Home Depot Begins Retail Store Pilot Program To Sell MakerBot 3-D Printers 127
ClockEndGooner writes Looking for a 3-D printer to help you out with a home project or two? If you're in one of the 12 pilot program areas in the U.S., stop into Home Depot to take a look at and purchase a MakerBot 3-D Replicator printer. "...The pilot program will offer the microwave-sized MakerBot Replicator printers, priced at $2,899, for sale, as well as the smaller Replicator Minis, which list for $1,375. 'This will open up the whole world of 3-D printing to people who wouldn't otherwise know about it—like moms and dads, electricians, contractors and DIY-home-improvement folks,' said MakerBot chief executive Bre Pettis. 'It's a good match.'"
and what would i do with it? (Score:3)
the website makes it seem like i'm buying a $3000 machine to buy plans to print some orange toys for the kids
Re:and what would i do with it? (Score:5, Funny)
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You should fix your Z-axis problems.
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Fixed in v2 hardware. Sorry, only upgrade path from v1 hardware is buying v2 hardware at full price.
Re: and what would i do with it? (Score:1)
Ohhhh!!! MBA types will love 3D power point! Just pass this pie chart around the table. Unnggg, so heavy!!!
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Custom cases for phones/electronics projects (Raspberry Pi comes to mind), prototypes of all sorts of things (custom rings is one I saw in their twitter feed [twitter.com], heck I read a story about a surgeon in the UK who used 3D printing to make models of bones and organs to practice surgery procedures on saving several thousand pounds and several weeks vs traditional hand made models.
Re:and what would i do with it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Custom cases for phones/electronics projects (Raspberry Pi comes to mind), prototypes of all sorts of things (custom rings is one I saw in their twitter feed [twitter.com], heck I read a story about a surgeon in the UK who used 3D printing to make models of bones and organs to practice surgery procedures on saving several thousand pounds and several weeks vs traditional hand made models.
The question is "How much overlap is there between the MakerBot market and the Home Depot shopper market?" My anecdotal experience says there is not a lot of overlap. The pros are buying in bulk at a discount and for them time is money. Waiting hours to make a widget isn't what they are looking for. The average homeowner wants to fix a problem or do some upgrades and needs help and advice. Tinkering with a MB machine isn't really what they want either. Sure, some MB hobbyist also shop at HD but do enough do this to but what is essentially a bleeding edge toy vs a really useful tool for regular work. Toys are nice but the market is limited.
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On the other hand, when I went looking for stuff to run some CAT-5 in my house HD had everything needed, including 2 models of switches (4 and 8 port both 10/100). This was in late 2000.
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On the other hand, when I went looking for stuff to run some CAT-5 in my house HD had everything needed, including 2 models of switches (4 and 8 port both 10/100). This was in late 2000.
Not surprising. Lots of folks run wire and cable. Doesn't mean they also wold buy a MB.
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Hmm, My immediate thought actually is that there's a fucking huge overlap. Print your own cornicing for your house... Print your own bath plugs... Print your own custom pipes for the awkward places that are unique to your house... Print your own parts to customise fixtures and fittings. The list is basically endless in the DIY landscape. The only worry home depot might have is that there might be too much overlap, and their sales of other things might drop!
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Hmm, My immediate thought actually is that there's a fucking huge overlap. Print your own cornicing for your house
In 30cm pieces? Taking 12 hours for enough to do a single room?
... Print your own bath plugs...
Yes, you can save $0.5 USD just by waiting an hour.
Print your own custom pipes for the awkward places that are unique to your house...
No such thing - a variety of elbows, t-pieces and such are available to fit any sort of plumbing the average house has, which leaves us to the only legitimate use ...
Print your own parts to customise fixtures and fittings.
And this is the option that requires the owner to be proficient enough to design his own stuff in the first place, which may take (from my experience) anything from 2 hours to twenty hours. If he is downloading a design off of the
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Hmm, My immediate thought actually is that there's a fucking huge overlap. Print your own cornicing for your house... Print your own bath plugs...
True...
I actually wandered into the demo at the HD near me.
The rest of my shopping as I wandered through the store, every time I saw some plastic part, I was thinking, "I could print THAT, and THAT, and part of THAT..."
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Except you'd spend more on electricity than you'd have spent to just buy it.
Thats not including source material.
Thats not including the fact that the part you printed is going to be so weak, relative to the mass produced part that it doesn't stand a chance of being useful.
You only think its a good idea because you have absolutely no real world experience with 3d printing.
