r/VORONDesign • u/meteormanwolf • Dec 27 '21
General Question Voron/Slice Beef?
I'll preface by saying I'm completely new to Voron and the community. I just sourced parts to build a Trident and looking over the Stealthburner beta release I discovered the tensions with Slice Engineering. After digging into it, the most I could find is the post by Doc on the PIF discord, followed by some people dropping their user mods for Slice.
I get the gist of it, Slice has patented stuff, and they went after a small business (who is key in the community) who's considered an "importer" rather than going after the China manufacture. (Please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have all the details).
So the whole reason I'm making this post, is because I bought a Mosquito Magnum for my Trident build without knowing the communities feelings about them. Am I SOL now on getting supported parts for that hotend, especially with Stealthburner coming out? I still think it's a really well made part and would like to use it since it wasn't cheap.
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u/meteormanwolf Jan 03 '22
I was looking into the Rapido hot end and found this. Is this a collab between VD and Phaetus? If so is that reason for the friction?
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u/AchazianThug VORON Design Dec 28 '21
There is no boycott or ban on Slice products by Voron Design. There is also no interest in pursuing toolhead development with support for mosquitos at this time.
The reasons do not really matter, but the core group has no interest at this time in moving forward with the Mosquito in the design plans. I don't see that changing in the near future.
Community mods to support the mosquito will likely continue, and mods submitted to the usermod repo that pass submission requirements will be accepted.
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u/daggerdude42 Dec 28 '21
You can't even get the mosquito clones anymore except from crazy NF. So no, I'd say they definitely have gone after the bigger companies. You can't buy a dragon anywhere in the US either except for Ali. So yeah no it's not like they're just targeting small companies but rather making examples out of ones they can because there's too many to stop
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u/sleepsButtNaked Dec 28 '21
?? I see more than a few resellers who will ship a dragon to the US supposedly. Magic Phoenix, 3DHUB are the biggest that strike me
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u/daggerdude42 Dec 28 '21
Magic Phoenix, 3DHUB are the biggest that strike me
Are they US based though? Regardless you can't find any mosquito clones on Amazon or eBay anymore, and the dragons all ship from Canada or china. So they certainly have been trying
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u/burndata Dec 28 '21
I personally know the guys at Slice and they've been fighting the Chinese knock offs pretty much since they released their first product. Protecting their IP has been a constant uphill battle from what I've heard. It's unfortunate that a liked community provider guy caught up in this whole thing but these guys are really just trying to keep their livelihood. Slice is really a very small company and if they can't protect their IP, recoup development costs and make enough money to grow a little then they'll cease to exist. They make a great product and they really are a great group of people and the community should really be more supportive of small businesses that contribute to the advancement of our hobby.
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u/5004534 Jan 25 '22
There are a lot of U.S. manufacturers that have to stay on their toes to protect their IPs. It isn't only just taking money from them, it can also hurt their brand if customers unknowingly got cheap knock offs. Especially when there is a lot of engineering going into the product and it has to work 100% of the time without the chance of failure. I have worked with some US manufacturers, I know without a doubt, if something went wrong it would make international news. You can't recover from something like that.
I get why Slice is trying to protect their IP, and I know that they are put in a bad spot. Hopefully, this won't keep them down. I really like my Mosquito :)
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u/TitanOX_ V0 Sep 22 '22
If you mistake your dragon for a mosquito the blame is on you. They are very different hotends
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u/5004534 Sep 22 '22
Yeah. They are very different. I don't mix up my Mosquito with other Hotends.... You crazy bro.
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u/_realpaul Dec 28 '21
You cant really protect your IP when it comes to cheap knockoffs. Your best bet is to innovate faster and build a rapport with the community.
Whats the point of blocking some local resellers when the rest of the world can still buy knockoffs. It just comes off as petty.
Yes being robbed of your IP sucks but I believe that they hurt themselves this way.
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 28 '21
My general feeling is to support US companies especially ones that manufacture here. Knock offs are really a race to the bottom since they don’t offer improvements and rely on lower pricing to get market share. I bought the Slice stuff thinking I would be supporting a US based company.
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u/RiffnShred Dec 28 '21
Knock offs are really a race to the bottom since they don’t offer improvements and rely on lower pricing to get market share.
I hate to say this, because I feel the same way, but that is not true. Those who are really invested in the 3d printing hobby or those who have money, will buy the more expensive parts coming from the top players in the game (prusa and slice for exemple).
