3DPrinting

My understanding is they do have prototypes that aren't quite ready for primetime. From an engineering perspective, the system should be cheaper due to fewer expensive parts like motors, heaters, and thermistors-- fewer parts generally means better reliability too. And it's far more compact and can even fit into a smaller printer if desired.

I do see some issues, nozzle manufacturing is going to need to be E3D quality or better. And the number of nozzles is odd. They claim 7 nozzles, but their AMS system can hold 4 spools. You can daisy chain up to 3 AMS I think for either 8 or 12 spools per machine. This means with 7 nozzles, you are either going to have 3 extra nozzles with 1 AMS or 1 or 2 extra spools with the extra AMS you can't use with your 7 nozzles. A strange design choice if 7 is the number. It's kind of the number of hotdogs in a pack vs the number of hotdog buns in a bag problem.

And the even more basic question-- Just how many nozzles do 3D printers really need? Can the average user make use of all those extra nozzle enough to justify the extra cost? Now, print farms and companies that do a lot of prototyping and perhaps some limited on-site manufacturing can benefit, can regularly take advantage. But Geoffrey or Maybeline? Perhaps less so. Maybe even a whole lot less so based on price sensitivity. To use another real world example, Shaving razors. Just how many blades does it take to shave with? 1 or 100 at a time. 1 blade will work, 2 might get you an improvement, but are you really getting enough improvement with dragging 6 blades across your face at one time vs the extra cost? Does the cost of the poop out weight the cost of the extra nozzles for the majority of user needs?