Failed Kickstarter LIVES AGAIN! - Reviewing the TIKO  

Cheers to northprint3d.ca/ for accepting the generous trade offer of a real functioning printer to for....this thing....

Wow, printer tech has improved so much in just 8 years. All because of some patents that blocked what we now see as basic designs expiring.

Man, I feel like I gotta drop my "Peachy Printer" card here. Back in 2013 Peachy printer was the $100 resin printer Kickstarter that was up to the point that they had the PCBs, Lasers, and most everything else on hand, ready to go into production when the accountant revealed they were out of money. He "borrowed" $300,000 to build a house, then was going to take out a mortgage to repay it but ran into problems with the construction. They were already super over extended with extra funding rounds and the super low cost of the printed, the whole thing just fell apart. There are a handful of prototypes out there, and possibly a storage unit full of PCBs somewhere of what could have been a cutting edge dirt cheap early gen resin printer. But that would now just about be E-waste by modern decade later resin printing standards.

You forgot to mention the flexible lid/bed. It's not perfect but it was a flexible bed that was much less annoying than the painter's tape and hair spray on my other machine!

Thanks for the history lesson! I'm off to find a new printer on Kickstarter!

I backed this. Could tell it wasn't going well by the updates, so I sold my order to someone looking for one.

[Achievement unlocked] Maximum MEMEness. Bravo sir.

I just threw mine out a few months ago when I moved. I still have a partial roll of the included filament and spool. One of the few kickstarters that delivered.

The first big Kickstarter 3D printer was the original Printrbot. Maybe it was at a smaller scale than the Tiko, but at the time it was considered a big deal in terms of the size of the campaign.

OH MY GOSH. One of 3 Kickstarter 3d Printers that I backed that failed. Brought back some tears. At least someone got theirs. Would have been my first Delta but ended up being the FLSuns many years later. Have to admit, they were on to something (the UI and the simplicity - even being able to load an STL on the browser) but basic slicing which would have been quite an achievement in itself.

It seems like a well-intentioned, but naïve, attempt to bring 3D printing to the masses. I suspect like so many Kickstarter campaigns the team was lacking in real product development, program management. and mass production experience.

next time: a peachy printer 🎉

I was actually one of the few that did receive their Tiko. It really was a neat idea, but definitely printed horribly. I was able to get out the top spool roller adapter for full size spools out of it though.

I saw that very Tiko at MRRF and I was fascinated! Especially by how crazy-small the hot end is. I was longing for a look up inside... EDIT: I also have to say that this thing strikes me as something of a triumph of product design, even if the overall enterprise tanked. There are many "ifs" around reliability, quality, etc., but as an all-in-one unit that looks good, appears to require little setup or user expertise, is probably *stupid* cheap to manufacture, and at least had some potential -- it seems like something way ahead of its time, and ticks some boxes even the most successful modern printers do not. Part of me wishes it had succeeded enough to see how it would have looked a couple generations later. That said, a hardware startup dependent on large and very accurate injection molded parts is absolutely not where I'd ever put my money, and I'm not surprised at the outcome. I also have grave doubts about the longevity of the motion system. The effector is elegant as heck, though.

I would love to see someone come up with a BOM to revive these using proper rails and rods and whatnot. Probably not worth the money but the body design is so cool

Great video, I'd love to see more like it. I appreciate the meta humor.

polymaker had special pla filament that made it work better in machines with excess heat creep, the old up! printers would abs focused but could print with polymaker pla, so it makes sense the tiko might work better with it.

I think one advantage they would have today is that way more truly off the shelf parts exist for systems like the motion, control boards, extruders, hot ends. Which id imagine would cut down on a lot of the costs.

VERY interesting!!! I didn’t know about the TIKO - thanks for such a deep dive, I loved it!!!

I really like the context/history Intro, !!!!!!!!! I would love to see you put together one of the old printrbot simple kits. like the ones that used sanding drums as pulleys on string. I had/have one, they were just as abosulely cheap as you could ever build a printer with new parts they were still 450$... like that was just as absolutely cheap as you could build a printer at the time. Mine has soo many mods. I was gonna rebuild it into a delta and bought long bearing rods, but a new delta kit with good rails was only 300$ so I never did. It is gonna be absolutely perfect to build into a voron legacy. also if you ever see a m3d promega, itd be fun to see you kackle at how crapy and just crazy over did some things were the complete wrong way. I ended up just scrapping the 1000 dollar crowd funded absolute pos they delivered a year late after designing out all the actual motion components shown in the prototype during the funding campaign.

