Recap on Snapmaker’s 5th-anniversary Virtual Party! 

Hi makers,

It seems hard to believe, but five years have passed since Snapmaker was established. With that in mind, our fifth anniversary seems like the perfect occasion to take another look at the path we’re walking together. Starting from August with an interactive featured website, a series of online events, and followed by global promotions in September, our 5th-anniversary campaign came to an end at the Virtual Party on October 15, 2021.

Have you attended the party? Did you have a good time? If you haven’t got a chance to join it, replay on YouTube here. Now, let’s go through the event highlights together! 

Warm-up: Greetings From Our Old Friends

Though didn’t get a chance to celebrate the anniversary together in person with our users, channel partners, and media friends this year, we received birthday cheers with video greetings from them and played the video before the Virtual Party got started. Thanks for all the heartfelt wishes!

Meet the Team and Learn About the Stories Behind

In five years, we made it happen from zero to a community of 10000 members, from 733 backers to over 45,000 units sold, from a start-up of only 4 members to nearly 300 staff. How did we make it happen? Rainnie, the Marketing and E-commerce director shared with our audience four unknown stories about Snapmaker.

The Snapmaker Original Team

As you may already know, we started our story on Kickstarter with Snapmaker Original. In March 2017, Snapmaker Original was launched on KS and only took five minutes to reach the initial goal. By the end of the campaign, we successfully raised more than a 2.2million USD and became the most raised project on KS at that time. 

Rainnie began by recalling the story of calling back the machines right before the shipment, which was a hard decision to make. As promised to our backers, the Snapmaker Original was about to ship on September 28, 2017. With only three workers at the assembly line and more than 100 units to be assembled, on the night of September 27, our team stayed up all night to help with the packaging. After working all night long, 140 units were packaged and handed over to the logistics company.

However, at the crucial moment, we found that a few of the brushless motors of the CNC modules failed the aging test, which was completely out of our expectations. The first batch of 120 beta units passed all of the tests and had been packed up for delivery. We have arranged everything well for the delivery of the beta units and tried our best to catch up with the schedule we promised to our backers. After conducting rigorous tests for all samples repeatedly, we expected the standard components should perform as well as the samples.

In this case, calling back all the units that were already in the warehouse meant postponing the delivery and failing our backers. But we decided to cancel the delivery at the last moment to develop a new test plan and replace all the brushless motors and make sure everything works well when they were delivered to our users. 

Jade, Content Operation

Do you remember Jade? She has witnessed the whole process of how Snapmaker Original came to life and delivered to our users. If you have ever got to know or worked with Jade, you would agree that she is a very responsible person. Now she is married and became the mother of a lovely girl!  

As a member of the maker community, she is passionate about Makerathons. No matter when there is a Makerathon, and no matter how busy she is, she is always ready to dedicate herself to the design thinking process. “I just enjoy the process when I can concentrate on turning my ideas into reality and hope you enjoy the Makerathon, too.” Said Jade at the Makerathon kick-off meeting. This is also why we started the Makerathon in 2018. Be a maker. This is the least we should be.”

Noah, Design Director

Before 2019, Noah, our design director, didn’t have experience in shooting a video at all. He majored in software back in university, but later found interest in design and studied on his own for years. To design the Snapmaker 2.0 product video, he chose DJI Mavic 2’s product video for reference. To understand how the product video demonstrates the product features and benefits, he broke down the video into 6 scenarios and 24 sections with length and main points.

Viva, Product Manager, and ID designer

Viva joined Snapmaker in 2020 and was responsible for the Rotary Module project. He redesigned the Module ID with a combination of contemporary art, turning the squire design to a cambered surface that allows users to grab and hold the rotary module more easily and making the headstock more compact and visually aligned with the tailstock. Another detail lies on the top of the rotary headstock. Viva added a groove on the top because the center of gravity is in the upper half and left-of-center of the headstock, which makes it more stable to put it upside down when not in use. 

As Rainnie says at the Virtual Party, “We are thankful that our team is passionate about what we are doing and keeps improving our abilities to do it better. We are also grateful to our users who are supportive from the very beginning and those who just know us and choose to believe we are a trustworthy brand. Thank you! Hope you love the stories!”

User Stories & Our First Brand Video

Inspired by our user stories worldwide, we released our first brand video on October 1, which we have shared with you guys in our previous blog post. The video tells three compelling stories from different perspectives: self-fulfillment, family heritage, and social responsibility. While making the video, we were thinking about how we should convey our brand value. In the end, we put aside all the questions and returned them to our users. 

Many of Snapmaker’s users simply want to bring their ideas to life and try out a new hobby. Some of them even use the machine for their startup businesses. Using the 3-in-1 Snapmaker machine has a slight learning curve, but the process of challenging yourself and making your ideas come true is well worth the challenge. For instance, one of its users, an artist and creative blogger named Stefan, designs exquisite wooden writing instruments with Snapmaker’s 3D printing technology and runs a workshop in Canada.

Our star-maker  Douglas made a special wheelchair for his wife, and a young user made a prosthetic limb for her niece on Children’s Day. Not only is there the love of family members, but we also see the possibility that we can help them in this way. Having the right tools and the motivation to help can bring joy and change lives. Make with meaning, make with love, make something wonderful. 

Free Gifts and Great Deals

What better way to celebrate our 5th-anniversary than with free gifts and great deals? We arranged several giveaway events throughout the Virtual Party. Lucky viewers have won 5th-anniversary gift boxes and free Snapmaker Original. We also offered special discounts for our new products and 5 lucky customers got Free Snapmaker new products valued (secret) over 1,000 USD. Congratulations to the winners!

