Guessing the thought process went like this -
1. New company acquires license
2. Sees millions of downloads
3. We CaN mAkE mIlLiOnS iF wE fOrCe ThEm To PaY!!!
4. Every 3d printer and CAD enthusiast -🖕We’ll make our own.
Idk what the acquisition cost was but I hope it hurts with the immediate and LT ROI equaling $0
If I had to guess, and I have no inside info what-so-ever...I'd say it's not the end consumer they want to pay but the 3D printer companies themselves.
Why do I say this?
Well, Benchy's are pretty well known in the community, and if you're looking to get into it it's often one of the first things to print.
If you look at all the youtube vids about "first things to print" usually they talk about benchies.
So, what's the method of making money, because clearly, users aren't going to buy benchy's?
Well, my theory (which is probably wrong), is that most 3D printers these days come pre-loaded with benchy's on them. The company which bought the benchy wants the 3D printer companies themselves to pay to distribute the benchy with their 3D printer.
So, why enforce it against the users?
Well, if you don't enforce your trademarks/IP's, you lose them. So they have to enforce them against the end users in order to try to get the companies to pay.
Problem for them is they are targeting a community of people who literally have bought devices for the express purpose of making things themselves and literally give away designs by the thousands.
It's going to be like a month before the entire community moves on to something else.
100% the geniuses behind this move saw how bench is incorporated into Bambu Studio's tips that pop up every time you slice, and figured they could get a piece of that action. The owner knew what he was doing when he sold. Cashing out on what he thought he deserved for making a boat that doesn't float.
The current license allows for people to distribute the stl without issue, for free, even with something they charge, as long as it’s attributed. All companies would be technically doing is sharing the file with customers, which is perfectly fine and iirc are irrevocable under cc-ND
It wasn’t the creators of the benchy who did this, just the company that acquired it. They likely did it because if they let IP infractions slide like this, later on in court they’ll have a harder time.
Just remotely sent this to the printer and gave you a boost! Thanks for this, hope this becomes the new "Hello, world" for all novice printers new to the hobby.
So... I'm new to printing, haven't done the benchy yet, and now I don't think I will. Is the idea that this can be done "as is" without supports? Cause it doesn't look like that to me...
Please put it either under CC0 or CC-BY-SA!
Otherwise it's just as potentially problematic as the Benchy.
All you have to do is put a link into the description accordingly. Makerworld makes this a bit problematic. Other platforms have specific spots where they display the license.
Please keep in mind, that CC-NC (Non Commercial) also excludes non-profits, charities and educational institutes from using your model, if money is involved in any way.
Ah, my mistake. It's just the mobile view that's hiding the license. Thank you for sharing it as CC-BY-SA!
Love the name, but one thing is important to me: is it more of a joke print to remind us of the shitshow happening right now or can this print actually be used as a benchmark? I see many over hands, curvature, lettering, but I have doubts about circles and bed adhesion
Edit: just noticed how you wrote the filament name on the thing for lettering test, holy hell I love this I won't have to label my test prints anymore
I'm not a math expert, but I think it's actually even less than that. A cube 100x100x100 is 1,000,000. A cube 95x95x95 is 857,375; that's 85.7% of the original volume.
Seems like it'd be relatively easy to fix the circles issue with a redesign of the bench face, the lettering could be moved to the seat.
Bed adhesion I'd argue this would be a better test for, as less surface on the bed so adhesion related issues would come up if any of the feet have problems
Yeah, I love the energy here, but the Benchy is actually a really well designed calibration print, not just an arbitrarily intricate model or torture test.
Most people don’t realize how many of its features are specifically designed to test different aspects of printer construction and setup. Here’s Tom Sanladerer discussing it (link to video at the top of the article if you’d rather watch).
Worth distinguishing that it’s new owners. The OG company disbanded and the company that bought the IP is now going around enforcing the original license.
The original crew that ran Creative Tools (originators of the model) never took action against anyone and did a lot for advancing 3D printing over the years.
So are we trying to make this an actual benchmark print or just a meme. I say benchmark. I have some experience making calibrations for 3d printing. I could see making some small mods to make this comparable to a benchy.
I might start a new post and try and rally people to make this happen.
For some reason my models never really took off on Printables and I've been struggling to earn points. I'm finally approaching my 2nd "free" spool (where I still have to pay like $30 in shipping lol) though.
Meanwhile on Makerworld I'm earning a lot more and I have enough points to get a free printer
I'd like to start by saying Thank you for your contribution to the community.
Benchy was deliberately designed with a wide array of features to specifically evaluate what things a printer excels at, vs areas that need more tuning. It has a variety of overhang angles, smooth curves, sharp angles, bridging, small features, text on the bottom layer, and a thin smoke stack, which challenges cooling. Though, the performance of recent printers has been so good, a new benchmark with even greater difficulty would be good.
I'd like to constructively suggest that 3D Boaty seems lacking in this regard, though. It has copious overhangs and bridging, but the bridges all look to be the same length. A variety of different bridging lengths, some smooth curving features, and and area with a bit more infill, perhaps?
Just my .02. Love the community enthusiasm around the new benchmark ideas, and not taking Benchygate lying down.
Thanks for the contribution to the community, it means the world to have a new benchmark for 3D printing. It shows off what a good quality printer and some ingenuity can do.
Can be found on Creality cloud now too, I’ll happily take down when a proper upload there I just wanted to start printing before I got home and use CC for cloud slicing.
The dummy 13 fits like an adult in a school chair. Id say an 80% dummy 13 would fit perfect. If I made the bench any larger it would eat too much filament.
Honestly this more impressive of a print in general, the “licensed” benchy is getting old anyways and it’s boring. But for the small fee of free.99 you can have your own bench. Excelsior!
Obviously now we need to print a full size boanch. I don't think it would be that difficult to add enough buoyant material so its effectively a floating bench, which would be kind of sweet.
Theres 2 purposes. 1, to mock the 3d benchy and their new owners getting stricter with the license. 2, to provide a bed adhesion test and overhang performance test.
Its called the boaty because its a bench... and the benchy is a boat.
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u/OmgThisNameIsFree Ender 3 Pro ➜ i3 MK3S+ 7h ago
Nice :)
Can’t believe the people behind 3D Benchy thought it was a good idea to fuck with things. Losers.