For me it feels the polar opposite (ify ou mean with consumer space prebuild 3d-printer it would be a low):

• For the hobby price class, there are better parts than ever to choose from e.g. Orbiter v3 extruder, bacon bed leveling probe, Klipper + Mainsail, good budget linear rails, affordable high thread angle ballscrews, low-cost servos (e.g. JMC motor) and so on.
• projects like the ERCF seeing a big push in popularity
• ToolChanger is on the verge of being mainstream (slicer & firmware support is getting better) [jubilee printer, Voron mods, RatRig vcore mod, Prusa XL, …)
• significant attention to push beyond classic FDM/molten plastic

None of this will be at FormNext this year as it is a business. It isn’t an enthusiast/hobby convention like RMRRF. Maybe in three years, it could be in the first commercial consumer 1machines.

But- the market has left them behind. XL is a great idea but awfully expensive and maybe not perfectly implemented.

E3D toolchanger launch price in 2019 was 2700 GBP. Adjusted for inflation it is in today’s money 3300 GBP (approx. 3900€). A Prusa XL is 3700€. For toolchangers the Prusa price isn’t out of the ordinary.

The issue is the performance/reliability isn’t there to back this price point. Having to worry about printed parts bending on a 3.7k€ machine is laughable. Having issues with a heatbed is laughable. Support having trouble resolving these issues/identifying what exactly is broken isn’t a great overall picture.

here you go: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6595547 Likely a old version with 0.4mm clearance that does work. If not message me and I could send you a later revision with 0.23mm that definitly works.

How does it work?

one direction: pretty obvious the spring bends out, the teeth pass through the other direction: the spring gets slightly pulled/stretched (the leading tip of the teeth pushes it) which causes the tip to be pushed against the block (left in the picture) and blocking the mechanism.

In other words, this mechanism works by having a physical path for the compression of the spring but in the opposite direction when would need to stretch to move pass the teeth it is stopped by a wall/block.

The teeth is indeed a critical aspect. It has to be symmetrical as this assembly is mirrored to block the rotation in the other direction.

An alternative to this would be printing the spring with the contact surface separately and inserting it into this print (pause at layer height, insert part, continue print) allowing other geometries (that would overlap with the teeth if printed in place) and pretension. The downside is it’s a manual task and one more separate part to keep track of.

This is small and the tolerances of the center hub cause the teeths/“gear” to move approx. 0.3-0.5mm of centre. This means what you see in the CAD/slicer isn’t how it will look once printed. I had to narrow the gap down as much as I could to get the largest contact area. If you make it a sled on one side there is less material/surface area.

A further consequence is that the tip of it doesn’t touch anything as such you could remove the very tip to adjust the sound signature. The feeling is slightly changed but primarily this replaced the high-pitched plastic sound with a deep tone.

The nice aspect is that in the blocking position, it is a solid connection meaning it can take as much load as the teeth (tip) can support (hence the trying to maximize the contact area there). The spring element is only there to return this blocking “bolt” into position after a teeth passes through.

They used 1 resistor for CC1 and CC2. The fix and correct implementation was to use one resistor per CC-line (two in total).

The issue was they didn’t direct the stock to the industry. They directed the stock to large customers and the small companies had no inventory at all for years or were squeezed (by the market) to the limit with a Pi4 going for $200 and more instead of $50.

The Pi CEO already went out in an interview and was like we did the right thing and would do it again. As such it was pathetic (to me) when they launched the Pi5 and were like community first. To be honest, they probably know that they need initial community support/software packages to sell it to their primary customer: Big companies.

I agree that the 3B+ was the best Pi but for other reasons:

• The Pi 3B+ had the perfect balance between performance and price with the performance being good enough at the time.
• Design flaws at launch. Remember the Pi4 CC1 & CC2? POE getting pulled from the market?
• Pi5: 5V 5A USB-C??? There is now 45W USB-PD (@15V) that would be compatible with generic PSUs but they went proprietary with 5A@5V.
• They put big customers first and let everybody else starve during the shortage. This forced me to alternatives and I have to say they work just as good and cost less.
• Jacking up retail prices: Even Intel x86 is now cheaper than a Raspberry Pi.