Special Guest – Nils Rasmusson

We invited Nils, a maker, a technical Youtuber who owns LRN2DIY channel, and a user of Snapmaker as our special guest to share with us his maker experience. It was a pity that some technical issue happened during the Livestream and we had to skip this part. But don’t be disappointed! We conducted an interview with him later so read on to learn how Nils views the relationship between the maker and his tools.

How long have you been a maker and also used Snapmaker?

I have been making all of my life. As a kid, I used to take things apart to understand how they worked and then build my own versions of things. In high school, I built guitars, speakers, and furniture. I have been using Snapmaker for just a couple of years and wish I knew about it earlier.

What are your favorite works and interesting stories with Snapmaker?

Some of my favorite works on the Snapmaker have been the 3D carved pens and pencils using exotic hardwoods and fun powders and infills. You can see the entire process here as it uses the Snpamaker Rotary module and the CNC.

As we all know that you are a technical influencer and most of your works incorporate the elements of life, which has a great influence on Youtube, can you tell us how Snapmaker functions in the course of your making?

As I work through a design, it’s so convenient to be able to create prototypes on the Snapmaker using any of its three functions. For example, I recently purchased a new phone that can use a magnetic snap-on the wallet on the back. I didn’t find any phone cases that went well with it so I purchased a standard case and then was able to use the Snapmaker to cut out the hole for the wallet. At first, I thought I’d see if I could just laser cut it out but the material was too thick and dense so I determined that I would need to use the CNC function to cut it out. Nothing is off-limits.

Nowadays, makers are no longer engineers and technicians. Everyone can be a maker and make something wonderful! The boundary of being a maker has been unleashed. What do you think about it?

I love it! I love that anyone can make just about anything – from design concept to prototype and, in many cases, a finished product right in their own home with Snapmaker. I think that’s pretty amazing. I believe that as more and more people have access to Snapmaker and the tools it provides, creativity will only grow and people will push the boundaries of what we thought was possible. It’s very exciting!

733 Loyal Backers’ Benefits

We will always remember all the backers who have supported us in two crowdfunding campaigns, especially the 733 backers who took the risk to support both Snapmaker Original and Snapmaker 2.0 and joined us in making our dream come true.

At the Virtual Party, we are offering a 10%-off coupon for the 733 backers. It has no time limit and can be used along with other discounts in our online store. Remember to check your email and enjoy shopping with the special gift!

New Product Launch

The Snapmaker 2.0 A250T & A350T

We have never stopped perfecting Snapmaker 2.0 based on user feedback, and here comes the Snapmaker 2.0 A250T & A350T.  Smarter, faster, larger, and more powerful than ever before, it is the latest model of Snapmaker 2.0 all-metal 3-in-1 3D printers that comes with everything you need. 

It keeps the modular design that enables quick switching among functions, and can be personalized with a wide variety of modules and add-ons. For a greater level of applications, we have Enclosure, Rotary Module, Emergency Stop Button, CAN Hub, and Air Purifier available now. And there are more to come.

Embedded with the latest TMC 2209 stepper motor driver chips, the noise generated by the linear module was substantially reduced. The new Power Module uses a much quieter fan whose speed can be adjusted automatically according to the real-time temperature, realizing a noise level decrease of about 16 dB, so that you can truly focus on your making. Quieter printing doesn’t necessarily mean slower speed. We accordingly increase the leads of the X and Y axes’ screw rods, from 8 mm to 20 mm, ensuring a stable and fast working speed.

The Snapmaker 2.0 F250 & F350

Looking for a standalone 3D printer from Snapmaker? We got it for you. At the Virtual Party, we launched the 5th-anniversary special edition printer of “Make It Happen” , the Snapmaker 2.0 F250 & F350 (also called Snapmaker 2.0 F models) that are accessible to regular consumers to empower each individual to enjoy making, and accompany our users to grow together.

You can upgrade from an FDM head, and equip the new laser head in the future. More Flexibility in the creation and more friendly in beginner experience. When we say “large”, we mean it. As a desktop 3D printer, F250 offers a 230 × 250 × 235 mm work area and decent features at less than 1,000 USD. For an extra 200 USD, you can upgrade to an almost 2 times larger F350, capable of printing one-piece large-scale.

The Snapmaker Modular 3D Printer is officially available for pre-order starting from the Virtual Party. From October 15 to November 19, you can get the Snapmaker 2.0 F models with a 17% off in the Snapmaker online store! 

Something New is Coming Soon

In response to our user expectations, the 10W Laser Module, a smarter, faster, and better-realized laser head is coming at the end of 2021. Equipped with the most cutting-edge laser beam combiner, effecting a power leap from 5 W to 10 W, enabling you to play with a wider variety of materials and hammer out more projects. Meanwhile, the cutting speed of the 10W Laser Module is up to 8 times that of the default 1.6 W Laser Module. It can literally fulfill a laser job in a blink of an eye.

In addition, We will have a dual-extruder printing head and more addons in 2022. 

Behind the Scenes

Take a glimpse at how we prepared for the Virtual Party!

Wonders don’t just happen by coincidence, it belongs to those who dare to dream and take action. We are very proud of what our users made in the past 5 years and feel lucky to have all of you. Thank you once again for your amazing support, and hope you enjoy the Virtual Party and the new products. If we missed out on any points that you personally enjoyed, please make sure to comment below to let us know!

Much love,

Team Snapmaker