back to article Got $130,000 down the back of the sofa? Great. Grab an HP 3D printer

The first of HP Inc’s much-delayed (and cynics might say over-hyped 3D printer) is to hit the market “late” this year – launching into a crowded space with a challenger device the firm hopes will brighten its future. The Jet Fusion 3D 3200 will sell for $130,000 – add another $25,000 for services including post-processing …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hopefully this works out well

    However:

    And Terry Wohlers, president at consultancy Wohlers&Associates, claimed it would be “very short sighted” of HP to “exaggerate its claims”.

    Being short sighted has literally never stopped the HP marketroids* before.

    *marketroids == Take your pick of "marketing droids" or "marketing haemorrhoids". Same thing.

    1. asdf

      Re: Hopefully this works out well

      >claimed it would be “very short sighted” of HP to “exaggerate its claims”.

      SEVILLE, Spain – The 'memristor' two-terminal non-volatile memory technology, in development at Hewlett Packard Co. since 2008, is on track to be in the market and taking share from flash memory within 18 months, according to Stan Williams, senior fellow at HP Labs.

      "We have a lot of big plans for it and we're working with Hynix Semiconductor to launch a replacement for flash in the summer of 2013 and also to address the solid-state drive market," Williams told the audience of the International Electronics Forum, being held here.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. asdf

        Re: Hopefully this works out well

        With HP its not just the marketers that write checks they can't cash but their research labs as well. By they way has anyone seen pricing information for The Machine yet?

  2. MR J

    Wonder how much a "Refill" is going to cost.

    And will a "Cleaning of Print Head with Test Print" use 40% of the capacity.

    The intro price might look small.

    Probably cheaper to just buy illegal drugs and get the local smackheads to make it out of toenails.

    1. Tom 7

      Refils

      will be made from ground up pop bottles and would cost $5 a tonne. However will need DRM'd container that will report a vacuum inside after 50% used and cost more than a house.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hp brand damage

    He said the business has “one shot to make this work” and risked damaging” the brand if it launched a bum product, and with it “any hopes of trying to crack this market”.

    I wasn't aware there was still anything left to damage...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: hp brand damage

      Once the HP way became the Fiorina way (and the Apotheker way) the only thing left to damage was the shareholders.

      1. ecofeco Silver badge

        Re: hp brand damage

        You left out "Ladies Man" Hurd.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: hp brand damage

          The only past list longer than their bust CEOs is their criminally negligent board members.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: hp brand damage

      He said the business has “one shot to make this work” and risked damaging” the brand if it launched a bum product, and with it “any hopes of trying to crack this market”.

      *snigger*

      You said bum crack.

      Almost.

  4. inmypjs Silver badge

    "The market is forecast to rise from $4.1bn in 2015 to $16.2bn by 2020"

    Sounds like bollocks to me.

    "Shipments went up 19 per cent year-on-year in Q4 to a little over 73,000 units. Around 96 per cent of these units were desktop/ personal printers"

    19% annual rise of almost entirely cheap crap toy printer shipments somehow predicts a 400% rise in revenue over the next 5 years?

    People who need/want to 3D print things already can and do. The market will grow if it gets cheaper/quicker/easier.

    If HP's speed and cost claims are to be believed they will be driving the expansion not trying to grab a piece of it.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: "The market is forecast to rise from $4.1bn in 2015 to $16.2bn by 2020"

      >19% annual rise of almost entirely cheap crap toy printer shipments somehow predicts a 400% rise in revenue over the next 5 years?

      No, it doesn't, nobody said that will be cheap printers that will drive the market up to $16 billion - the Reg writer just left those two sentence together when he assembled his info from a research report. Whilst far more cheap printers are sold than expensive ones, the expensive ones are effing expensive.

      The figures are fairly sensible, especially when you consider that a *mature* 3D printer can be economic at producing parts in fewer numbers (say tens of thousands) than injection moulding - it is a device for manufacture, not just prototyping.

      The powder bed deposition method ( as opposed to stereolithography or fused material deposition - the basis of cheap hobbyist printers) which HP is using prints in nylon with conductive parts if needs be. Pretty darned useful.

