Not a surprise to me though since I am operating in the CNC industry I have seen the same struggles and changes, albeit, from a slightly different perspective.
I work with the Smoothieware/Smoothieboard project. It seems, from my observation, that most people are not working with hardware like they were a few years ago. The "homebrew" machines and shadetree makers are becoming few and far between.
The lie has been heavily sold to the maker community that you are "wasting your time if you make something yourself" since it is cheaper to offshore even small 3d prints and machining projects. Not only that but people have been convinced that they don't have the ability to make a machine.
Instead of spending time learning something new/valuable (i.e. Reprap) it is now popular to just have someone else do it...be it AI or a factory in another country with subsidies that create massive differences in bottom line.
The ability to make things at home is disappearing. People cannot/will not learn to make their own machines. Companies that make machines that care about their community and customers are disappearing.
I think it’s never been a better time to be an at-home maker.
I built 3 Voron printers because there wasn’t a way to get close to that performance at a price I would choose to pay. I hand-converted a HF mill to DRO then to 2-axis CNC.
I can buy printers that are 90-95% as good for well under $1000 and 75-85% as good for $350 now.
CNC routers are readily available and good. Laser cutters are readily available, reasonably cheap, and good.
I just don’t see a broad migration to importing maker parts (other than PCBB/PCBA, which is phenomenal).
Ccecil · · focus · HN ↗
Not a surprise to me though since I am operating in the CNC industry I have seen the same struggles and changes, albeit, from a slightly different perspective.
I work with the Smoothieware/Smoothieboard project. It seems, from my observation, that most people are not working with hardware like they were a few years ago. The "homebrew" machines and shadetree makers are becoming few and far between.
The lie has been heavily sold to the maker community that you are "wasting your time if you make something yourself" since it is cheaper to offshore even small 3d prints and machining projects. Not only that but people have been convinced that they don't have the ability to make a machine.
Instead of spending time learning something new/valuable (i.e. Reprap) it is now popular to just have someone else do it...be it AI or a factory in another country with subsidies that create massive differences in bottom line.
The ability to make things at home is disappearing. People cannot/will not learn to make their own machines. Companies that make machines that care about their community and customers are disappearing.
Maybe it's by design? I don't know.
sokoloff · · focus · HN ↗
I built 3 Voron printers because there wasn’t a way to get close to that performance at a price I would choose to pay. I hand-converted a HF mill to DRO then to 2-axis CNC.
I can buy printers that are 90-95% as good for well under $1000 and 75-85% as good for $350 now.
CNC routers are readily available and good. Laser cutters are readily available, reasonably cheap, and good.
I just don’t see a broad migration to importing maker parts (other than PCBB/PCBA, which is phenomenal).