Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
Hello one and all
So with the ever changing convention / maker fairs / gatherings still changing since the pandemic, with established conventions closed, and new ones opening up, it can be a bit difficult to discover new events. We would like to try some different types of events where 3D printing would be a nice addition to it. (For example, a convention for model train enthusiasts)
So I would figure to ask the community if there was any sort of conventions that are around that you would like to see Prusa attend. If so leave a comment with a link to the event so we can take a look at them and see which we can attend. For now, they would need to be in North America, or Europe. Eventually one day we would love to attend some new events in Asia and Australia 🙂
Thanks all
Shane (AKA FromPrusa)
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
Anything educational. The selling point would be the ability for middle and high school students to learn to design (the real goal), and then print out their designs without having to spend all their time tinkering with crap printers. A dozen Mini's in every HS design/computer lab. Get the kids hooked and you have customers for life. Only not crack, but designing and building and thinking logically.
RE:
Model railroading is what got me into 3d printing, after seeing a demo of a printer a number of years ago at a train show.
3d printing and model railroading go hand in hand, particularly for such things as buildings and 'flats' (building facades) and even such things as rolling stock (boxcars, etc.) and accessories. I personally started off with tunnel portals, self-drafted and printed at our local makerspace, and eventually to more complex items (including several cars), accessories, and even a clone of a popular Lionel control switch.
Many train shows will have one at most vendor(s) selling 3d print buildings, often with a working machine, and taking custom orders on-site from a book of models. If a model needs to be of a certain scale, it's trivial to scale it and, time permitting, print one on site.
When a 3d print vendor appears at a Maker Faire, there are tons of competitors, but at a train show there will not be that much competition. Below I have a photo of a vendor at the March 2019 Rocky Mountain Train Show in Denver with some model of Creality machine on site. (He seemed unimpressed when I mentioned to him that I was currently doing building flats with the Prusa MK3S.) 😉
The largest of the Stateside train shows happens twice a year, spring and fall, in York, Pennsylvania, US, and is sponsored by the Eastern Division of the Train Collectors Association, of which I've been a member for some time. It's at the local fairgrounds and usually runs three days. https://www.easterntca.com/read-more.htm
Another one of the majors is the annual Rocky Mountain Train Show in Denver, Colorado, US, sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Division of the TCA. It's the largest west of the Mississippi and usually occurs in March. https://rockymountaintrainshow.com/Default.aspx
I might suggest having a vendor booth at each, and also volunteering to do a demo and seminar in one of the rooms, things which are very popular at the Denver show. A live working 3d printer in a booth on the exhibit floor will always attract a crowd.
I'm attaching a few photos of some of the items I've printed below the one of the vendor at the Denver show.
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
I see the 'edit' button disappeared before I could add this one item which I think is important if you want the maximum exposure and sales opportunities at train events.
I would suggest looking for 'Train Shows', as opposed to 'Conventions', as the former is really where the buying and selling happens. The York show has several large halls for demo and sales, and thousands upon thousands of attendees intending to spend cash.
'Conventions' on the other hand are often times dominated, during the days, with tours of local railroad facilities and cultural sites, and often leave the attendees tired and hot upon the return to the hotel. These will have vendor spaces, but with not nearly the sales and demo opportunities of the 'Shows'.
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
I see the 'edit' button disappeared before I could add this one item which I think is important if you want the maximum exposure and sales opportunities at train events.
I would suggest looking for 'Train Shows', as opposed to 'Conventions', as the former is really where the buying and selling happens. The York show has several large halls for demo and sales, and thousands upon thousands of attendees intending to spend cash.
'Conventions' on the other hand are often times dominated, during the days, with tours of local railroad facilities and cultural sites, and often leave the attendees tired and hot upon the return to the hotel. These will have vendor spaces, but with not nearly the sales and demo opportunities of the 'Shows'.
