Comment on FYI (opinion.) don't buy an MMU
elucubra@sopuli.xyz 5 weeks agoI may agree in a DIY setting, but for a business it’s a sunken cost fallacy. I’ve owned 2 businesses where productive equipment were integral. Replacing machinery where there is a substantial improvement does make absolute business sense. Also, if you allow a machine to wear out you are shooting yourself in the foot. It’s much better to unload them in the second hand market, and renew. I haven’t owned a print farm, but I’m certain that amortization is fairly quick.
nyan@lemmy.cafe 5 weeks ago
Question is, how long is the expected lifetime of a consumer-grade FFM printer in one of these settings anyway? My bet is that it’s only a couple of years—certainly no more than five. Short enough that many businesses would be able to afford to wait for the expected end-of-life before replacing their old printers, even if there’s new tech out that might make some difference to their bottom line. At worst, the older printers will still be perfectly good and competitive at producing single-material prints, since I don’t think an MMU you don’t use incurs much of a penalty.