Elegoo surprised everyone with their launch of a massive industrial 3D printer.
The company has long produced high quality desktop 3D printers using both resin and filament, mainly targeted at the consumer and DIY market. The appearance of what they describe as an “industrial” machine is definitely not aligned with their prior business strategy.
That means they must have a new strategy, but let’s look at the new machine first.
It’s called the OrangeStorm Giga, and visually it appears to be a FFF desktop device that has somehow grown so large it must be placed on the floor instead of table. Elegoo has leveraged their experience with desktop FFF to produce the Giga.
The machine’s huge build volume is actually not its most defining feature, and we’ll come to that in a bit. The build volume is a whopping 800 x 800 x 1000 mm. That’s large enough to print small furniture items, if one chose to do so.
The company launched the device through a Kickstarter the other week, but we were able to see it in person at Formnext.
They say the Giga is equipped with a 64-bit quad-core controller board, and is able to manage print speeds of up to 300mm/s, which is critically important in large format devices. Slow speed large format 3D printers can take eons to complete large prints, but here that won’t be the case.
The machine at the moment is only set to print in PLA material, which does limit application possibilities. It does have a (large) heated print surface to keep prints from warping. The PLA constraint is expected, as this machine is an open-air gantry where materials will rapidly cool.
We observed the machine printing, but it didn’t seem to be running at 300mm/s. That’s likely because 300mm/s is the maximum speed possible, and we just happened to visit at a moment when it was printing a section that required slower movements. This is an effect commonly seen on high speed FFF devices and is also present on the Giga.
The Giga is shipped as a kit that must be assembled. Unlike a desktop kit, the Giga includes some rather large parts that exceed a meter in length. I asked Elegoo about the assembly, and was told it would take about an hour, but require “more than two persons”. That’s likely because the long spars probably need to be held at both ends during assembly.
The most defining feature of the Giga is its price. The MSRP will be only US$2000, and it’s currently on sale for US$1500. Early bird buyers on the Kickstarter were able to pick it up for a ridiculously low US$1250!
That is an incredibly low price for such a massive machine. Most meter-sized devices tend to carry prices in the US$20-50,000 range, so Elegoo is going to shake things up in the large format market.
The price seems attractive, and we were told that as of last week Elegoo had sold an incredible 1400 devices. Checking today they are nearing 2,000 sales, which represents US$3.5M in revenue. That’s significant and clearly shows Elegoo can succeed in this market.
However, there are a couple of challenges that will face Elegoo as they enter a new market.
First, many industrial buyers will be interested in printing in materials other than PLA, so they will have to investigate purchasing other machines. The market for the Giga will likely be companies looking to print large non-functional prototypes where the shape is the goal.
Secondly, the Giga lacks a number of convenience features one might expect to find on a production machine. These would include automatic spool switching, for example, which would ensure the machine keeps running even without an operator present.
While the Giga may lack a few features, it’s important to realize that this machine is Elegoo’s first step into a brand new market. They will no doubt learn much about the market as time passes, and their next machine will certainly take that into account.
If you’re looking for an inexpensive large-format 3D printer that works with PLA only, this could be the device for you.
Via Elegoo and Kickstarter
