Good Form on Kickstarter

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Congratulations Formlabs! Few Kickstarter projects have raised quite so much funding, and certainly none related to 3D printing. Measured as a percentage of the goal, Printrbot’s performance of 3,323% funding outpaced that of the Form 1’s 2,945%. But the Form 1 raised over $2 million more at $2,945,885. This is great news. That’s almost $3 million that the people of Formlabs didn’t have to borrow. Beyond that, the project’s success serves as marketing, directly through those that pledged enough to snag a printer, and indirectly through all their friends and family that will see those printers and want one of their own.

The Form 1 3D printer is straight up awesome. Because it uses stereolithography technology, which until now was only found in professional printers that cost significantly more, its print quality is unmatched by any personal printer, even the other Kickstarter success, the B9Creator that also employs stereolithography. The price is another selling point, as there are several printers with lower definition prints that have higher price tags. In my opinion the Form 1 is the most attractive of all 3D printers, mostly because of its translucent orange shield that keeps UV light from entering and exiting the build area.

Kickstarter is really helping 3D printing enter the mainstream. User-friendly devices require capital to develop and manufacture, and raising capital without incurring debt is a more efficient method thanks to crowdsourcing. What’s interesting about the Form 1 project is that its goal of $100,000 was more than met in the first days, and then at the very end there was another surge of backers wanting in on the victory. As much as I want a Form 1, I’m also tempted to wait and see what pops up on Kickstarter next week.

About Cameron Naramore

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3 Responses to “Good Form on Kickstarter”

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  1. Scott says:

    Excellent post and congratulations to Formlabs, seen them demonstrating the printer at the 3D print show in London and I was very impressed with their enthusiasm towards their product and the industry.

    Good look to Formlabs I hope they use the money wisely to establish growth in the market.

  2. eNon says:

    According to both projects Kickstarter pages, the B9 actually has a better resolution than the the Form 1 does.

    The Form 1′s laser dot is 300 microns in diameter (giving it that XY resolution), while the XY resolution of the B9 is 50 to 100 microns depending on how close you adjust the projector to the bottom of the build tray. The Z resolution of the Form 1 is stated to be 25 microns while the B9′s is listed as “100 to less than 10 microns” which makes sense because the B9 doesn’t need to stop the build platform for each layer since it exposes the whole cross section at a time rather than a laser that needs the platform to stop so it can trace the complete layer.

    • Cameron Naramore says:

      You’re right. When I read the B9 Kickstarter I saw this “The layer thickness is typically 100 microns but your model can be sliced even thinner if you need even higher resolution.” I see that the website clarifies. Thanks for pointing that out.

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