alt Hacker NewsThere was a kickstarter for a $3000 SLS printer a while ago. Formlabs (who have over 50% of the SLS market) promptly bought the company and shut down the kickstarter - and gave backers a $1000 coupon towards their $30000 SLS printers...
There was a kickstarter for a $3000 SLS printer a while ago. Formlabs (who have over 50% of the SLS market) promptly bought the company and shut down the kickstarter - and gave backers a $1000 coupon towards their $30000 SLS printers...
That pissed me off so much.
I was one of the backers and I was sooooo looking forward to an affordable home SLS printer. They'd done some incredible engineering, too, in service of getting the price point down to where it was.
Scaling up was going to be a massive challenge for them, but damn, I wish they'd tried instead of phoning it in early.
(Mind you, I'm sure Formlabs paid them handsomely. Would I make the same decision under the same circumstances? I honestly don't know. So far be it from me to judge them, but man do I wish someone would do something about Formlabs' ridiculous prices and monopoly over that space.)