3D printing at home is a joke for anything other than AT BEST making lost-PLA (i.e. lost wax but with PLA) style molds that you can fill w
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If it's a printer that's been modified to print some kind of gel with the right consistency, it's probably to print another kind of organs.
Re:and what would i do with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
"I heard about a guy in another country who used one" doesnt really bode well for sales.
Re:and what would i do with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Home Depot has a tool rental program. It would be really slick if they offered 3D printers for rental, either in-store (it could print your part while you shop), or take home for a weekend project.
This past school year I helped out with an after-school programming class at my son's elementary school. One of the projects was to design a 3D part using Python and FreeCAD. We tried to have the parts printed at TechShop, but they wouldn't let kids under 18 into their facility. So we had them printed by an online service and mailed to us. It would have been really cool to have a 3D printer at the school, so the kids could see their parts being made, and maybe fine-tune the design and print again. One of the boys designed a working toilet for his sister's Barbie dollhouse.
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The per piece rental would make more sense, HD charges your card at rental time the full cost of the tools replacement as a deposit and I'm not sure how many people would have $2,800 open on their card. Of course then they'll run into copyright issues, so probably best just to sell the units.
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What copyright issues? I don't even think you can copyright a specific shape or model. Patent or trademark possibly, but not copyright.
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Copyright most certainly applies to design files, just like you can run into issues printing photographs proving ownership of the image you would need to prove ownership of the design file you are submitting before they'll use it to make something for you.
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Of course then they'll run into copyright issues
I have yet to hear of a single lawsuit based on 3D parts. Even if there was, all legal precedence says that it is person ordering the part, and not the service provider, that is responsible. Otherwise Kinkos would have never existed.
so probably best just to sell the units.
Then they will likely lose to other companies that are willing to offer parts-as-a-service. Staples [3dsystems.com] already has 3D-print-on-demand at a few of their stores.
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Oh, just wait 'til printing cheap car parts becomes as widespread as music copying is. If you think the media industry caused a riot when people avoided paying their extortion fees, just wait what strings the car industry is going to pull once people start to avoid their plastic spare parts sold at prices that would make you think they're made of platinum.
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You realize you can already buy third party parts for cars, right? Something something Magnusson-Moss Act....
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Something something...Magnuson–Moss Act has nothing to do with being able to buy aftermarket parts. It's about warranties.
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I had understood that it had been used to justify the existence of third party parts in spite of lawsuits to the contrary from auto makers.
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What legal precidence are you talking about? That is completely incorrect. Take something that looks like it might be copyrighted to Kinko's and ask them to copy it. They won't.
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Take something that looks like it might be copyrighted to Kinko's and ask them to copy it. They won't.
I have been to Kinko's dozens of times. I have copied pages out of book, manuals, and magazines. I have also brought in many downloaded PDFs, including complete technical manuals. All of this stuff was obviously copyrighted. Never, not even once, did they even hesitate to let me copy it.
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Although Home Depot started as a pure DIY operation, it already has a lot invested in virtual home design software as a service (visualize what your new kitchen remodel will look like, then contract to have the work done). Offering 3D print as a service is a natural fit for the same part of the store. For customers, it will be a risk-free way of trying out an expensive and temperamental new technology.
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Just out of curiousity, what kind of parts are you talking about, where a 3D printed piece of plastic would be an acceptable replacement? In my work on my own older home, the things that are in the can't find/hard to find category are all either structural (2x4s that are actually 2 inches by 4 inches), functional (doorknobs, etc), or decorative (plaster rosettes, etc). None of those are suitably replaced with a piece of plastic, regardless of whether or not it actually 'fits'.
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Just out of curiousity, what kind of parts are you talking about, where a 3D printed piece of plastic would be an acceptable replacement? In my work on my own older home, the things that are in the can't find/hard to find category are all either structural (2x4s that are actually 2 inches by 4 inches), functional (doorknobs, etc), or decorative (plaster rosettes, etc). None of those are suitably replaced with a piece of plastic, regardless of whether or not it actually 'fits'.
Plastic doorknobs, probably. Plaster rosettes, no, although you could print custom plaster moulds and get far more variety than a store would normally have in stock. Your 2x4s that actually 2x4 are a planing job and I've no doubt that HD would be happy to sell you the appropriate hardware.
One of the things that 3D printing can do for you when you need something more durable than straight plastic (for example, a door latch), is print the "public facing" component of a part that, given a suitable metal underb
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for the 2x4, find an Amish person and they will likely know where you can get one. Also, small lumber mills operators will run them happily for you. Of course, my favorite is to glue a piece of plywood to one side and face. Just rip it down on the table saw, glue, and keep a few spares for whenever you need them. Glue the face first cut at 2 inch and cut the side 3.5 wide with .5 inch plywood. Or got with 1/4 inch and go all the way around but frankly, I think you are wasting glue.