Thanks for the 2 suggestions, I will look them up and see what might happen. It sounds like it would be a bit different than our regular sort of events as far as offering some sort of presentation, but I can see what can think up of 🙂
Shane (AKA FromPrusa)
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
Anything educational. The selling point would be the ability for middle and high school students to learn to design (the real goal), and then print out their designs without having to spend all their time tinkering with crap printers. A dozen Mini's in every HS design/computer lab. Get the kids hooked and you have customers for life. Only not crack, but designing and building and thinking logically.
Yes, any sort of educational show or convention would be good, and we are always keeping an eye out for them. We had a group of people who just came back from a educational convention from New Orleans, so we are slowly starting to go to them. If you know of any in or around your area, let us know 🙂
Shane (AKA FromPrusa)
Thinking about where most of my one-off or low volume designs go you might usefully attend shows that attract people who fix things ...
I make a fair few parts for boats/boatbuilders repairing older vessels. Old auto parts are also called for. Agriculture is another industry where venerable equipment is kept in use until parts are unobtainable.
The big, glitzy shows where the latest superyacht, autonomous combine harvester or muscle car are paraded are probably not ideal but lesser, more local shows where people who's budget is limited or where the ancillary equipment and parts are more important, those are the places where new users, those who run their own workshops, may be found.
I saw your stands at TCT 3Sixty; whilst fine for a big 3D trade show they wouldn't be appropriate for smaller ones: display a few dozen different hard-to-get or customizable parts, run some demo printers and say 'We don't sell you the parts, we sell you the machine that makes them.'
Cheerio,
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
How about the Montana State Fair? Farmers and ranchers are always breaking things and many now use drones which always need parts. I would love to meet you there.
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
A 'get info' page that actually lists the version .See below
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
Model Railroading is a great hobby and can be family fun for everyone.
RE:
Tool chain / work flow integration with third party tools should be a sought after feature. Exemplary existing feature is the possibility to Upload directly to OctoPrint.
I'm currently trying to get OpenSCAD to upload directly into PrusaSlicer, rather than saving generated STL to an intermediate file, then load that file into PrusaSlicer for rendering to gcode, which then is uploaded to OctoPrint.
While OpenSCAD supports uploading STL to OctoPrint, for the slicer to be invoked by OctoPrint, there's no evident method to upload to PrusaSlicer.
I see these methods to achieve this:
- Using a workaround, employing inotify to register change to files in configured directories, and respond with action loading written/modified files into PrusaSlicer
- Adding support to OpenSCAD to not export to OctoPrint only, but to selected slicers (including PrusaSlicer)
- Adding support to PrusaSlicer, by opening a http listener which pretends to be OctoPrint, to which OpenSCAD will gladly export the STL file to. Upon reception, PrusaSlicer loads the received STL file, ready for slicing and exporting to (real) OctoPrint.
- Separate http listener process, independent of CAD program and slicer, but acting like approach described above.
Having such support already available in either program should simplify such work flow optimisation though.
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
Hello one and all
So with the ever changing convention / maker fairs / gatherings still changing since the pandemic, with established conventions closed, and new ones opening up, it can be a bit difficult to discover new events. We would like to try some different types of events where 3D printing would be a nice addition to it. (For example, a convention for model train enthusiasts)
So I would figure to ask the community if there was any sort of conventions that are around that you would like to see Prusa attend. If so leave a comment with a link to the event so we can take a look at them and see which we can attend. For now, they would need to be in North America, or Europe. Eventually one day we would love to attend some new events in Asia and Australia 🙂
Thanks all
Any chance you could please come to Iowa?
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
What particular event in Iowa are you inviting them to?
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
Hello one and all
. Eventually one day we would love to attend some new events in Asia and Australia 🙂
It would be lovely to see some Prusa in Aus. What a difficult market we must be for you!
The only good thing about the cost of delivery of Prusament is that it's a lot cheaper than the airfare.
On a serious note - the sorts of exhibitions you attend are not held in the town where I live, so if anyone can suggest events in capital cities that might be relevant with or without Prusa attendance, please let me know!
Cheers!
