It’s been a slower month for the forum but it still hit over 3k new users in the last 30 days. Yes this isn’t a 1 to 1 on printer sales as not all new users have printers but the vast majority have at least 1… if not more. I’ve seen this number of new users well over 5k a month when sales are running. The forum only represents a small percentage of Bambu users.
Personally I think that on a global scale, 5k/month of printer sales seems well with within reason if not on the low end.
Agree that doubling the US number, whatever it is, was often the right scale factor for a lot of things. It’s an often quoted rule of thumb that held true before China’s rise. I’m not current on what the modern day scale factor is. Probably based on the ratio of US GDP to the rest of the world.
With a combined 15 years of manufacturing experience not just within aerospace, yeah my guy I know the processes of which these companies have to do in order to be successful.
If you believe a company such as BL can even produce 15,000 printers a month. Well you must be living in the future even if they wanted to shoot for that number it would be the reason why they’ve had to change and continue to change suppliers of components… no supplier unless it’s injection molded can produce that much in that little time without having massive flaws in quality.
They estimated certain amount of demand and built inventory to be ahead and maintain lower numbers. I’d find maybe 3,500-5,000 across the whole line up being sold and only 2,000/month being manufactured.
If they’re truly making 15,000 printers a month well that’s a historical achievement for a company of their size with less than 500 employees worldwide and being a business for less than 3 years
I can’t see this being a legit source. The total number of users compared to the sign up isn’t accurate. Not everyone that has a BL printer signs up on the forums and might sign up months after a purchase or a year later…
That data would only matter by seeing the total lifetime sign ups if every single users made an account…
Either way it’s nice seeing BL grow but they also have a roadblock of litigation now and until that’s cleared by a statement made directly from them its undoubtedly slowed ongoing sales. I know businesses that have backed out simply due to this because you can’t risk the support
It’s great that you have manufacturing expertise, because that’s the part of the bambu story that seems to be so under-rated. From what I’ve read DJI owns 70-80% of the drone market, and they produce literally millions of drones every year. North of 6 or 7 or so million drones at the current annual run rate, IIRC. Plainly, DJI knows how to manufacture at scale. The bambu lab guys are from DJI. Ergo… they know how to manufacture at scale too? Whenever they need to hire for manufacturing, maybe they can just go shopping for experienced talent at their former employer. It sounds like you don’t buy that theory. Think back to how consumer 3D printers looked before Bambu: like an erector set of generic hobby shop parts and aluminum extrusion that a college student lashed together for his senior project at his frat house. In comes Bambu and the production from the get-go is at an entirely much higher level. From the very start Bambu seems like it could mop the floor with its competition, with nothing but its own rate of growth separating it from owning its own 70-80% of the 3D printer market. Bambu was selling finished product, not half-baked full or partial DIY kits in need of upgrades.
I have no skin in this game. I just find it fasinating if the market really is already in the millions of 3d printers per year and growing at 20-30%CAGR. Reminds me of the PC industry growth with the apple II and IBM PC. And then along came the Macintosh… The Bambu printers are like that Macintosh.
You have to put that into perspective. Shenzhen is not known as a manufacturing location. Shenzhen is an impressive export, IT and programming location next to Hong Kong (but don’t buy a USB stick in a store there - the virus checker goes on and off like Christmas tree lights). Been there several times and there is nothing comparable anywhere in the world.
The weak points on the Bambulab are on the structural, mechanical side - they have the programming under full control and are extremely strong at that point.
It’s a sales company too - You don’t know how much of the 500 people tinker with the printers and how much is manufactured by third “game” suppliers. You can also see it on the Fillament process - I don’t think they’ve ever made a single roll themselves - buy and sell. Third game fillament, by everything you can throw in - tricky especially with Bambulabs hardware basic knowledge so I prefer to stay away from it. Don’t even think that they run the support themselves - that’s why they can’t customize optimize it.
This isn’t meant to be a derogatory comment - but the bottom line is that they haven’t done anything new - they have combined everything that exists in 3D printers cost-effectively and even combined it in such a way that it works. And that’s not an easy task that anyone can do.
I think they are missing a strong mechanical engineer - but he will have a damn hard time and will be overrun from all sides, so I think no one will take the job. At least not the one who has the required qualifications to get the job done.
So you know nothing about Bambu’s manufacturing processes yet you feel you know them well enough to comment on what is and isn’t possible?
It is well known that Bambu invested in manufacturing at scale right from the start and designed the printers with mass manufacturing in mind, so why should it be surprising that they managed to mass manufacture them?
It is also well known that Bambu weren’t just some inexperienced college kids making a startup, they were ex DJI engineers, a company with a lot of experience in mass manufacturing.
Your personal incredulity, regardless of how much experience you claim to have, really means nothing. Not all experience is equal and not all engineers are at the same level or quality. You haven’t provided any actual reasons why this couldn’t be possible other than “trust me, I work in aerospace”. You admitted you know very little or nothing about their manufacturing processes. You likely know nothing about the economics of the company either yet you dispute that too.
Either you know things no one else does or you are just another engineer with a big ego thinking that they know best and if they don’t think something is possible then it isn’t.
even if they wanted to shoot for that number it would be the reason why they’ve had to change and continue to change suppliers of components… no supplier unless it’s injection molded can produce that much in that little time without having massive flaws in quality.