      The automotive industry are all over this - anything that saves time. Remember this is the industry that until a couple of decade ago would be paying upwards of £30,000 per seat for CAD, and that didn't include the workstation.

      1. Justin Clift

        Re: "The market is forecast to rise from $4.1bn in 2015 to $16.2bn by 2020"

        Remember this is the industry that until a couple of decade ago would be paying upwards of £30,000 per seat for CAD, and that didn't include the workstation.

        Don't they still pay at least that much for CAD? The base price for a lot of professional CAD products isn't like that, but then you have to add the "add-ons" to make them useful for the specific audience. eg CAM

        1. killban1971

          Re: "The market is forecast to rise from $4.1bn in 2015 to $16.2bn by 2020"

          The most expensive "add-on" being the human component that makes the magic happen...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "The market is forecast to rise from $4.1bn in 2015 to $16.2bn by 2020"

      HP has claimed they are going to be able to revolutionize the market by bringing the quality and speed of the $50,000 3D printers to a consumer / small business price point, similar to what happened with laser printers over time.

      With such a small number of units sold, it isn't that hard to quadruple the market revenue in four years regardless of whether you are selling at $500 or $120,000.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: "The market is forecast to rise from $4.1bn in 2015 to $16.2bn by 2020"

        >upwards of £30,000 per seat for CAD, and that didn't include the workstation.

        >>Don't they still pay at least that much for CAD?

        Actually, yeah, they do - but since I only introduced it to make the point that in some industries any advantage is worth a lot of money, I didn't see the need to stretch the credulity of the general Reg readership. Bless them.

        Rhino 3D, 3D Studio Max are in the £ hundreds

        SolidWorks, Alias, Siemens NX, etc are £ thousands

        Catia etc £ tens of thousands

        The pricing in part came about from a time when the hardware to run the software cost £ millions. It started to change in the mid nineties when desktop-class hardware, most famously by Solidworks, the start-up capital for which was raised by card-counting in Las Vegas casinos - the founder was one of *those* MIT blackjack students they made a film about.

    3. naive

      Re: "The market is forecast to rise from $4.1bn in 2015 to $16.2bn by 2020"

      The cartridge jokes are funny, but 3D printing will change the world within 25 years. We are just at the beginning. New generations of engineers will start designing products in such a manner that 3D printed parts can be used.

      Production nowadays implies that one should buy raw materials from all over the world, produce something, pack it on ships and lorries to get it to the user. With 3D printing, buying goods is like buying software, the manufacturer sends the 3D design to the 3D printer, and one can pickup the purchase at the local 3D print shop. This eliminates a costly, and polluting supply chain.

      1. MonkeyCee
        WTF?

        Re: "The market is forecast to rise from $4.1bn in 2015 to $16.2bn by 2020"

        " The cartridge jokes are funny, but 3D printing will change the world within 25 years. We are just at the beginning. New generations of engineers will start designing products in such a manner that 3D printed parts can be used."

        Nah, your whole post is way funnier mate :)

        Products already can have parts made by 3D printers. It's just kinda pointless since most are better made by other existing manufacturing processes.

        "Production nowadays implies that one should buy raw materials from all over the world, produce something, pack it on ships and lorries to get it to the user. With 3D printing, buying goods is like buying software, the manufacturer sends the 3D design to the 3D printer, and one can pickup the purchase at the local 3D print shop. This eliminates a costly, and polluting supply chain."

        No it doesn't, it indicates you've got no fucking idea of what you're talking about.

        So our current model is:

        1. Extract raw materials, transport to processing plant

        2. Process raw materials into useful materials. May include being transported and re-processed several times (eg ore -> metal -> alloy)

        3. Transport useful materials to manufacturing plant

        4. Transport finished products from manufacturer to supply chain

        5. Supply chain to retailer to customer

        The new thrilling exciting 3D printer will instead do exactly the same thing, except that instead of the manufacturing plant being in a different country, it'll be in the same one. You have a supply chain of the same length, only with higher costs added at stage 3, and less at stage 4. You also have a notably higher manufacturing cost if your desired widget has a demand that can be more easily and cheaply met by some other manufacturing process.