I was thinking maybe somet
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Radio Shack missed the boat on this one.
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I'm not an expert on dildos, but judging from the stuff I have printed I can tell you one thing: To want a printed dildo, you'd really have to be some fucked up hardcore masochist!
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The ladies have learned about silicone rubber for their fun.
They're not buying anything until it can print in soft plastic.
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Home Depot is one of the places selling these devices makes a lot of sense, though hobby stores that cater to people who need to fabricate miniatures would probably work better.
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It doesn't seem so long ago that people were asking me why anyone would want a home computer.
Re:and what would i do with it? (Score:4, Funny)
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Actually plastic is pretty much the ONLY limit the average tinkerer had 'til recently. If it was made of wood, just turn it. If it was made of metal, put power to your lathe. If it was made of plastic, though, you were out of luck 'til now. Small numbers or even single items were pretty much anathema to plastic which is the king of mass production, but producing one piece was nearly as expensive as making a few thousands, since the tool was the expensive part, not the material.
3D printing closes this gap.
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Sounds like something Henry Ford would say to sell 3D printers.
A lot of them will be returned (Score:5, Insightful)
MakerBot has never before sold through a retail outlet that takes returns. A lot of those machines will come back.
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It is not retailers that take returns per se.
What the OP is saying is that many novice people will wander by the display, think it is cool, and buy it on an impulse. They will then take it home, struggle with it, figure out it is not as cool as they though, and return it.
Think of all those IBM PC jr and Colecovision collecting dust that people bought in the 80s thinking this would be the thing to solve all of their issue. Now, I know a good subset that put these things to good use or used them as a springbo
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What the OP is saying is that many novice people will wander by the display, think it is cool, and buy it on an impulse.
How many people are going to spend $3000 (or even $1300) on something they know almost nothing about after "wandering by"? If its more than zero, Makerbot should partner with local divorce attorneys.
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You would be surprised. Especially around tax time when a lot of lower income people have fat (EIC) refunds that is probably already spent but they never had that much at one time. Big screen TVs, four wheelers, all kinds of stuff get purchased on impulse this way. And usually, it is the junkier stuff that most people would stay away from if they knew about it.
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Who cares about the EIC? Stupid people will do stupid things, poor people are not known for being smart with finances. Tax refunds simply give an enormous extra amount of money at one time to poor people.
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I guess you never been bored one weekend and shopped at Home Depot. It is never cheap especially if your spouse is with you.
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Stores have been onto that trick for 20 years.
Scammers still do it, but to people who think they are buying stolen goods.
There _will_ be a metric buttload of returns.
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Do you think HD will eat them? Of course, Makerbot will get the returns back. So look for referbs to be available soon.
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I am hoping for clearance aisle at 80% off in about 16 months.
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I'll take one that is *missing* a few parts for a fraction of the price.
You bet! Buy a 'bot, find the parts that are missing, print new ones, and...
Oh wait...
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Does the Home Depot force Makerbot to eat the returns?
Probably. Given their size they can, and do, pretty much dictate terms.
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SciFri / Staples (Score:4, Interesting)
This was mentioned briefly [sciencefriday.com] on Science Friday last week. Also that some Staples are going to have them for "service bureau" printing.
It's a neat idea and a potential reniassance for service bureaus - I haven't needed to go to one since 44-meg Syquest carts were in vogue.
Eventually we'll all have high-strength 3D printers at home, but that's got to be at least a decade off.
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FTFY
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I don't see home depot as servicing the target market for these products. On a story I heard this morning, it seems like people think they can go home and print gaskets or a screw...
Actually, at the Home Depot 3D printer demo they are handing out a sample nut and bolt (with finger nubs to tighten them, not hex heads.)
I'm not sure I'd use them to bolt my house together, but them seem fairly sturdy.
...and oversell them on what they can do with it. (Score:3)
I don't think the price point vs. quality is worth it for that crowd.
For me I just send things out to shapeways because I need small, fine parts, not fused piles of spaghetti.
Plus, how many people in the general population can do any solid modelling?
I'd rather have it as a service (Score:2)
I only need a 3D printer in rare occasions, which does not justify buying one.
So I would like to get easy access to one.
Take a better, faster, more expensive printer.
Put it in a vending machine like case and sell the printing service by time/volume maybe?
Couple it with a 3d scanner, so I can scan in some part I need copied / remade right there. But also make it possible to remotely queue jobs and then pick them up at the store later when they're finished.
