Solidoodle No More?

Rarely do I use my blog to discuss 3D printing news, you can find more than enough websites doing it really well already. However the latest post on 3dprintingindustry.com really grabbed my attention, and provides some inside information about the note currently featured on Solidoodle’s homepage which reads

Of course the reason this has encouraged me to mention something here is that one of the big reasons I started this blog initially was to document my experiences of buying, setting up and comparing a new 3D printer from, you guessed it, Solidoodle! And boy wasn’t that a failure! The printer in question is the Solidoodle Press, and while my first impressions of the machine were positive, I should’ve taken the months of delays getting the machine in the first place as a bit of an omen.

I have barely had 1 useful print off this machine despite spending hours fixing hardware issues, and even leaving the machine for 10 months before coming back to it in the hope of updated software and support to get the machine running. This of course was wishful thinking. Getting back to the article on 3dprintingindustry.com, inside information from a former employee has revealed that failures like the Solidoodle Press have sent the company bankrupt, with unknowing customers still purchasing printers from the website and not receiving them. An official announcement will likely be made very soon.

It’s amazing to see a company with a once reputable name fall apart so quickly, and perhaps indicates the effect of such a competitive, saturated market of affordable 3D printers. It only takes 1 bad product for people to turn elsewhere, and as I experienced recently with buying a great 3D printer from Aldi (yes I literally walked into my supermarket to buy a 3D printer!) you certainly don’t have to turn far.

– Posted by James Novak