Bambu Lab 3D printers appeal to businesses that want to expand access to the technology for more ... [+]
Nearly a million desktop 3D printers priced under $2,500 were shipped worldwide in just the fourth quarter of 2023, a new quarterly record, according to industry market analysis firm Context. But it’s not the number of machines sold that’s surprising; it’s who’s buying them: businesses.
“It is definitely the case that we see more big enterprises buying entry-level 3D printers, such as Bambu Lab,” says Douglas Krone, CEO of Dynamism, one of the largest 3D printer resellers.
What’s a Bambu Lab, you might ask?
With 3,000% sales growth in 2023, Shenzhen-based Bambu Lab stands out as one of the main contributing factors to the growth of desktop 3D printing in general, says Chris Connery at Context.
The young 3D printing company makes very fast and easy-to-use machines retailing between $250 and $2,500. They’ve garnered a loyal and vocal fan base among hobbyists, which has spilled over into professional market segments, such as industrial design and manufacturing, where desktop machines for prototypes and small batches of replacement parts start at around $8,000.
Quality and dependability from a 3D printer priced at just over $1,000 and requiring little training or maintenance may be prompting more companies to explore 3D printing for the first time, and for those that already use it, to provide access to more employees.
“Manufacturers are expanding their overall use of 3D printing, because certain entry level models, like Bambu Lab, are quite compelling,” says Krone. “At a fairly negligible price, more people within the enterprise can have direct access 3D printing instead of a shared 3D printer or 3D printing lab.”
As with office paper printers that were once housed in their own room down the hall but are now within arm’s reach, the goal of desktop 3D printer makers is volume and mass accessibility made possible by low prices and better quality.
“The machines have just gotten better and the prices have stayed low,” says Matthew Mensley, senior editor of the online 3D printing magazine All3DP. “In the past few years there's been a lowering of the barrier to entry to 3D printing through machine simplicity and cost. There's a greater level of ease through which an unskilled user can achieve an acceptable level of quality.”
Matthew Mensley, senior editor at All3DP Magazine, has tested virtually every major desktop 3D ... [+]
Expanding Disruption in 3D Printing
There is not a 3D printer in every home as the hype of 2016 suggested, when desktop 3D printing first surged. Instead, the number of 3D printer owners, both consumers and professionals has grown steadily with demand. The desktop 3D printer market is expected to grow to $21 billion by 2030, according to industry research.
One interesting recent development is the number of consumers who 3D print at home noticing an application for 3D printing at their workplaces.
“Many professionals who leverage 3D printing in the workplace were the ones to introduce their company to the technology as a result of their own personal interest,” says Connery. “Bambu Lab became quite well known in the 3D printing community after their successful Kickstarter effort, which generated a lot of market positivity.”
There’s little doubt the price for Bambu Lab machines coupled with their user-friendly technology innovations made the introduction of 3D printing easier at many companies. Before Bambu Lab there was a wider gap between consumer and professional machines.
"There have been the same market leaders in desktop 3D printers around for a very long time, but no one has managed to elbow their way into the party quite like Bambu Lab has," says Mensley. “Rather than gradually growing with market demand, Bambu Lab disrupted by bringing in a different skillset and mindset.”
The founders of Bambu Lab, five ex-employees of DJI, a producer of high-performance drones, cameras, and gimbals, shook up the 3D printing space in 2022 with the launch of a nicely designed, tech-laden 3D printer that instantly stood out from the crowd. By all accounts it has a level of consistent quality and convenience that hadn’t been seen in this category before, according to Mensley, who has been hands-on with hundreds of desktop 3D printers in his seven years at All3DP Magazine.
3D printer reseller Dynamism's Chicago showroom features both consumer and professional 3D printers, ... [+]
Lower Barrier of Entry
The rising tide of Bambu Lab lifted all makers of 3D printers in the $1,000 - $2,000 price category, as more attention focused on the benefits that business could glean from these nominal investments.
