Proprietary filament

[Generic Default]

I'm sure most of the people here are aware of business strategies that involve high cost consumables. I just thought it would be interesting to have a thread where each post gives an example of a proprietary thing related to 3d printers. My example is the EKOCYCLE 3d printer and filament from cubify.


"Each EKOCYCLE cartridge contains 25% post-consumer recycled materials, using an average of 3 assorted recycled 20 oz. PET plastic bottles."

They sell cartridges at 49$ for the amount of plastic used to make 3 medium size soda bottles.
Dayummm........

Anyway, that turns out to be around 3 oz of PET plastic per cartridge. A cost of ~$260 per pound for partially recycled bottle plastic.


Who else wants to give an example?

[JackFoz]

Damn that's criminal! I fail to see why anybody would buy the machines that take them! The print quality doesn't look spectacular either.

An example that really hit my friend was the cartridges that the XYZ daVinci takes. 600g of ABS for $30. That's far more than I pay for 1KG. What makes it even worse is that the printer seems affordable so it makes it look like a fantastic option until you really want to print anything big, then it gets expensive.

[Neptune]

there is a Hack for the XYZ daVinci cartridges that allows you to refill them with your own filament.

http://wctek.com/xyz/