        So if your widget is in the ideal annual demand zone (more than 1000, less than 100k), and is perishable (otherwise you'd do a 1 million item run every 10 years), and is suitable to made by a 3D printer, and has had someone design and release the instructions for it, it'll be great.

        3D printing is a useful specialized tool. It's a nice hobby too. It's just a very niche manufacturing process, that has *already* had a large impact on industry. There are a couple of 3D printing "shops" around here, none of which turn a profit on 3D printing.

        As a direct example, I had a friend who needed about 2000 prop guns from the early 20th century. He has access to a good quality 3D printer (industrial type), and a friendly museum which he could get the relevant pieces to copy from. It cost about a quarter of the amount they expected for the 3D print to get actual firearms* made by Philippians. That's hand making stuff from metal is cheaper than printing plastics.

        * there was some misunderstanding, so the samples where fully functioning, causing problems with customs. The rest where blank firers.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh, I'm quite interested in what this might be...

    "The Jet Fusion 3D 3200"

    Hmmm, sounds too much like a razor. Why do HP and printer companies in general have such uninspiring naming schemes? At least the Reprap and Makerbot etc have descriptive names.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Oh, I'm quite interested in what this might be...

      RepRap and Makerbot cost £500 are aimed at hobbyists that might not even know what they want them for.

      If you are just about to spend £120,000 on something, your job depends upon reading the data sheets and justifying to your finance department why it is a good investment - who will not accept "I liked the name" as a good enough reason.

      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        Re: Oh, I'm quite interested in what this might be...

        Yes, but does it go 'ping' as well?

        1. Erroneous Howard

          Re: Oh, I'm quite interested in what this might be...

          Bring the machine that goes "PING"!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oh, I'm quite interested in what this might be...

      > "The Jet Fusion 3D 3200"

      >

      > Hmmm, sounds too much like a razor. Why do HP and printer companies in general have such uninspiring naming schemes?

      It's a stripped-down version of the Jet Fusion 3D 6200 of course. But it's software-upgradeable.

  6. Cynic_999

    This article lacks technical detail.

    It doesn't even state what technology the printer uses, let alone basic specs such as what choice of materials it offers, any capability to print in a mix of materials or colours and maximum printable size. This article would be more at home in a financial publication than a technical news site.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: This article lacks technical detail.

      More info here:

      http://www.computerworld.com/article/3071035/emerging-technology/hp-begins-selling-its-jet-fusion-3d-printer-says-its-50-cheaper-10x-faster-than-others.html

      Fused powder bed

      Nylon

      Colours and conductive parts

      Bed size 16-in. x 12-in. x 16-in.

      1. Primus Secundus Tertius

        Re: This article lacks technical detail.

        @Dave 126

        Thanks for the info. But Cynic_999 is right, the Reg reporter should have told us that.

  7. Steve Foster
    Facepalm

    And, of course, this being HP...

    ...a JetDirect card to connect it to the network will not be supplied as standard.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: And, of course, this being HP...

      I wonder how many Gb the printer drivers will be.

    2. asdf

      Re: And, of course, this being HP...

      Yeah really this should go on the corporate network with internet access ASAP. What could go wrong?

  8. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    Not quite as s**t as the article made it sound. Lots of *potential* but not much up front

    So it's more like a line printer or fax than most existing systems, which are more like 3d plotters.

    Nylon to start but promise of conductive (2 thou wide) tracks and ceramics as well eventually, and the high end model has a cleaning station to clean all the unused powder off the finished article, yours for a <cough> modest $25k.

    But as for "risked damaging” the brand" you are f**king kidding me, right?

    You can be the cartridges will cost a fortune (supposedly they will supply 200l drums of the stuff) and probably maintain HP's 1 in 3 failure rate if someone does refill them.

  9. ecofeco Silver badge

    Yes but what about the drivers?

    Does it come with the mandatory 64GB driver bloatware?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    So, this being HP, that's $49.99 for the printer...

    And $129,950.01 for the genuine HP refills.