Product prototypes printed out in under an hour by anyone on the design team sending a digital file to the printer is a recent development. Typically desktop 3D printers have required a level of skill (and patience) that office environments shied away from.
The consumer 3D printer market had an open-source ethos and appealed to hobbyists who enjoyed tinkering and troubleshooting hardware and software, but that’s beginning to change, notes Mensley. “The companies that were making 3D printers with the hobbyist in mind have pivoted to producing machines targeted at businesses with ease of use as their focus.”
The two established leaders in the consumer desktop 3D printer market, Creality and Anycubic, which managed to commodify the 3D printer, both launched new products in April with more features and sensors making 3D printing easier and more consistent.
The new Creality K2 Plus takes a page from the Bambu Lab playbook with a new material changer enabling users to print one model in multiple colors and material types. Anycubic’s Kobra 3 also debuted with a material changer and the highest print speed of any of its previous models.
Professional desktop 3D printers offer more than speed and materials, increasingly focusing on providing an alternative to injection molding or CNC machining for low volumes of unique part, functional prototypes, and end-use applications. But as professional machines evolved over the past decade to occupy space on the shop floors of manufacturers, they left offices. Bambu Lab, Creality, and Anycubic are happy to move in.
“There's a class of business customer who is content with a machine that is fast and simple, producing good quality parts,” says Mensley. “The ecosystem surrounding the other professional machines, including their enterprise-focused features, perhaps isn't as important as many people thought.”
Shifting Pro 3D Printers to Industrial
According Connery at Context, shipments of professional 3D printers in the $2,500 - $20,000 price range were down 33% in 2023 because “inflation changed end-market purchasing habits” and “professional buyers have recognized that entry-level products, once perceived as being for only for consumers, offer similar functionality [to professional models].”
Entry-level 3D printer markers have been able to cannibalize sales of products in the professional price-class, says Connery, causing key players to re-think or evolve their product line-up.
However, Krone says Dynamism had its best sales year ever in 2023 of both consumer and professional 3D printers. “Enterprises are still buying the professional desktop 3D printers and are especially interested in the new, more industrial UltiMaker Factor 4 and the faster Formlabs’ Form 4 because they offer more features and materials,” he says. “The new-breed consumer 3D printers give them an opportunity to expand their overall use of 3D printing, keeping the higher-priced UltiMakers reserved for final prototypes or end-use parts and using the Bambu Labs for quick prototype iterations.”
In fact, companies like UltiMaker are also shifting focus. The Netherlands-based company launched a new machine in April it hopes will disrupt the industrial 3D printing market just like Bambu Lab disrupted the professional market.
UltiMaker, which has been the go-to 3D printer of professionals in industrial design and architecture for more than a decade, launched the Factor 4 to go head-to-head with the likes of industrial printer maker Stratasys
Factor 4, at half the price of a Stratasys F190CR, is capable of 3D printing parts to exacting specifications and in materials compatible with applications in aerospace, automotive end-use, and other manufacturing.
Matthew Mensley, senior editor at All3DP Magazine, loads filament onto the new Prusa XL 3D printer ... [+]
Prague-based Prusa Research, one of the only consumer-born desktop 3D printer brands routinely spotted at enterprises, launched its multi-material Prusa XL earlier this year. At $4,000, the XL with five toolheads is already in the professional category, but at a far more attractive price point than the competition.
“The whole industry is aware that Bambu Lab is is pushing everyone to execute at the next level,” says Krone.
In the next few years, we’ll be seeing more democratization of 3D printing in the workplace, according to Krone. In other words, anyone in an office should be able to learn 3D printing quickly and easily, then fabricate models like they’re printing copies on paper.
“When companies come to Dynamism unsure how to apply 3D printing to their business, I tell them what they need to do is get started,” says Krone. “And that might have been difficult 10 years ago, because you couldn't just buy a 3D printer without a lot of research and you couldn't use a 3D printer without a significant amount of training. But now there are options that allow you to just buy a 3D printer and be printing in an hour or less. So, just buy one, get started.”
