Aussie 3D printer ready for Christmas

Sylvia Pennington
November 17, 2014
The Age
One entrepreneur has taken a huge risk on this ingenious device. What will you make with yours?
Would you be brave enough to throw $1.5 million of your own money at a project to design and manufacture a high-resolution, desktop 3D printer in a market already well stocked with alternative offerings?
Yes, if you think you can do it better and cheaper says Aussie expat and Rapide 3D CEO Ethan Hunt who’s spent the past year trying to do just that, with the help of a team of 10 designers.
The result is Rapide Lite, a series of 3D printers slated to ship in time for Christmas. The launch has been partly funded by Indiegogo, the crowd-funding website that generates start-up capital for entrepreneurial hopefuls of all stripes.
The company’s campaign has raised more than $200,000, 13 times its original funding target, from over 500 orders for its entry-level model, the Rapide Lite 200.
Indiegogo backers will get the printer for $599 as a semi- assembled kit, together with one kilogram of coloured plastic filament. The filament can be moulded to make anything from prototypes for parts to home models of children’s figurines or the Eiffel Tower.
It’s a $700 saving on the price Hunt expects to charge for the printer when commercial production and marketing kick off. The crowd-funding deal includes free freight to 13 countries.
The project is a big gamble for Hunt, a 54-year-old former soldier and IT salesman who moved to Hong Kong a decade ago to work as a freelance project manager in the own-design manufacturing sector.
After several years helping foreign companies have high-tech products built to their specifications in China, he moved to Shenzhen and in late 2013 acquired his own plant; a 10,000-square-metre factory previously owned by an electronics manufacturer.
A third of the space has been devoted to the Rapide project, with the remaining two thirds sub-let to other manufacturers. The plant has the capacity to produce 5000 printers a month.
Hunt’s interest in 3D printers was piqued as a result of frustration with the time it was taking him to have a part fabricated for a client two years ago.
After several weeks, a couple of bungled moulds and a four-figure bill a friend suggested a 3D printer could be used instead, for a snip of the price.
Hunt went to trade fairs in China in search of a machine that would serve his purpose, but says he drew a blank when it came to finding a commercial-quality printer for the consumer market.
“No one was making one to the specification and price point,” Hunt says, so he decided to build his own.
In contrast to many crowd-funded hopefuls, who come up with a bright idea then work out the how, where and why of manufacturing once the cash flows in, Hunt says he built 19 prototypes before seeking backing.
Whether the range will make a dent in the 3D printing market remains to be seen.
Industrial designer Chris Peters is a former distributor of 3D printers who writes a blog on 3D technology. He says Hunt is a late entrant and puts the success of his Indiegogo campaign down to the well-below-market price he’s placed on his offering.
Expect a different story when the full figure is charged and the range is pitted against a plethora of other products at the low end of the market, Peters says.
“All these kit-level things sound good, but it’s a bit of pot luck how they work in practice,” Peters says. “At that low price point people will take a risk and have a play.”
Tinkering about remains the chief object for today’s 3D consumer customers, according to futurist Mark Pesce of The New Inventors fame.
He likens them to 1970s PC purchasers, who had no particular use for the clunky first-generation technology of the day, but wanted to own it anyway.
“It’s really just for people who are into the idea of having them, not about what they can do with it,” Pesce says. “It’s a base for people to learn how to use them.”
Customers’ collective willingness, or otherwise, to stump up for an unknown brand will determine whether the project is do or die for Hunt once the first wave of orders is filled. He’s sunk the bulk of his personal wealth into the project and says he’s been more than willing to roll the dice.
“I’m either going to be very rich or very poor,” he says. “[I’ll] go from a really healthy bank account to whatever… in reality if you don’t take a risk, you don’t do anything.”
Hunt intends to seek distributors for the printers in major markets.