MakerBot Method Bridges the Gap Between Desktop and Industrial 3D Printing

In the world of product development, most products these days have both software and hardware components. Software developers have broadly adopted agile development strategies that have helped them reduce development time, but hardware developers often have a difficult time keeping up due to lack of the right tools. It’s that challenge that MakerBot is looking to address with its new Method 3D printer, which the company states bridges the gap between desktop and industrial 3D printers currently on the market. We spoke with Forrest Leighton, Vice President of Marketing, and Shawn Miely, Senior Manager of Segment Marketing, to learn more about this new product, its impact on the 3D market, and its potential as a revenue generator for commercial printing firms looking to provide a broader range of services to customers.

WhatTheyThink:  Forrest and Shawn, thanks for taking time to speak with us about this exciting announcement. Forrest, can you start by reminding us about MakerBot’s mission and history?

Forrest Leighton:  Sure. As we have discussed before, MakerBot, established in 2009 and now a subsidiary of Stratasys, has two primary missions: to help with innovation in STEM education in order to better prepare kids for the future, and to help companies bring product to market faster. We created a breakthrough in desktop 3D printing with the introduction of our Cupcake printer in 2009, the first desktop 3D printer. And now we are introducing a brand-new 3D printing category for the professional market that we are calling Performance 3D printing.

WTT:  How do you distinguish Performance 3D printing from other classes of 3D printing?

FL:  On the one side, you have desktop 3D printers that are extremely accessible and easy to use. On the other side, you have industrial 3D printers that deliver a level of precision and reliability you can’t get from desktop printers. But they are not accessible. Not only are they costly, with prices in excess of $20,000, but they are typically behind closed doors or installed in a service bureau environment. There is a gap between desktop and industrial that Performance 3D bridges. It offers precision, reliability, and accessibility. We took industrial printing, and with support from our parent company, Stratasys, brought it downstream with MakerBot Method.

WTT:  That brings up the question of price point.

FL:  As I mentioned, entry-level industrial 3D printers start at $20,000 and go up from there. We will come to market at one-third of the first-year cost of a low-end industrial 3D printer, starting at $6,499, with a form factor and level of usability never seen before.

WTT:  What types of materials is Method able to use?

FL:  We describe this as a platform, not a standalone product. That means that it will continue to evolve over time. At the outset, we are introducing four materials. It is a dual-extrusion device, able to print the model and support material. Initially available will be MakerBot Tough, which is equivalent to ABS; PLA; and PVA which is the support material. These are precision materials, and we have invested thousands of hours in their development and certification. Our primary interest is to create a good user experience.

WTT:  And if users want to try other materials?

Shawn Miely:  Sure. We started development on Method two years ago, in collaboration with our parent company, Stratasys. We learned a great deal from them about how to get industrial performance and accuracy down to where users can design in CAD, print, and snap fit pieces together without having to go back and make significant alterations to the CAD file. It comes down to controlling every aspect of the environment and the experience of the 3D printer. There are three primary features that make this an industrial-class printer.

1. It has an ultra-rigid metal frame made of machined and extruded aluminum. Many desktop printers have frames made of plastic or other materials that lack rigidity. The issue with that when you are using an extrusion-based system is that you have a heavy gantry moving back and forth at the top on the X/Y axis. This makes it top-heavy and can flex the printer, which leads to inconsistencies where each layer of material is laid down. You need to control that for measurably accurate parts. Desktop printers typically judge print quality by layer resolution—the thickness of each printed layer—but they don’t talk about the dimensional accuracy of the printed part. We have a ±0.2 mm dimensional part accuracy. No desktop can do that.
2. Method has a circulating heated chamber, which is big in the industrial space, compared to desktops that have either no heat control at all or a heated build plate in an attempt to mimic a controlled environment. The heated build plate makes it easier for the part to stick to the surface, and you get a nice, flat first layer. But as you get farther away from the heat, the part starts to warp, and tolerances get out of whack. Method has two circulating heaters on either side of the extruders, blowing hot air across the part. Sensors keep it on temperature throughout the part printing. This keeps the whole part at an elevated temperature so it all cools at the same rate, resulting in a very precise part and a controlled outcome.

FL:  We have a category of specialty materials. These are materials that have been tested and validated, but not at the same level as our Precision materials. People also need these materials, and we don’t want to make them wait. PETG is the first in that category to be released. We have a roadmap laid out, and you can expect more to come.

WTT:  Tell us a little more about the support material.

FL:  This is an amazing material, and a very important aspect of Method. It is a water-soluble material that gives users unrestricted geometrical capabilities, not restricted by the problems of the past. Once the part is printed, it can be placed in a bucket of water, and the material dissolves away, leaving a perfect part. There is no need for harsh solvents or manual labor to remove the breakaway parts, and the final part has a smooth, unmarred surface.

WTT:  Shawn, perhaps you could help us with a deeper dive into the technology, including what makes this unique from the desktop printers MakerBot is known for.