I so, so wanted the Tiko, but missed the KickStarter! I read every update; Watched all the videos I could find at the time (including JAT.MNs). The idea of a small, quiet, “Living Room Printer” really appealed to me. In hindsight - glad I missed this opportunity! Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

That ceramic hotend was ahead of its time.

Very cool ride in the wayback machine. More historical stuff welcome. Where would they be if they had made it? Hmm

This is a trophy. You made out ahead on the trade!

Huh kinda cool. It would be easy to add auxiliary fans to the lower plastic housing at least. Fun stuff.

Looks like our Jam-Free Technology is relevant again ;)

I bought one of these off eBay a few years ago... Gunna give it another shot after watching this video

I just saw one at Goodwill, I kind of want to get it now. Put it next to my M3D Micro

The TIKO founders were a bunch of university undergrads... they were my classmates with a bit too much bravado. Can't deny that I had a bit of schadenfreude when they folded. Sucks for the backers though.

You should upgrade it, man, that would make for a cool series. 3 linear rails, a decent hotend, klipper, and Bob's your uncle!

I remember wanting to back this on Kickstarter. I ended up getting Flashforge Finder instead, no waiting.

Great video, very interesting and well explained. Love it!

Thanks for making this video- we were early backers and our Tiko is STILL functional in 2024- we use it to print an occasional practical part for our pegboards. (Check out our “using a Tiko 3D printer” video ) we bought a few more over the years for spare parts but haven’t needed to use them. It’s not a good machine, but the whole experience was an interesting one. And it just is super portable and looks cool. Happy Making!

It is amazing how much this acts like the printer and software on the Monoprce mini delta printer V2

Oh wow at least it has a propper wifi 😅

I have 2 units here collecting dust!

I was thinking about the tiko just the other day and thought I'd actually like to have one now that tech is so much better

Mod it. Make a sleeper tiko. Cut of the plastic rails and replace them with proper ones. Take out the electronics, motors and install some nema 14s and a proper board. Then Revo with couple of tiny fans and it will be glorious. :)

Dang. I remember when this KS was up. I was looking at it when I had already purchased a US-made kit (i3-style). My kit had no cooling, the motion system used 100lb fishing line instead of belts, the motors were BEEFY Nema 17s that never got warm, the Z rods were threaded rod, not leadscrews. I was eyeing the Tiko as a possible second printer. I'm so familiar with the minimum layer time given my early experiences with my first printer. Glad those days are over. Neat to see this actually printing, even if it is kind of... not so great.

Super interesting analysis, thanks! Hearing they failed with 3 Millions in their pockets sounded ridiculous at first, until you started talking about injection molding and all the custom software. It's amazing what've come to take for granted.

I have one from the kickstarter. The acrylic on mine broke off from the top piece and this printer has never been used. It broke from just sitting on a shelf. lol

please mod the hell out of it :D i wanna see revo hotend, klipper, new mainboard new toolhead etc :D

I have one of these out in the garage. It printed a few things when it was new, and the features seemed good for the price back then. printhead went down and burned a small divot in the bed. and then later they went out of business. I wasn't aware that it could still print anything. I might have to get it back out for laughs. I wouldn't even attempt to sell this thing to anybody. I have five other printers that actually work.

I remember Watching Jatman's RU-vid channel when this was still being developed and shipped.

I swear I’ve seen this printer before on kickstarter and the review videos got removed off RU-vid cause it didn’t pan out

I actually loved this segment, it would be great if you can review these relics of the past, that was a great job

Love this video ..... I know you prefer the live stuff coz these don't seem to get the high view and I watch them all 💪🏼👍🏼

I bought a TIKO for my son. We received it, but he had so many problems with it jamming etc... He has since moved on to a nice resin 3D printer (once burned).

LMAO at the zooming on the bambulab while speaking about coding the slicer xD. It was really ambitious as you say for a first for this company. And delta printers, not sure if it was the easiest way (and cheaper) way to go. Nice video!

I remember reading about this and thinking wow $179 that's crazy. Well I just got myself a ender 3 for $159, and it's better than my old printrbot metal that took a crap.

Harambe was 2016 not 2015 ;-) To be remembered as the year everything started going downwards.