  11. lnLog

    at least 1 customer

    Well, looks like HP have at least one customer;

    https://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/25462-shapeways-receives-the-first-hp-multi-jet-fusion-3d-printer.html?etId=90948939&utm_source=sw-email-2&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20160517-HP-Launch

  12. Pseudonymous Diehard

    10 bob

    Says this printer will be restricted and wont be able to print out replacement parts for existing HP printers.

    130 bags is reasonable if you want to set up ahop printing HP maintenance kits. At approx 200 smackers on average you only need to sell a thousand to make a nice profit.

    I wont be turning my head at 3D printing unless its possible to print replacement parts for the 3D printer itself (not the hot bits obviously, ill have another printer for that...and so on). Now thats worth paying through the nose for.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: 10 bob

      Many parts of HP's printer are 3D-printed. HP aren't making tens of thousands of these things, so 3D printing is a suitable manufacturing process.

      In any case, the plastic bits of the printer aren't likely to be those that wear out and need replacing.

  13. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    Over-hyped stupidity

    People have actually claimed "3D Printed Car". Gee, how did they print the 32 PSI air into the tires while 3D Printing the wheel assembly onto the hub? Can they 3D Print the car radio already set to my favorite station,and turned on? Do they 3D Print the petrol into the tank as they're printing the tank? How they keep the metal sparks from igniting the open fuel? How much to buy a cartridge of Flying Car Paste?

    All major cities should have gates with embedded pikes to hold the heads of those that claim, "Within X years, 3D Printing will replace all other forms of manufacturing."

    Neat and useful technology yes. But far too much mindless overhype.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Over-hyped stupidity

      >Over-hyped stupidity

      >Neat and useful technology yes.

      Er, so whcih one is it? Make your mind up!

      >People have actually claimed "3D Printed Car"

      So, you managed to find the words of some idiots on the internet... well done Jeff, that must have been hard! :) Meanwhile, the people who actually make cars, Ford, BMW et al, are interested in this - as they always have been in CAD and prototyping tech.

      For sure, 3D printing has been over-hyped in the past - by idiots - but this HP process has my attention. It's worth noting that they bided their time - they bought Stratasys (fused material deposition) quite a few years back before letting them go without any HP product being released.

      It ain't going to change the face of manufacturing, but it will be a consistent way of bringing products with short production runs (up to 10,000, say) to market.

      1. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        Re: Over-hyped stupidity

        "For sure, 3D printing has been over-hyped..."

        So we agree! But you're arguing. Which is it? LOL

        "...has been over-hyped in the past..."

        Do you think the over-hype has just stopped? I doubt it. The idiots will still be claiming '3D Printed' top level assembly, when only some selected components actually were. There are endless examples, the 'Car' is just one nice one. Inductive reasoning hints the idiots will continue to over-hype for many years to come.

        1. Justin Clift

          Re: Over-hyped stupidity

          You guys both seem to be knowledgable about 3D printing and cars, so you've both seen Koenigsegg's video's on Youtube about their 3d printing stuff (carbon fibre, etc) yeah?

          For the Koenigsegg example, printing in carbon fibre makes sense as they're designing functional parts.

          With this HP printer, it looks interesting, but it's Nylon only at the moment (not counting the unreleased stuff they "plan" to also release). The reportedly much faster printing speed sounds like it'll open doors though.

  14. psychonaut

    Driver

    Can you imagine how insanely huge and shit the driver for this thing is going to be?

    1. billse10

      Re: Driver

      and it'll be $130,000 for the printer, but $200,000 per colour for the supplies, which will last a month before "phoning home" / InstantInk ...

  15. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      The use of 'a' or 'an' depends upon the pronunciation, not the spelling of the following noun. Because the correct pronunciation of 'h' is 'aitch', then 'an' should be used before 'HP' , as in "An HP engineer explained to us..."

      We do the same with 'm' ('em'), as in "A Minister of Parliament was caught in an hotel room with..." versus "An MP was caught in..."

      'Hotel' may be pronounced without the 'h' being stressed, so both 'a hotel' and 'an hotel' are commonly used. 'Heirloom' is always 'an', 'Hangman' is always 'a'.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      aitch

      eɪtʃ/

      noun

      noun: aitch; plural noun: aitches

      the letter H.

  16. Paul Woodhouse

    It won't work properly with Terminal Services either...

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