I am imagining somthing like a postal package station
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But also make it possible to remotely queue jobs and then pick them up at the store later when they're finished.
Minion: Sir, the 3D printer kiosk has been spitting out plastic dildos all day ...
Manager: Just mark them $2.99 and put them in the bin with all the rest.
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Put it in a vending machine like case and sell the printing service by time/volume maybe?
Couple it with a 3d scanner, so I can scan in some part I need copied / remade right there. But also make it possible to remotely queue jobs and then pick them up at the store later when they're finished.
That's a great idea. People could pre-order, pre-pay online with a credit card. The machine would give them an estimated pick-up time.
When it's done printing the part, it could push it onto one of those locked shelves like they have on sandwich machines.
When you stick your credit card in the machine, it would unlock your window.
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That's a great idea. People could pre-order, pre-pay online with a credit card. The machine would give them an estimated pick-up time.
Accountant: Home Depot called, your order of 39 pink dildos has been waiting for pickup for a week. And why are you buying this using the company credit card?
Exec: Oh, crap. The company card must have been hacked again. That's it.
Why the overpriced Makerbot? (Score:3)
Why not one of the many much more affordable ones out there? Home Depot is not about buying the most expensive tools, it's about buying tools that will work and enable you.
What's the target audience? (Score:5, Insightful)
What I don't get here is what target audience MakerBot hopes is going to buy these at a Home Depot. 3D printers are really only viable for purchase by businesses in most cases, because individual buyers generally don't have enough use for them to justify a four-digit purchase price. Most individuals who want to use a 3D printer are going to use one of the numerous places online where you can send them a design and have them print and ship it at a fraction of the cost of buying a printer, and most businesses are going to use something more reliable (injection molding and the like) rather than buy one of these.
It seems like it would be more profitable to set up a "makerspace" kind of thing at the stores - charge people for materials and to use the printer to print out designs, rather than trying to sell them the printers themselves.
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the same audience that purchases a $2500 Generator when the lights go out for more than 5 minutes.
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the same audience that purchases a $2500 Generator when the lights go out for more than 5 minutes.
Except that sale is based on calming a fear; i.e. they will be out of power for a while. What fear or need does a MB fulfill that can be articulated in a way that the person who drops 2.5k$ for a generator will see the value of a MB? Just because someone can drop several K$'s on something doesn't mean they will drop it on any item.
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the same audience that purchases a $2500 Generator when the lights go out for more than 5 minutes.
Except that sale is based on calming a fear; i.e. they will be out of power for a while. What fear or need does a MB fulfill that can be articulated in a way that the person who drops 2.5k$ for a generator will see the value of a MB? Just because someone can drop several K$'s on something doesn't mean they will drop it on any item.
What can I say? What about all of us who dropped thousands on PCs back before they were practically sold in blister packs?
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the same audience that purchases a $2500 Generator when the lights go out for more than 5 minutes.
Except that sale is based on calming a fear; i.e. they will be out of power for a while. What fear or need does a MB fulfill that can be articulated in a way that the person who drops 2.5k$ for a generator will see the value of a MB? Just because someone can drop several K$'s on something doesn't mean they will drop it on any item.
What can I say? What about all of us who dropped thousands on PCs back before they were practically sold in blister packs?
Most of those sales however were through either specialty retailers who had a customer base that self selected rather than being sold along side a bunch of none related items. It wasn't until the PC moved past the early adopter stage did they start appearing in more conventional retail outlets. MBs are still a hobbyist early adopter product targeted at people who are willing to put up with many restrictions and tinker to make it work. That demographic probably has little overlap with Home Depots. More to th
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1. Radio Shack.
2. A lot of people bought personal computers even though their utility was even less obvious at the time. Advertising helped.
I haven't enjoyed doing my own 3D prints yet, but I've a whole host of plastic parts that I'd either like to make replacements for (lost battery compartment covers, a broken hinge on a PC door, etc.) or would like a custom solution for, such as a case for a bedside automation control and display that's shaped for where it will be installed.
As in the case of PCs and lase
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1. Radio Shack.
Great example. A specialty retailer that focused on electronic hobbyists for whom a PC is a natural extension of their interest.
2. A lot of people bought personal computers even though their utility was even less obvious at the time. Advertising helped.
True. Cows sold a lot of PCs. However,at that point PCs were not that much of a novelty. People used them at work. They were no longer something brand new, and, more importantly they actually worked reasonably well.
I haven't enjoyed doing my own 3D prints yet, but I've a whole host of plastic parts that I'd either like to make replacements for (lost battery compartment covers, a broken hinge on a PC door, etc.) or would like a custom solution for, such as a case for a bedside automation control and display that's shaped for where it will be installed.
