Future production/support/spares

Discussion in 'BigBox General Chat' started by Dr Jeep, Aug 23, 2016.

  1. Dr Jeep

    Dr Jeep Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 12, 2015
    Messages:
    529
    Likes Received:
    169
    Can we have some sort of statement from E3D regarding the future production of the BigBox and the associated upgrades and spares ?

    All but 3 spares seem to have been removed from the site, as have all upgrade kits such at the Pro to Titan Hybrid I was about to purchase. To the paranoid it looks like the BigBox project is slowly being shut down. :-/

    That plus the example of a slightly curt response to a potential buyer posted elsewhere on these forums is certainly leading to this sort of speculation in my mind, and I suspect the minds of many others.

    Hopefully you are just doing a bit of housekeeping and all is well...please let us know.
     
    Hans C., Proto_BB and Alex Stevenson like this.
  2. elmoret

    elmoret Administrator

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2014
    Messages:
    631
    Likes Received:
    101
    I'm sure E3D will elaborate shortly, but I will say that they still plan to be in the business of producing 3D printers in the future. As a fellow BigBox owner, I'd say you have nothing to worry about.

    Edit: We do have a pro to dual upgrade kit leftover at Filastruder, no printed parts for it though.

    http://www.filastruder.com/products/e3d-bigbox-hybrid-titan-upgrade-kit
     
    #2 elmoret, Aug 23, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2016
  3. moshen

    moshen Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 20, 2015
    Messages:
    101
    Likes Received:
    13
    That's reassuring, a statement by E3D/Bigbox would be good too.
     
  4. Dr Jeep

    Dr Jeep Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 12, 2015
    Messages:
    529
    Likes Received:
    169
    Thanks for that, I would be interested in that kit but can't face the idea (or the prospect of paying import duty) to ship something from the US that was manufactured (and should be available) 130 miles down the road. You hint that there is no bad news to worry about so I'll wait until E3D can supply them again....thanks for the offer though.
     
  5. Paul Begley

    Paul Begley Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 24, 2016
    Messages:
    84
    Likes Received:
    20
    So from that i assume not BigBox, but their own?.
    So is bigbox3d no more? Assuming some kind of littlebox/e3d separation? I know, speculation, so stop the speculation and potential missed sales by controlling the message, make a statement. I thought you learnt that from the pre orders debacle.
     
  6. elmoret

    elmoret Administrator

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2014
    Messages:
    631
    Likes Received:
    101
    They've always been separate companies, I was simply referring to them as one for simplicity's sake. I didn't think anyone would analyze word by word, sorry.

    I am sure they will release a formal statement soon.
     
  7. Sanjay

    Sanjay Administrator
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Feb 27, 2014
    Messages:
    126
    Likes Received:
    119
    Hey all!

    I've been away from HQ working in the US for a little while, and things have been a bit bonkers here. Fear not! BigBox is not being abandoned.

    Au contraire - BigBox is still our #1 development and experimentation platform here at E3D/BigBox (Which are absolutely not separating, and are in fact more closely integrated then during the kickstarter period).

    We've got some upgrade stuff which I will tease to prove that we aren't just sitting around:
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    The objective here is to boost capability while using the minimum number of new parts. This upgrade should be very low cost, motors, some belt, bearings and screws. Print some parts and continue.

    We've also got some new, kind of specialist, but high performance parts that have been specifically designed for bigbox in mind on the way out. There are a lot of people and organisations out there that use BigBoxes for research purposes, and we want to be able to support more materials, particularly high performance high temperature ones.

    We've paused orders and shipping on the site for a while. Post the utter chaos of KS and the pre-order cycle which got very very stressful and was literally getting to the point where we were working ourselves to an unhealthy amount which was unsustainable.

    Now we can pause, start from a clean slate. Make decisions without the pressure of an order backlog and pressing timescale. We need to make smart and sensible decisions, things like perhaps it wasn't sensible to have a bajillion different variants, colours, upgrades etc, and be updating and changing the design and BOM on the fly while we were also shipping, and struggling with supply chain supplying poor quality parts we had to reject and replace etc. All this happening on a scale that took us by surprise and we weren't prepped for. We went out on kickstarter as specifically "not another consumer 3D printer that your kids will use and will give artists and kids a reliable low cost and affordable easy to use magical microwave type device that poops out unicorns!" - it was for hackers, makers, people that wanted to get their hands dirty. We thought that would be a small market, and we would have a cool development platform for hacking on, and a tight community of enthusiasts that would be doing the same along side us. We were wrong, and it took us by surprise.

