The iMakr retail store in London was perhaps the very first independent 3D printer store designed specifically for personal 3D printing products. Now they’ve taken a step into a new world.
They’ve begun reselling Asiga’s Pico line of ultra-high resolution DLP resin 3D printers. These machines produce beautiful output that is suitable for designing wax prints for jewelry making, for example.
While they’re great machines (and a tad pricey compared to the MakerBots and Flashforges on the other shelves at iMakr), we’re wondering what they’re doing in a retail store previously focused on consumers?
Yes, they’re a bit more expensive than other consumer products (USD$10K-11K). Yes, they produce objects at another level of quality than other personal machines.
We’re thinking this could be the beginning of a trend, where the previously separate personal and industrial lines of 3D printers begin to blur. Here we have a true industrial machine appearing in a consumer retail shop, perhaps for the first time. Sure they’re more expensive, but that only means that fewer consumers will purchase one. A few will.
In time the costs of industrial 3D printing technology will fall sufficient that you’ll see machines in your local shop capable of doing amazing things. That’s what we think will happen eventually – but today we actually see the beginning of that happening at iMakr.
Via iMakr