going on here, but there's way too little to go on. People don't seem to be asking the hard questions before committing the money.

The promo video is mostly fluff with only a few seconds of actual machine moving, and the rest of the campaign story looks like a Buzzfeed animated gif-fest, using footage from the original video at that.

And the extremely sparse web site claims it's been featured at SXSW 2015 (whatever that means), but I haven't even found any photos or video placing it there.

[DavidS]

I do not trust any product that attempts to sale a product that they have not tested well, and/or that is not in production before they attempt to sale it.

I pers personally only would be more likely to purchase something that is advertised to have low production volumes (like 10 per week, or such), that has been tested, and reviewed by third parties. If they need KickStarter to get going on production, good, though if they are prom promising issing products to supporters, BAD NEWS.

[Bassna]

Well I just checked out the kickstarter page. They seem to be doing fantastic, even with people that are anti-crowd funding :P

I probably would have went for one of the $99 early bird's if they were not sold out already. Hope all goes well!

[digitap]

I backed the project at the "earliest bird" price of $99. This will be my first 3D printer and compared to many other Kickstarter projects, I figured this one is the cheapest and therefore I'm not out $500 if they can't deliver. I agree that to date, they've basically been 95% marketing and 5% substance. Per the creators, all current printers have been made from 3D printed parts, so they have yet to actually produce and test something coming off the line.

While they've been good about responding to comments so far, they've avoided giving technical details and video examples of actual usage in various scenarios. That and the manufacturing questions are what worries me. Additionally, they've stated there will be no warranty with the printer, that they use cheaper consumer grade components to bring the price down, and the unit isn't designed to be user servicable. Again, no details on how they actually plan to support the printers post-sale.

So this is truly a startup more than a business venture and it wouldn't surprise me if their end goal is to sell or license the rights to produce the printer to someone else in order to cash out.

The timeline say shipping around November/December of 2015, and they've stated they're confident they can hit the date (but what Kickstarter creator doesn't say that). We'll have to wait and see how it pans out, but I think the best thing they could do prior to the campaign ending is to actually put up some true technical details and demos of the printer. Not just promises or fluff, but actual videos of it making things, hi res pictures of the output, etc. Additionally, stating their business intentions and what they're doing to support those goals would be helpful to ensure this isn't just a one-hit-wonder to put on their resumes and move on leaving the backers stranded.

On the up side, they are pretty good about not giving in to stretch goals and add-ons. For some reason all these backers want more and more for nothing, and that seems to lead to the demise of many Kickstarters after they've been funded. Hopefully they'll stay on track with the original goals and timelines then actually deliver.

[MiniMadRyan]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but without any inputs on the printer itself, how does one actually connect this printer to a home wireless network?

I'm very curious to see some more actual prints, as I wonder if they are able to achieve accurate prints with what they claim is inaccurate parts

[3dkarma]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but without any inputs on the printer itself, how does one actually connect this printer to a home wireless network?

Most likely, you don't. It will probably work as an access point, requiring you to connect to it in order to send prints to it. This is what the doodle3d did, and it was superbly crappy.

[MiniMadRyan]

Most likely, you don't. It will probably work as an access point, requiring you to connect to it in order to send prints to it. This is what the doodle3d did, and it was superbly crappy.

Interesting. I had assumed that it would connect to a wider network somehow, as their marketing spoke about collecting your printers info to help builder better software and updates.