I am one of the people who got kicked by this project. Backed and never received anything. 😢

The funniest thing is that Tiko xas my first 3d printer on kickstarter. And i just baked for the phrozen arco... And i just canceled it because the unit seems unfinished yet no independent review, barrely answers when we ask technical questions so i prefer wait and pay more than having a not finished product.

RIP Harambe 😢.

I backed the Tiko, and eventually got my money back after I realized that it was going to be a boondoggle. The truth is, they had some clever ideas -- but some of the ideas were really bad. The team was overconfident and lacked the experience to understand manufacturing tolerances and how it was going to affect them. It's interesting you mention the injection molding. They were talking about controlling hot-end temperature not with a thermistor but by measuring the resistance of the heater, thereby not needing a thermistor. That's a remarkably bad idea because the heating element is very non-linear, very unpredictable and given the entire system is going to have a lot of variability in it. I suspect they cut a lot of corners like this to get the price down, and then found that only a small percentage of printers were fully functional because of tolerances. If they were pricing it at 2x the cost to manufacture one, but only 1 in 10 units work, that's not going to work out in the long run. And they had predicated their entire design on these bad decisions -- it was baked into the design, it's not something someone could have gone back and easily fixed.

10 likes smash that button .................suprised it works

Sounds like the fiasco with PLYBOT!

Impressive COST engineering tho! These days if you had the moulds still etc. to make the case precisely you could probably crank out these for like 25$ a pop and sell for 75-100$ for good profit.

Makibot, playbot( if you can get one of the prototypes) and IVI ( that solved some problems of tyko and all the same failed)

Not just "never really delivered", the criminal beharior of those guys at the end cured me of ever supporting a Kickstarter again.

I backed it back then.😂😅

Rig up a 12v fan for part cooling and see how it does.

Ahh, who else didn’t learn their lessons on this and then backed the IVI?

I was excited to get a tiko and was surprised that it was that long ago. I never backed it because in 2016 I found a printer for $500 but it's hard to say if tiko would have succeeded. On one hand it would be a lot cheaper for them to make the printer but considering a decent printer cost less than $400 I doubt that the price point would be as big as a selling point. So it's hard to say.

I really enjoyed this video

You have to do it, do a speedbenchy

What about a nice review of the Kickstarter Kodama obsidian? Ah yes one problem. They never existed. $1.6 million and no printers to buy swap steal or review as they never existed. Other than a couple of demo printers that were lent out to youtubers and had to be returned. So these printers, assuming there were two cost over $800,000 each. Bit pricey. No kickstarter again for me I learned my lesson. Have a Bambulab X1C not from kickstarter waited for the retail units. Trashy printer you have there. Wonder how many of the backers got one? Single figures? Kickstarter is not for me regardless of what they promise/propose. Enjoyed your video though.

yeah thats what you need to do like intro its funny

What I find entertaining is simply... 3d printing is exploding for prototyping and limited production runs for parts exactly like the Tiko one piece frame... The 1 piece molded plastic is the perfect shape to be printed STANDING on a 3d printer for costs equal to or lower then injection moldered per part on mass production... .With only the cost of the printers, not the cost of the mold... Post processing could include simply running it over a heated frame that runs along the rails to heat and smooth them over so they are smooth like a molded part. or Inserting Iron/aluminum rails... Both are rather cheap options. To sum it up 3d printer startup fails to use 3d printed parts to save costs but opts for injection molded and goes broke.

Lol tiko is the printer i baked to go into 3d printing... After that fail i bought a prusa mk2s... 1000 euros... Not my last 3d printer 😂

Can you please make a video on using a laptop for klipper instead of a pi? I am trying to do it right now and am struggling. Start to finish. with the price of PI's these days it definitely helps with e waste just using an old laptop

Want buy another Tiko? mine did work before i boxed back into its shipping box.

It's like IVI

I think you own in the trade

you broke my heart. "I was an investor"

I don’t know if this would be a cool video like yeah but maybe rebuild a new body face lives in 3-D print body

Find another one please, rip it open, I know you know how to do it without destroying it, and mod the s..t out of it to make a real printer

Can it print upside down?

Go find an Obsidian next... I wanna know what my money didn't buy!

6:11 Your voice did tho

Bruh, you really need a cat in your videos.

3 million $ for this piece of sh1t? Wow people will buy anything with the right marketing I guess

Cooling - just cut a hole and attach a fan LOL.. looks more futuristic from a sci-fi movie.

Nero always makes me laugh

Gonna just slap us in the face with memory of Harambe being done dirty?