Another 3D printer that has raised over 10 million US dollars through crowdfunding, and this time it is "HeyGears".

Over the past year, the 3D printing track has seen booming development, with multiple products raising over 10 million US dollars in crowdfunding one after another. Whether it is eufyMake E1 under Anker that topped the Kickstarter crowdfunding ranking with UV texture printing, or Snapmaker U1 that lifted the FDM category crowdfunding ceiling to 20 million US dollars with its replaceable multi-nozzle design; beyond the basic ability of "producing tangible objects", all players are also making efforts to achieve "more convenient operation and better printing results".

*Note: FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) is one of the common technologies in the consumer-grade 3D printing field. Its principle is to heat and melt plastic filaments, and stack them layer by layer like squeezing toothpaste to form a finished product. Another common technology, stereolithography, uses ultraviolet rays to irradiate liquid resin to cure it layer by layer to form the desired shape.

This time, we are introduced to a relatively unfamiliar brand, HeyGears.

HeyGears G1 Series｜Source from Kickstarter

The "HeyGears G1 Series" launched its crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter on July 23, integrating full-color 3D printing, embossed texture forming and flat UV printing into one desktop device. It raised 6.4 million US dollars on the first day, and recently exceeded 10 million US dollars, ranking in the first tier of 3D printing crowdfunding projects.

11 years of team accumulation enables rapid 3D printing capability development

At present, in the field of desktop consumer printers, users often have to make trade-offs between "precision, color performance and cost".

Although UV printers have outstanding color performance, most of them can only overlay patterns and textures on flat or simple curved surfaces, and cannot form a 3D object from scratch.

3D printers, although capable of printing 3D entities from nothing, all have their own shortcomings. The FDM route features low-cost consumables and supports multi-color printing via filament swapping (essentially color block splicing), but it has a large layer thickness, which easily leads to visible layer lines. For parts that require continuous gradients such as skin tones and hair, the naturalness of the finished product is greatly reduced. The stereolithography route delivers finer finished products, but most of them support a limited number of colors. To achieve full-color output, industrial-grade machines are required, whose price tag of tens of thousands of US dollars is unaffordable for ordinary consumers.

Color performance, precision and cost form an "impossible triangle" for 3D printing. The "HeyGears G1" is designed to achieve a more balanced state of the three factors.

Image source｜Kickstarter

The "HeyGears G1" integrates three printing capabilities: full-color 3D printing, embossed texture forming and 2D UV printing into one device, and adopts the stereolithography 3D printing technology route.

The choice of this technical route stems from the inherent gene of the HeyGears G1 team.

HeyGears, the company that developed the HeyGears G1, is not a new entrant in the 3D printing track. It is a company that started with industrial-grade dental 3D printing and has been deeply engaged in the stereolithography field for 11 years.

Due to the strict precision requirements, wide variety of materials and low delivery error tolerance of dental products, HeyGears stated that the company invests about 100 million yuan in R&D every year, and has built full-stack self-developed capabilities in hardware, software, materials and other fields. Its own invention patents account for more than 50% of the total, laying a solid technical foundation for the HeyGears G1.

Introduction to HeyGears: the company was founded in 2015 and has completed a Series C financing of over 300 million yuan this year (left); schematic diagram of its products, dental products such as braces and retainers (right)｜Source from HeyGears

Beyond basic printability, the HeyGears G1 pursues more refined output

3D printing based on stereolithography technology allows the HeyGears G1 to produce finer finished products on the basis of forming objects from scratch. To enhance the color performance of 3D printing and reduce the layer line problem, the HeyGears G1 has adopted a combined solution of "precision piezoelectric inkjet + UV curing".

In addition, the HeyGears G1 is equipped with an 8-channel ink system and industrial-grade printheads. Its piezoelectric inkjet technology can accurately eject ink droplets to the designated position. The forming logic is changed from "controlling layer thickness" to "controlling the volume and landing position of ink droplets", which greatly reduces the layer line problem that originally affected the visual effect. The UV curing technology can shape the ink droplets immediately, curing them instantly during the texture stacking process, making the color and shape more stable.

At the same time, thanks to the ink droplets that are easier to mix colors and the multi-color ink system, the color presentation of the finished products printed by the HeyGears G1 is closer to real objects. According to official promotion, the HeyGears G1 can support more than 10 million colors.

Promotion materials show that it can cover more than 400 material types including plastic, metal and wood, and its printing speed is 3 times faster than conventional UV printers｜Source from Kickstarter

In addition, considering that the printing process of models requires supporting materials to support the whole body and suspended parts of the model, the HeyGears G1 adopts water-soluble support materials that dissolve immediately when encountering water, to facilitate subsequent processing (removing supports, alkali soaking, sand blasting and other operations) and ensure the precision of the printed finished products.

