Stratasys – the creator of the most popular FDM additive method, is also one of the longest-operating companies on the market, whose origins date back to 1989. Over 34 years of operation, Stratasys has acquired one of the largest portfolios of industrial 3D printers in the industry, and many machines have been operating in the customer environment for a good dozen or so years. Unfortunately, this puts a certain burden on the manufacturer, who must maintain technical support for devices that have been no longer on sale for many years. Therefore, every few years it makes a difficult but necessary decision for users to stop servicing “old” 3D printers – which will happen at the beginning of next year.
In February 2024, Stratasys will discontinue support, service and replacement parts for seven FDM 3D printer models: mojo 3D Printer, Dimension BST 1200es 3D Printer, Dimension SST 1200es 3D Printer, Dimension Elite 3D Printer, Fortus 250mc System, uPrint SE 3D Printer, uPrint SE Plus 3D Printer. At the same time, the company announced that it will continue to sell materials for uPrint and Fortus 250 3D printers, but this will involve a noticeable price increase.
Most of the above-mentioned 3D printers were created either in the second half of the 1900s or in the early 1910s, i.e. before the domination of cheap, amateur and desktop devices from MakerBot, Ultimaker or Prussia. For example, the now forgotten mojo model was a commercially unsuccessful attempt to compete with MakerBot and Ultimaker on the desktop market. The device offered a working area of only 127 x 127 x 127 mm, but it cost as much as $9,900 – a multiple of the structurally simpler MakerBot Replicator 2 or Ultimaker Original or Ultimaker 2.
On the other hand, industrial 3D printers from the Dimension series are still in operation today, still offering quite good print quality and operational reliability. To appreciate the class of these devices, it should be mentioned that the first models of these 3D printers were introduced to the market in early 2002 at a price of $29,900. Dimension 3D printers worked mainly with ABS and were structurally based on an earlier model – Prodigy.
Source: www.fabbaloo.com