You really hit in the crux of the problem; expectations vs reality. Currently technology won't let you simply buy a MB, take it home, and start making parts. You have to
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I scrubbed pots to pay for my first computer. It wasn't the $2000 for the computer that bothered me as much as the $600 floppy drive.
It was not an impulse buy.
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I raised $1800 for my first Turbo XT clone with a yard sale. Dual 5 1/4 floppies, 20MB HD, 8MHz CPU, 640K RAM, CGA baby!
It got updated to 3.5 HD floppies, 40MB drive, then out the door in 2 years and on to 286s, 386SX, blah blah blah. I paid a lot to be bleeding edge right up to Pentium 90s. After that I slowed down, and still run a Core 2 Duo at home that does Windows 8.1 very, very well.
My 3D Printer experiment will be a home made something, probably a GMax clone or similar beam frame kit. I need not p
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If I had sold $1800 worth of my brothers and sisters stuff, there would have been hell to pay.
Scrubbing pots for minimum wage was a good experience, much as it sucked at the time. Got me focused on not scrubbing pots for life.
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I've got a i7 4770k and have an Oculus rift on order. G27 wheel. Throttle/stick/rudder pedals. For Gaming goddamit!
Generally go fast enough that I can go a couple of years between machines now.
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Quite a few people (myself included) bought first generation home computers for 4 digit purchase prices.
"Shut up and take my money!"
Damn, have I really been saying that shit for 30+ years now? Guess some things never really go out of style...
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> 3D printers are really only viable for purchase by businesses in most cases
Yes, of course it will be businesses, just like it's businesses that buy most of Home Depot's lumber, bricks, cement, etc. But I could see plenty of construction companies, mechanics, plumbers, miners, etc. who are tired of shutting down work because they need to drive to HD to get a part. Even if it costs them 20x as much to print a 2.5 inch bolt vs. buy it, it's a no brainer because time is money.
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GMax. I'm thinking of building a clone.
Don't buy (Score:2)
2. The software to create and modify 3D objects has a learning curve (requires time and effort to learn.)
Sure its fun to create little plastic toys, chains, balls, and cases.. Interesting, but not particularly money-making. A nice skill to have, perhaps. But owning the printer isn't required to learn the skill or take part in the revolution. Save your cash and send your designs to
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Of course... (Score:2)
You'll have to use Home Depot's self service lines to check out. I can't see how this is going to work for HD or MakerBot unless it starts churning out 2x4s.
12 Pilot Areas? (Score:1)
The actual list of locations can be found here: http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2014/07/14/home-depot-diy-meets-miy-make/
Don't need 3D printer - Print me unstocked stuff (Score:1)
I was excited to see the news of a 3D printer in Home Depot - I was hoping they would be able to print stuff for me, but instead they want to sell me the damned printer :-(
Anybody who buys... (Score:2)
Disaster (Score:2)
People who are savvy will buy online, or from a trusted source. Only people who have no clue will but from Home Depot. If you're reading this, would you buy a MakerBot from HD? Of course not.
Most of the people who work there don't know a 2x4 from a hammer; this will just be a fucking disaster.
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People who are savvy will buy online, or from a trusted source. Only people who have no clue will but from Home Depot. If you're reading this, would you buy a MakerBot from HD? Of course not.
Most of the people who work there don't know a 2x4 from a hammer; this will just be a fucking disaster.
The lady at the MakerBot display was a 'MakerBot' person, not a HD employee.
Of course, I don't know if this will always be the case...
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They won't sell enough MakerBots to keep an MB employee in the store all the time. They will probably be there for the introduction and special events, but not on a daily basis.
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I don't know, I like the idea of only having a 30 minute drive to Home Depot, pick it up and be playing with it that day vs ordering it online (even if it is slightly cheaper) and waiting a week or two for it to get here.
I always try to buy local for big-ticket items, especially when it comes to having to return it. Plus, I've seen enough videos of UPS / Fedex people drop-kicking and otherwise abusing packages to not want to rely on them for the real fragile and expensive stuff.
And if it's like most of what can be bought in HD (Score:1)
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Umm.... Are you confusing the store with Harbor Freight, perhaps?
Seriously, I've had no problem with Home Depot's product line, all in all. Like most stores, they do sell at least a few different grades of tools or items -- and buying the cheapest version is likely to lead to long-term disappointment. But other than the fact they seem to be catering a bit more towards residential customers (while Lowe's leans the other direction, offering more products the contractors want to buy), they're ok.
the ability (Score:1)