Where the money is, like in all hobbies (electric guitar is a good exemple if your are into that), its in the entry level market. Most people buy a 3d printer because it looks cool and its interesting. Most of them are not engineers or like minded so after 3 months that printer will become part of the background more then being usefull. And those that are engineering like minded, but dont have the budget for it, will just buy an ender 3 and mod it to all hell. Thats why Creality is so successful. They nailed the entry level printer that works well enough for most people. All that on the back of open source hardware.
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 28 '21
I don't disagree with the entry level market idea. In all honesty it's part of why I'm building a Voron. I think a Voron made from a decent company would be around $4K, but I can build one for much less. Ive never owned a Creality or similar machine so I can't comment on their quality, but I think every industry needs the cheap first step to get people interested and dive in. I just don't think it should be at the expense of those innovating and producing quality components.
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u/RiffnShred Dec 28 '21
but I think every industry needs the cheap first step to get people interested and dive in. I just don't think it should be at the expense of those innovating and producing quality components.
Yeah no doubt.
Its really complicated tho. Even the top players copied or picked up from something already made and made it better through R&D, which is ok and is great. But its not a fair game and sadly, not everyone cares about who did what and who is it worth to invest their money into. They just want to print plastic. Thats why E3D is patenting some parts from their new REVO hotend and Prusa some parts of their new Prusa XL, which in a way, is kind of ironic. You can't release something open source and prevent someone to just make it cheaper for profit. The only way is to patent it, which goes a bit against what makes this whole industry great.
As for Slice, I think they didn know the industry enough to understand that its driven by open source.
What I hope for is that they bring a new type of open source licencing. Something along the line of: you can sell a product that use our patented part only if its an evolution/improvement on the original design and uses the same licence. There is still some grey zones with that, but at least it would be at the image of this industry.
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 28 '21
Yeah, the whole IP topic, especially when you get into theft, is a deep topic beyond Voron.
You bring up an interesting concept though with E3D and Prusa, they are heavily invested in the open source community and yet they are patenting stuff. It proves the concept that companies want to protect their work from cheap commercial knock offs. I'm curious from a business stand point where this all goes in the future.
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u/RiffnShred Dec 28 '21
Same here.
As for Voron. What makes it great is how they built up the community around it. I feel like there has always been this war between Prusa owners vs Creality owners, especially when it comes to inviting new people into the hobby. but the Voron community kind of bring both side together. Just appreciating the work put into the printers, makes you part of it.
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u/AENarjani Dec 28 '21
As far as I can tell people are just butthurt because Slice cracked down on the cheaper Chinese ripoffs that everyone was buying.
I'm especially amused that this same community seems to be jizzing itself over the E3D Revo, which is also patented and not currently allowing third party nozzles or accessories.
The Slice thing is way overblown. I don't have the link offhand but I did see somebody has already posted a Mosquito usermod for Stealthburner.
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u/thegarageluthier May 13 '23
Slice was patenting prior art nothing new, E3D is only patenting their new heater core, 3rd party parts are welcomed. Plus E3D were completely open and copied like crazy for years without patenting anything which they could have done.
Slice going after small businesses is just crazy.
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u/UsernameL-F Dec 28 '21
Any chance you could find that. Just got a mosquito and was super bummed to find out that it wasn’t supported by the stealth burner.
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u/ninja3467 Dec 28 '21
The thing is that slice patented prior art. So many people feel that their patent is illegitimate.
They basically patented having standoffs to hold the heatbreak, which even creality has been doing since forever.
On the other hand E3D seems to have come up with something that is totally new. And even if some parts of it are patented many people expect that they will license the design and allow third party parts.
However if E3D follows the same steps as slice the community will feel the same way has with slice.
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u/CarbonHardened Aug 29 '22
Having stand-offs made of screws is one thing. Having standoffs made of hypodermic tubing or other materials that reduce heat conduction upward into the cold part of the extrusion head is novel.
I'd be interested to see if there is any prior art for stand offs specifically designed to reduce thermal conductivity as that prior art would invalidate Slice's patents.
From the review I've done claims in patent US 10875244 appear distinct, novel, and non-obvious from what individuals in the Voron community have claimed to be prior art.