Shawn Miely:  Sure. We started development on Method two years ago, in collaboration with our parent company, Stratasys. We learned a great deal from them about how to get industrial performance and accuracy down to where users can design in CAD, print, and snap fit pieces together without having to go back and make significant alterations to the CAD file. It comes down to controlling every aspect of the environment and the experience of the 3D printer. There are three primary features that make this an industrial-class printer.

1. It has an ultra-rigid metal frame made of machined and extruded aluminum. Many desktop printers have frames made of plastic or other materials that lack rigidity. The issue with that when you are using an extrusion-based system is that you have a heavy gantry moving back and forth at the top on the X/Y axis. This makes it top-heavy and can flex the printer, which leads to inconsistencies where each layer of material is laid down. You need to control that for measurably accurate parts. Desktop printers typically judge print quality by layer resolution—the thickness of each printed layer—but they don’t talk about the dimensional accuracy of the printed part. We have a ±0.2 mm dimensional part accuracy. No desktop can do that.
2. Method has a circulating heated chamber, which is big in the industrial space, compared to desktops that have either no heat control at all or a heated build plate in an attempt to mimic a controlled environment. The heated build plate makes it easier for the part to stick to the surface, and you get a nice, flat first layer. But as you get farther away from the heat, the part starts to warp, and tolerances get out of whack. Method has two circulating heaters on either side of the extruders, blowing hot air across the part. Sensors keep it on temperature throughout the part printing. This keeps the whole part at an elevated temperature so it all cools at the same rate, resulting in a very precise part and a controlled outcome.
3. Finally, as we have discussed, we are introducing for the first time our PVA water-soluble support material. You can create arts with much more complex geometries, such as print-in-place mechanisms with gears, nested objects, and more. When placed in water, the support material dissolves away in a matter of a few hours.

FL:  PVA, by nature, while convenient, water-soluble, and easy to clean up, also takes up humidity; in fact, it can absorb 9% water by weight. When it goes through extrusion, the water evaporates, and you get pops and bubbles which will ruin dimensional accuracy. We control that by spooling the PVA on smart spools packed with desiccant. And Method has dry-sealed material bays, so once the spools go in there, there is a humidity sensor that controls the environment and allows us to maintain dimensional accuracy. It’s all about getting mechanical engineering type tolerances and doing that at speed.

WTT:  So that raises another question: How fast does it print?

SM:  Previously, we had a modular extruder design where extruders were magnetically attached. That makes it easy to swap out extruders. With the new performance extruders, they slot in and are tightly held in place by a locking carriage mount so there is no wobble and they can go faster while maintaining even higher precision. With the extruders themselves, there are two new features involved. First, there is a 19-to-1 gear ratio that is three times more powerful than the typical desktop gear pulling force. When pulling filament into the extruder, there is friction. By adding more force, we can print faster because we can deliver the material faster to the hot end, enabling fast print without degraded quality. Secondly, we have a lengthened thermal core that is two to three times longer than a desktop and can melt more plastic than a typical desktop—the gears are driving the material in and the thermal core is melting it. When you have more plastic melted at once, it is harder to control the flow rate. Our engineers worked hard to control that. The result is that we print about two times faster than a typical desktop today. But due to the hardware capabilities, that will improve over the next couple months as we continue to speed-tune Method.

WTT:  Can you translate that into some type of metric?

SM:  Method can achieve a maximum flow rate of about 50 cubic millimeters per second. With the previous generation, we were running at about 15. The new gantry system has increased travel speeds on the X/Y axis of up to 500 mm per second; before, we were at 175.

FL:  Engineers can turn out a part overnight, and come in in the morning ready to work with a quality part, whereas in the past, they had to send it out, and that could take five days or more. This brings hardware product development cycles more in line with agile software development.

WTT:  When will Method be commercially available?

FL:  First quarter 2019 and we are already taking preorders online.

WTT:  At this price point, it sounds like it is a virtually risk-free investment and might be a good opportunity for commercial printers who are seeking new revenue streams.

FL:  Yes, it could provide them with the opportunity to act as a service bureau. It is green-button simple to operate from the printing side. It’s WiFi connected, has a camera on board, and doesn’t necessitate the complexities of desktop 3D printer operation—how to calibrate, tweak for materials, control temperature, all of that is handled automatically. And loading filament is easy with directions on-screen. But it is designed for folks working in CAD software. The thing you don’t have to do is have a dedicated operator. But you do need someone on staff that has CAD experience. Just like in commercial print, where you need someone who can make adjustments to files, you need someone who can do that with CAD files, sort of like prepress for 3D printing. You can just send the file—it works with all major CAD software—but if there was something in the CAD file that needed to be adjusted and there is zero expertise on staff, that would be a stretch.

WTT:  Anything else you’d like to add before we close?

FL:  Yes. On the education side of our business, we created an online certification program that ensures teachers know how to use the printer and how to incorporate it into their curriculum. We have issued more than 2,000 certification licenses since we launched in Q2 of this year. We plan to do the same thing in the future for engineers. Most designers coming out of school now understand how to incorporate 3D printing into the design process, but for many folks already in the workforce, that can be a stretch. The certification program would work to address that.