HeyGears is not the only player pursuing more refined printing results.

Bambu Lab, which started with FDM technology and has long been well-known for its high speed and ease of use, is also further tapping into the mass market with multi-color printing (AMS automatic material switching supports 16 colors). According to Bambu Lab's official disclosure, the two new multi-color printing products launched this year have sold more than 25,000 units online. Timi Group, a company that started with voice social services, also entered the full-color 3D printing track at the end of last year. In our previous communication with Timi Group, its head of 3D business stated bluntly that "full-color 3D printing is about to usher in its desktop and even consumer-grade era". The HeyGears G1's 10 million US dollar crowdfunding result to some extent confirms this judgment. (For details, please refer to our previous article "Social Entertainment Player Enters 3D Printing, Business Grows 10 Times in 7 Months? | Dialogue with Frontline Practitioners", the interpretation of the above 3D printing technologies and the advantages of water-soluble materials can also be referenced in this article.)

Consumable cost becomes another major competitive advantage of HeyGears

If it can achieve the hardware and technical capabilities of industrial-grade equipment, the HeyGears G1 can meet the personalized printing needs of items ranging from custom figurines, 3D murals to canvas bags and mugs. HeyGears has publicly stated that the HeyGears G1 is currently mainly targeted at studios and professional creators who realize commercial monetization through 3D printing.

However, for these users who need to use the equipment continuously, 3D printers are typical "razor and blade" type products: the machine is the entry point, and consumables are the part that requires long-term continuous investment.

HeyGears G1 supports full-color 3D model printing, embossed texture forming and 2D flat printing｜Source from Kickstarter

Therefore, the consumable price of the HeyGears G1 is an advantage that similar products cannot replicate in the short term. Data from 3D printing resource libraries shows that HeyGears independently develops and produces about 90% of its consumables, and the price is only 1/10 to 1/15 of that of similar foreign products.

Back to the device itself, although its price is significantly higher than that of eufyMake E1 and Snapmaker U1; compared with industrial-grade printers that provide the same capabilities and are priced at around 40,000 US dollars, the HeyGears G1 is very cost-effective in terms of device size and price. At present, according to the crowdfunding page, the HeyGears G1 mainly provides 3 versions:

. G1 Starter Pack: $1999, equipped with a single printhead and a 6-channel ink system, only supports basic flat UV printing and embossed texture printing. (The price is equivalent to the crowdfunding price of eufyMake E1 which focuses on UV texture printing).

. G1X Starter Pack: $3299, equipped with Epson i3200 industrial-grade printhead, 8-channel ink system and LiDAR module, supports subsequent user upgrades to add a full-color 3D printing module to the device.

. G1X Full-3D Pack: Starting from $3599, based on the G1X Starter Pack, it adds a Resin Station (for 3D printing) and corresponding cleaning and replacement accessories. Users can directly use the three printing modes of full-color 3D printing, embossed texture forming and 2D UV printing right after unboxing.

The blue circle on the right marks the Resin Station module. HeyGears G1 also offers $4999 and $6798 versions, whose main differences from the G1X Full-3D Pack are in consumables and device quantity, with little difference in functions｜Source from Kickstarter

Gui Peiyan, the founder of HeyGears, once publicly stated that with the expansion of the mass production scale of the HeyGears G1 and further optimization of the supply chain, the company will continue to reduce equipment costs, with the goal of lowering the total price of the device to less than 5000 yuan (about 740 US dollars), to "make full-color 3D printing truly accessible to ordinary households".

Closing Remarks

Beyond the integrated workflow of full-color 3D printing, embossed texture forming and flat UV printing, what is really noteworthy about the HeyGears G1 is how it quickly transforms the accumulation in the B2B sector into competitiveness in the consumer market. The combination of 3D printing and full-color inkjet technology has helped the HeyGears G1 quickly raise over 10 million US dollars in crowdfunding; the 11-year accumulation in the consumable supply chain gives HeyGears the confidence to set a price that competitors cannot easily match.

Nevertheless, the 10 million US dollar crowdfunding amount only represents purchase intentions. Whether the printing speed, finished product delivery and consumable cost of the HeyGears G1 can meet the promotion claims still needs to be verified after the first batch of devices are delivered to users.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Baijing App" (ID: baijingapp), Author: Lainya, Editor: YIN Guanxiao, published with authorization from 36Kr.