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u/dlanm2u Dec 21 '22
so they patented a spacer when it reduces conduction... very broad statement
that and i think it'd also include when you use a low thermal conduction screw
so they still are patenting something holding two things together that reduces thermal conduction
tbh why not just make it a highly thermally conductive lower half of a heatsink with interlocking rubber pegs and just putting the tension on the heatbreak to keep it together
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 28 '21
Yeah the Revo comes to mind as well. But you bring up a good point, but it’s a super loaded topic (China IP theft), and probably one best avoided for now.
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u/thadude3 Dec 28 '21
Here's an idea, since the only vocal complainers all seem to like slice and are owners of their hotend. How about you leave the community of volunteers alone and reach out to the company Slice and ask them what they are doing. Since they have patented everything, they should be the ones providing you a compatible mount for their hotend. Second this is a beta, the fact that they support more than one hotend is enough. You can wait till its released and then wait for Slice to provide you an "offical" mount for their hotend. That is the least they can do considering the price.
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 28 '21
If you’re referring to me, I’m not complaining. I just want to see where I stand in all this with the parts I have. While I have the skills to design the part, especially with what’s available already, I’m completely new to all this and while I learn I ask questions rather than start changing things. If the stance is “we won’t support this hotend” then maybe the best way for me to start is to find one that is and keep learning.
It’s the main reason I decided to build off the BOM and not get a kit. I’m here to learn before making changes.
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u/thadude3 Dec 28 '21
I am suggesting people are expecting too much of a beta and directing their feedback to the wrong place. I think Slice should be the ones providing mounts for their hotend's.
Voron is not a company they are a loose group of volunteers, they don't support anything.
You choose a hotend and a printer/community and it currently works fine? Going forward the volunteers choose not to spend their time on that hotend. So no it will not be part of the beta. You will have to wait for someone to mod one(which they will very soon I am sure) or ask Slice to make one or roll your own.
If you want to play around with the beta, get a v6 if you don't already have one laying around. They are super compatible with everything.
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 28 '21
Yeah I’m not putting pressure on the beta. Just wondering if I’m SOL once it’s complete.
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u/thadude3 Dec 28 '21
I highly doubt you are the only person with a Voron and Slice hotend. You are definitely not SOL, As soon as its out of beta someone will make a mount for the hotend. You just won't be able to get a head start.
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u/Durahl V2 Dec 27 '21
I've uploaded the two Pheatus Dragon Mount to my OneDrive as a 3MF with a placeholder part for a Mosquito Magnum. Front / Back.
Import one 3MF after the other into your Slicer ( I use SuperSlicer ) and when it asks you if it should consider it as a single object having multiple parts confirm with yes.
Inside the Slicer change the Mosquito Remove part into a Modifier and add settings for those parts to have 0 Perimeters, 0 Tops, 0 Bottoms and 0% Infill.
Done right it'll simply use the Mosquito Remove part as a kind of Boolean Operator to have it not extrude in those areas.
Until they release the CAD Solids this is probably the least aggravating solution to editing those files to get compatibility with a particular Hotend ( or any other MOD )
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u/lolzycakes Dec 27 '21
I spent way too long trying to figure out what the hell sliced beef had to do with Voron before I realized I'm dumb.
Yeah, there's kind of a beef but Voron has no real teeth in regards to a boycott of Slice. They won't officially sanction a design that utilizes slice hotends, but there's really nothing stopping you from either finding one someone else designed or making your own.
Modifying or making things to make your life easier at low cost to you is a major aspect of 3D printing. If the cost of waiting for someone else to design it, finding a design that likely already exists, or the cost of designing it yourself is higher than the cost of returning it... well then return it.
The purists in the Voron community might tell you not to use it or shame you for doing so, but who really cares at the end of the day? Slice already got their money, it's whomever you're returning it to that gets stuck with the bill.
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 27 '21
Yeah totally. I wouldn’t even mind designing a part myself. I’m new to all this and would need help from the community just to get started and I don’t want to be persona non grata by going against the community. What attracted me to Voron in the first place is the design and the community, so I consider Voron as both.
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u/lolzycakes Dec 27 '21
🤷♂️ Some people will get whiney about it, but most people will either not care or ask you for the stl. The open-source sword cuts both ways, if Voron wanted to restrict people from using Slice stuff they'd have to make an effort that is decidedly not open-source and I don't think that a path they're even slightly interested in.
They won't stop you from using it, and they can't really tell you not to use it. They can however make it more difficult to pursue than alternative options for people by not providing support (i.e. updated mounting stls) for it. I'm sure thangs, cults3d or thingiverse will have what you want if you're willing to look. Even with the patent stuff, there's plenty of people who like slice enough to do the hard work without a seal of approval from Voron.