    We're pausing, getting out everything that has been ordered. Consolidating stock etc. We want to bring the print farm up to date so all machines are of the same version and capability (So we can have a farm of machines that can all print Scaffold supported parts in Edge at volume, which would be a bit of a first!).

    Support will continue, upgrades and spare parts will flow forth, and development is far from ceased! We're just taking a moment to get us out of this vicious cycle scrambling to fulfill orders and constantly playing catch up. It's bad for everyone.

    Cheers,
    Sanjay
     
  8. Jasons_BigBox

    Jasons_BigBox Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 25, 2016
    Messages:
    248
    Likes Received:
    71
    Wooah!!!

    Now that is a teaser and a half. Bring it on!!

    Thanks for the information Sanjay, good news is certainly better than none at all and that's steadied the benchy as far as I'm concerned.

    Keep up the good work,

    Cheers

    Jason
     
  9. Sarah Nicholson

    Sarah Nicholson Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 20, 2015
    Messages:
    323
    Likes Received:
    115
    Hmm that teaser photo is interesting - independently movable heads? Look forward to hearing more in due course.
     
  10. fpex

    fpex Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 18, 2015
    Messages:
    623
    Likes Received:
    58
    Looking forwards! It makes me now think twice about changing my printer into a dual Titan with Chase design. It makes little sense.
    Still if would be great if you guys would also change the y axis if bigger rods and make an upgrade pack for it.
     
    moshen and R Design like this.
  11. R Design

    R Design Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2015
    Messages:
    944
    Likes Received:
    190
    Like very much what I'm seeing.

    Looking very hard at those two X-axis motors and thinking that it might be interesting if

    the heavy and solid metal motor body could become an integral part of the linkage between the two X rods?

    (A bit like in car design where the body becomes a part of the frame / the frame a part of the body.)

    The idea being that if the Y rods are linked with great (metallic) rigidity then they effectively form a single beam that, I think, would be WAY more rigid than two separate rods with a relatively bendy plastic linkage.

    In order to pull that off it might be necessary to use a metal (aluminium?) fixture top of each motor to the top rod, the bottom of each motor to the bottom rod.
     
    moshen likes this.
  12. Stian Indal Haugseth

    Stian Indal Haugseth Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 11, 2015
    Messages:
    589
    Likes Received:
    100
    Oi... I'm to committed to Chases dual Titan to stop now but adding the connectors will simplify this dual carriage mod whenever and if it will be released.

    This looks interesting!
     
  13. gonzalo

    gonzalo Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 17, 2016
    Messages:
    258
    Likes Received:
    146
    Woha!!! Welcome back guys!
    For a second I thought that (since its August) you were all laying around at some tropical beach resort or something... :D
     
  14. Paul Begley

    Paul Begley Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 24, 2016
    Messages:
    84
    Likes Received:
    20
    This is great news, thanks for the update. So the question now is, when can we get ...... ? :).
    Good work
     
  15. A Dragon In A Pie Costume

    A Dragon In A Pie Costume Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 6, 2016
    Messages:
    213
    Likes Received:
    20
    seems like a side panel replacement will be needed, and the shelves too lol
     
  16. eca

    eca Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 4, 2015
    Messages:
    229
    Likes Received:
    44
    I have been holding off on the Titan upgrade, but definitely would jump on that like a fat kid does on cake.
     
    Miasmictruth likes this.
  17. fpex

    fpex Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 18, 2015
    Messages:
    623
    Likes Received:
    58
    If this needs ti have main frame changes .... it defeat the purpose of a simple modification mostly with existing parts as said in the post above.
     
  18. R Design

    R Design Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2015
    Messages:
    944
    Likes Received:
    190
    I was wondering about those shelves too. Like maybe they are for the support material (scaffold) extruder to drool into when it's waiting in the sidelines, hot and ready to print?
     
  19. pjr3D

    pjr3D Active Member

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2016
    Messages:
    30
    Likes Received:
    13
    That looks amazing!

    I look forward to release and upgrades to come :)

    I have built Chase's dual Titan X-axis and am getting some nice dual prints but this will take things to another level.
     
  20. Jasons_BigBox

    Jasons_BigBox Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 25, 2016
    Messages:
    248
    Likes Received:
    71
    I'm confused, What shelves? Do you mean the horizontal plates that hold the z-axis rods?

    The differences I can see needed to the frame are to attach the cabling and cable chain to the frame on the left hand side.

    There are some cutouts in the horizontal plates but they look cosmetic to me.
     

Share This Page