A couple of weeks ago I posted about retiring 3DBenchy. While it’s true that 3DBenchy is a well thought out benchmarking tool, I stand by the idea that companies can come up with better, more professional benchmarking tool that is also viral.
My other point of that article is that 3DBenchy isn’t the only toy-like item used in marketing professional and industrial 3D printers, and that this type of imagery limits the perceived legitimacy of the technology. Here are 5 examples of well-done professional application content by companies in the additive industry:
1. Shock Absorbing Lattices – Carbon
One of the first public examples of full-scale manufacturing of a consumer product with a 3D printer wasn’t 3DBenchy, but rather 3D printed lattices generated when Carbon partnered with Adidas to 3D print the sole of their “4D” running shoe. While this partnership undoubtedly took a lot of work to develop, it paid long-term dividends in proving Carbon’s legitimacy in providing a true manufacturing tool. In fact it worked so well, that Carbon has since partnered with several other brands including Specialized and Ridell to produce products that leverage their industry-leading 3D printed lattices.
2. Consistent Branded Part Layouts – Formlabs
The general printed parts layouts featured on formlabs.com and their social properties may not be a singular viral sensation, but it serves important objectives at the powerhouse SLA brand. These posts showcase parts with real world applications (quite the opposite of 3DBenchy) that look great thanks to the high level capabilities of their printers. The posts also establish an ongoing brand identity utilizing their blue and orange backgrounds over a backbone among interspersed creative content that includes short videos.
3. Injection Molding Parts – Nexa3D
Nexa3D is a lesser known brand, but their 3D printers have some impressive capabilities. One material that they can print called xPEEK147, allows companies to quickly (less than 24 hours) produce injection molding inserts. Pepsi notably did this and brought much attention to the Nexa3D brand. Though to be fair, Pepsi had already done this previously with both Stratasys and Carbon and Nexa3D was only the latest iteration for the news cycle to lap up. Still they were able to capitalize on the Pepsi brand and boost in efficiency with their product offering. Honorable mention to the viral stacked manufacturing builds that showcase the insane speed and throughput of their mSLA 3D printers which could probably print 3DBenchy by the hundreds per day.
4. 3D Printing Applications Videos – Markforged
When it comes to popular 3D printing companies with products that can produce legit parts, Markforged is right up there thanks to their focus on carbon fiber and metals. A quick look on their channels and you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything cartoonish or toy-ish. Their brand presents the products as a serious professional tool. The parts they display are generally high performing tools and components, and they do a nice job of presenting segmented applications such as “3D printing aerospace tooling” where they explain the process of designing and printing a drill jig. While these may not appeal to everyone – as with 3DBenchy – they help Markforged really target their correct audience of pro users, one segment at a time.
5. Big Name Customer Profiles – Ultimaker
Ultimaker has become the poster-child when it comes to professional desktop 3D printers. No other company in this class ships more units and they’ve done this by building upon a loyal community and putting out some high quality professional content. I specifically recall a series of case studies they released over the span of a couple of years where they were able to cover on-car racing parts for Van Amersfoort racing (where Max Verstappen got his start), Jigs used by the Royal Dutch Air Force, and manufacturing tools used by Heineken – notice the trend of Dutch partners here? Oh, they also put out a jigs and fixtures story about Volkswagen in that time. Of course – many industrial companies do case studies on big name companies, but their finished product just hit a little harder in terms of approachability and production value. Though to be fair, I cannot confirm that no one at Heineken ever tried printing a 3DBenchy 😁.
To put a bow on it. It’s not that I don’t appreciate a little fun mixed into corporate branding, and for some companies it may actually work better than for others. But the point is that 3D printing has such a maker reputation that it could slow the industry’s quest for absolute legitimacy in the localized, on-demand manufacturing space. Let’s get the application engineers working with the creatives and keep cranking out the viral / professional content – it may take more work, but it’ll be worth it in the long run. Also – 3DBenchy has its limits to what it can test. Here’s a benchmark that I’d venture most 3D printers would have a tough time printing though MakerBot uses it all the time for their METHOD 3D printers (hint: it prints in one piece and requires dissolvable supports).