RE:
How should Prusa make contact and expand their footprint? Good online conventions for information sharing. Blogs are OK, but detailed learning comes from teaching.
I worked in manufacturing, CAD and CNC for 40 years. Originally the major CAD user groups spread information. Teaching presentations with papers. Over the years powerpoint and sales forces took over. One sided sales only approach and low information from power-point presentations has destroyed the value of these conventions.
One company revamped their development and made 1/2 their convention into customer feedback roundtables. Face to face discusion with development leads who listened much more than they talked. I rank it as a significant success. When covid restrictions hit, many turned their yearly conventions into online conventions. Many were an online disaster.
There is one group that turned online conventions into a major success. See rootstech. Their goal is to promote genealogy. How they put the virtual conference together and kept all the presentations for on demand viewing was a major success. This general format could fit Prusa well.
Education, beginners, FBM, resin, and more could each have a track in such a yearly virtual convetion.
One other thing. With all the feedback Prusa gets, learn what is tactical vs. a strategic suggestion. Tactical, minor mods etc. Strategic suggestions are insite into what the next step in the market should be.
Tactical, better Y axis mount on the MKS series, there is a bug in the slicer etc. Strategic, multi head color as is on the XL series. Organic supports in the slicer vs. current boxy supports. There are many more. The vast majority of feedback from customers is tactical. The few, key strategic suggestions are often lost in a feedback system designed to handle the tactical issues.
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
Would like to have some kind of associativity between the CAD model and the sliced model, thus the gcode file.
When designing functional parts and testing assemblies, I find sometime minor geometric changes (i.e. hole diameter, draft angle, some radius change....)
In this case, I would like some popup that say "CAD model xyxyxyxyxy.stl has changed, do you want to update sliced model?" with a Yes/No button pair,and boom, get almost instantly the gcode file. If it also ask me for updating Octoprint model on the fly, my wildest dreams are fulfilled!
Should it be complicated to achieve?
Simplify3D V5 provide this feature, not sure it works really for every CAD (only read about integration with FUSION 360 which I don't plan to use), but is very promising .
I gave up S3D and don't want to throw away 50 bucks to test it, since Prusa Slicer is a perfect replacement for S3D to me.
Many thanks
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
The BETT show in the UK - a great chance to demonstrate printers to the educational sector:
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
Would like to have some kind of associativity between the CAD model and the sliced model, thus the gcode file.
When designing functional parts and testing assemblies, I find sometime minor geometric changes (i.e. hole diameter, draft angle, some radius change....)
In this case, I would like some popup that say "CAD model xyxyxyxyxy.stl has changed, do you want to update sliced model?" with a Yes/No button pair,and boom, get almost instantly the gcode file. If it also ask me for updating Octoprint model on the fly, my wildest dreams are fulfilled!
Should it be complicated to achieve?
Simplify3D V5 provide this feature, not sure it works really for every CAD (only read about integration with FUSION 360 which I don't plan to use), but is very promising .
I gave up S3D and don't want to throw away 50 bucks to test it, since Prusa Slicer is a perfect replacement for S3D to me.
Many thanks
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
This thread would be more for events that people would like us to attend. For this, you could submit a request at https://github.com/prusa3d/PrusaSlicer/pulls for slicer requests
Shane (AKA FromPrusa)
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
Unfortunately that one is way too close for us to properly prepare for, but I will pass along the suggestion and cross my fingers.
The BETT show in the UK - a great chance to demonstrate printers to the educational sector:
Unfortunately that one is way too close for us to properly prepare for, but I will pass along the suggestion and cross my fingers.
Shane (AKA FromPrusa)
RE: Where shall we go? Where would you like to see Prusa at?
Unfortunately that one is way too close for us to properly prepare for, but I will pass along the suggestion and cross my fingers.
The BETT show in the UK - a great chance to demonstrate printers to the educational sector:
Unfortunately that one is way too close for us to properly prepare for, but I will pass along the suggestion and cross my fingers.
It's a yearly event - so keep an eye on it for next year?!