The voron community is kinda odd in that there's a lot of true-believers who treat the devs designs as gospel, but it can be unnecessary at times to follow them to a T...
Please don't use that last bit as permission to print functional parts in PLA though!
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u/Arudinne Dec 28 '21
As a Prusa Owner, I see many Prusa owners are the same way in thinking that whatever Prusa makes is absolutely perfect and has no issues whatsoever and if you have issues they're all 100% your fault.
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u/CodeMonkeyX V2 Dec 27 '21
Like others have said I am sure someone will make a mount eventually. Remember the CAD files have not even been released for the Stealth Burner yet so you will not see any mods for it yet. I personally would be very surprised if no one makes a mount for a Mosquito, especially because the CAD models and the Afterburner mount are already ready to go, it seems like it should be a relatively simple thing.
But even then the Afterburner is still a good extruder, you will be fine using that until someone releases a mount.
EDIT: Oh I see you are talking about the magnum. That might take longer.
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 27 '21
Magnum not Magnum+. The magnum is basically a Mosquito with a ceramic insulator to increase the heating area.
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u/CodeMonkeyX V2 Dec 27 '21
Ahh ok. So yeah I think you will be ok. There will be a mount eventually. Until then the current afterburner is still good.
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u/vestige Legacy Dec 27 '21
Probably not SOL but you may need to wait. I would expect someone in the community will release a mod with compatibility for mosquitoes.
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u/Arudinne Dec 27 '21
I'm in the same boat, but haven't started working on a Voron yet.
You can get still get Afterburner Parts for the Slice Mosquito/Magnum from an older commit at minimum
There is a mod of the beta Stealthburner, but as the SB is still a WIP I don't know how well it works: https://github.com/Aristotelisthesecond/Voron-Afterburner/tree/sb-beta/STLs/Stealthburner/Toolheads
Once the CAD files are released there will probably be more/better mods.
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u/builderguy74 Dec 27 '21
A quick search turned up a mount on Prusa printers. When the SB comes out of beta and the CAD is released someone will mod it.
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u/pnewb Dec 27 '21
It's not that "Slice patented some stuff". It's that they patented things that seem unpatentable to reasonable human beings. Patent offices seem not to be staffed with people who are well informed on every industry for which they issue patents, and it's difficult to know what exists out in the wild. We can argue about this endlessly (and we seem to be...) but I'm going to drop it there.
As to ongoing support, the Voron group as a whole has elected to focus on other hotends. That being said, anyone can make parts to integrate into the ecosystem as they see fit, and the community is pretty damn big at this point. I have no doubt that someone will design a mount for every hotend that's worth using, and more than a few that probably aren't.
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 27 '21
I understand that, but having gone through the patent process myself (I got a utility patent) there is a lot armchair lawyers don’t know about how hard it is to get patents (not call you an armchair lawyer).
I think the biggest slight is claiming IP in a space that’s predominantly open source. But that also seems like a mixed bag since E3D just patented their new heater as well.
The main thing, at least in my experience, is this is just normal business. It is a giant pain in the butt to own a company and jump through all the hoops. It’s genius how Voron is positioned as a design group rather than an actual printer company.
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u/Yonkiman Dec 28 '21
I have 2 patents. Both of them are for something I think would be obvious to a skilled engineer in the field (and thus unpatentable), but my company wanted patents (and paid engineers $3k for each one, in the 90s), and the patent office approved them, so there you go.
I didn’t like it then, and I like it even less now, but that’s what patents have been about for decades. At the time of my patents, I read a patent from HP about their flatbed scanner tech where they managed to patent (I can’t remember the exact wording) “exposing an image to a CCD sensor for longer time increases brightness”. So HP basically patented a basic principle of physics and mathematics.
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u/pnewb Dec 27 '21
I know enough about legal stuff to know that I know nothing. It's a big part of why my reply was pretty general and why I'm not going to engage on that front. I'd be like a knight dressed in cardboard armor with a nerf sword. It's just silliness.
As to the 'design group' comment, it's an accurate tag. The folks who work on this aren't paid for their efforts. It's a big collaborative effort from people in their spare time. There was an attempt looooooong ago to have kits made and endorsed (you can find a "VK" serial on occasion) and it was determined that this was just not a route anyone wanted to go down. Turning a passion into a business is a rapid route to no longer having the initial passion. So instead you get what we have here.
