Anther Kit option has left the market

It was just posted in the Kittaz forum that the last of the Kittaz kits has been sold, and that Lulzbot will not be producing the kit again. It’s unfortunate to see the loss of another kit in the 3D market, but it’s fairly inevitable that will happen as the 3D printer movement moves from early adopters and into a more mainstream business space. :frowning:


I’m glad I bought my kit when I did.

Scott

Didn’t know this…wow… not enough profit margins? why would they do that? I wouldn’t have bought this machine or learned about 3D printing as quickly without the kit…

Probably more of a support headache than anything.
Allot of cheap “RTP” (Ready-to-Print), printers out there now-a-days…

Plus I think there is probably a shift in direction when considering “3D” printers…
As more and more are no longer the hobbyist type, but more prototyping, and demand quick and easy high quality prints with little fuss…

Also… and probably beating a dead horse, and makes sense why they tossed the product. But seems like the natural roll out of technology… faster… easier…cheaper… Why would people buy a $1500+ kit that you have to fiddle with, when they see a $900 ready-to-go machine every time they visit a HomeDepot?

I’d suspect some of the reason were people who thought they could assemble a 3d printer but in fact lacked the requisite skillset to do so.

One of the Lulzbotters mentioned the purpose of the KitTaz was to offer a lower cost option… Now they have the Mini.

Jebba and Orias explain some of the reasons here: https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/plans-to-incorporate-more-taz-5-features-in-kittaz/1328/1

I’m sure this is a huge part of it. Many people who are unskilled mechanically have no idea just how unskilled they really are and everything else gets blamed in the process. I can see the guys getting back a “faulty” kit with a bunch of cross-threaded and stripped screwholes and a bunch of other crazyness that they have to deal with, knowing the knucklehead that screwed it up could easily go onto a forum and trash the brand name if they don’t get them going.

I will say the few I have seen personally did not have any stripped or cross threaded stuff on them, but I have seen differing levels of skill-sets by how far they got in the assembly of the kits.