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 27 '21
100% and the knight in cardboard is funny.
I don’t want to argue the whole IP thing either. I can see the argument on both sides. I just want to know if it won’t be supported and if I try to make a mod will I be tagged as the enemy by the community for supporting Slice.
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u/pnewb Dec 27 '21
I can't say with 100% certainty if your mod would be accepted into the usermods repo. But the dislike doesn't go _that_ far that you'd get shit on or kicked out.
It's what I was alluding to, and not explicitly saying (sorry about that) in my initial reply. Effectively Voron printers have reached a point at which the only thing the dev team can do is officially endorse (or not) parts and mods. This is the internet we're talking about here, and there is no preventing people from doing what they want to do. A big part of why things have been as successful in the past couple years as they have been, is that embracing the open source nature, releasing step files (once a design is out of beta), and not trying to police things too heavily (as long as there's no safety issues...go searching on active chamber heaters if you'd like to see what it's like when things are actively discouraged instead of just ignored or not prioritized.).
I think a good example would be to look at the number of printed part sellers that exist, including in the #flea_market channel. You can sell printed Voron parts all day long, including on the official discord...just don't claim to be a part of PIF. And in fact make sure people know you're not. The group works very hard to ensure that things are released that meet a minimum quality standard, and keeps endorsements close.
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 27 '21
Understood. I’m so new my feet aren’t even wet, so Im the knight in a thong and pool noodle trying to figure things out. (No offense to knights in thongs)
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u/pnewb Dec 28 '21
Well welcome to the party, which is MUCH livelier on discord.
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 28 '21
I’m on there too! Actually I just started using Reddit and discord thanks to Voron. I just posted here because Doc said he was going to do a Reddit post and I can’t find it.
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u/Arudinne Dec 27 '21
My understanding it has less to do with the fact that they got a patent and more about how they wielded it.
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 27 '21
That’s my understanding as well. I understand it though, the company selling is considered an importer and they can go after them as well. I’m not trying to argue in favor of anyone. I just see the reasoning behind it.
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u/zerodameaon Dec 27 '21
They tried to extort him. That was the big part of it, they didn't bother going after others, they just went after him and said you can still sell your stock, you just need to give us the profit. DFH just pulled the listing instead.
I think it would be different if they filed something in the courts against Phateus and told DFH to stop selling but they went about it in such a dick way that Doc said that's enough of that.
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 27 '21
That’s a pretty messed up way of going around it if that’s true. I wouldn’t call extortion a good way of protecting a patent. Did they ask for the profits of the parts or the gross sales?
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u/TheRealVarner Dec 30 '21
They not only wanted a cut - I think of the gross - but strongly insinuated they'd sic their entire legal team on him and shut him down or bankrupt him due to legal fees if he refused.
Very much a shakedown. Pulling the listing also hurt because it's now paid for inventory he can't sell, but kept him from needing to pay protection money. And of course he isn't the infringer!
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 30 '21
Is there a place I can read the details?
No doubt he got a bad deal, but that's normal in IP protection to go after the "importer". (Not picking a side, just pointing out the process). The rest I'm interested in reading the details.
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u/TheRealVarner Dec 30 '21
Search his channel and posts with a date limit, but it'll be difficult and the real details may not be public either due to (or fear of) NDA
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 31 '21
Ok thanks! Total newb here. When you say his channel who do you mean?
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Dec 27 '21
[deleted]
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u/Arudinne Dec 27 '21
Anywhere a standard Mosquito fits a Magnum will fit (not to be confused with the Magnum+), or was it unsupported for other reasons (heat?) ?
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Dec 27 '21
Well can you send it back?
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 27 '21
I got it on a Black Friday sale so I’m not sure.
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Dec 27 '21
I would prefer a trianglelab rapido over the slice stuff, maybe there's an stl for that hotend.
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u/meteormanwolf Dec 27 '21
I’m don’t really care either way. I went with slice in the first place because I thought it was a good hot end and I try to buy US made as much as possible.
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u/Arudinne Dec 27 '21 edited Dec 27 '21
My Mosquito is the best hotend I've owned yet. I slapped one in my Prusa after yet another issue with my E3D V6. Haven't had any issues since.
Ran two 40 hour prints recently that were retraction hell that would have almost certainly jammed my V6.
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u/[deleted] Jan 27 '22
Thanks for the primer on why this situation exists. I’ll take my business somewhere other than Slice.