Staple's is selling $1,300 3D printer

ZacD

http://www.staples.com/3D-Printing/cat_CL205651?icid=SearchResults3D
http://mashable.com/2013/05/03/staples-3d-printers/

Print anything up to 5.5" x 5.5" x 5.5” or 140mm x 140mm x 140mm.


The first really mass consumer affordable 3d printer, and the accuracy seems to be decent enough for basic models/toys.

Zepic

First thing I'm doing is downloading a car!

Bek

You wouldn't.

Jokes aside, I wonder how the various Kickstarted 3d printers will receive this. Should be interesting to see how well it sells as well.

ambershee

Zepic wrote: »

First thing I'm doing is downloading a car!

Now I have my drink up my nose.

ZacD

After looking at it, there's a few things I'm afriad of.

The plastic cartridges are probably 4x as much as buying it yourself, hopefully you can just open and refill one.

It comes with it's own software, we don't know if you can use the open source printing software and easily load your own models.

Snader

How is this the first affordable one? From what I know there are a fair few models below $1000, and even some as low as $300 (but those are kinda skimpy and janky).

Bek

Heh, hopefully 3d printer plastic won't be as ridiculously and artificially expensive as 2d printer ink.

ZacD

Snader wrote: »

How is this the first affordable one? From what I know there are a fair few models below $1000, and even some as low as $300 (but those are kinda skimpy and janky).

The repraps can be built for $300 but require a lot of time and technical knowledge and trouble shooting in order to get it up and running. The cheapest prebuilt ones I've seen are like the MakerBot bot ones, which are $2,000. I think I've seen a few for a bit less than that.

Steve Schulze

Bek wrote: »

Heh, hopefully 3d printer plastic won't be as ridiculously and artificially expensive as 2d printer ink.

The reels we get for the Makerbot are about the same price and they last a hell of a long time. You use around $1-$2 of ABS or PLA for the average print. They are considerably larger than those cartridges though. Would be at least twice as much material and probably quite a bit more.

If it really can print something the size of a basketball, it's got a considerably larger print area than the Makerbot.

I'd want to take a look at some reviews and see how well it actually works, but it doesn't look like a terrible deal based on the limited information we have there.

Shadownami92

This 3d printer is definately a rip off price wise. It uses the same material as other printers, but it requires a cartridge, the cartridge cost is much larger than normal plastic filament. You can get an UP Plus printer for only about $200 more and an UP Mini's print size is only a little smaller for $900 and both I think come with 1kg of plastic with them and can still use filament from any manufacturer. What you save on the printer itself, you will definately lose out on having to use a proprietary cartridge system, even though it's really just the same plastic contained in a cartridge that tries to sense if it's their special cartridge so you buy plastic from them.

https://www.inventables.com/technologies/up-mini-3d-printer

https://www.inventables.com/technologies/up-plus-3d-printer

There have already been reviews out for that model I believe, and I don't remember that model being anything that special. The Up Mini had a smaller printing area, but it also seemed to have better quality since it seemed to have a closed off printing area rather than open air. The Makerbot is closed off too and I think I remember those having closed area for regulated printing temperature. And Makerbots have a much bigger printing area than this one, though Makerbots are also a little more expensive.

That printer has a print size of 5.5 square inches essentially. A makerbot is 11in.x6in.x6in.

SouthpawSid

print a pistol! XD

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/05/the-first-entirely-3d-printed-handgun-is-here/

eld

It does seem to have a plastic wire coming out of the cartridge so refilling the cartridge would be possible in hack-territory but something they'd actively not want you to do, and the design would probably do all to prevent it!

I'm with the rest here: the reprap community is where it's at, considering the opensource nature the 3d printing community has had, but i'm extremely curious at seeing more consumer extruder printers coming to the market, and as with this I'm certain they will overprice the cartridges and make money that way.

Unfortunately for them the fundamental design of the extruders require only a plastic wire so it'll be an easy thing to break

Snader

ZacD wrote: »

The repraps can be built for $300 but require a lot of time and technical knowledge and trouble shooting in order to get it up and running. The cheapest prebuilt ones I've seen are like the MakerBot bot ones, which are $2,000. I think I've seen a few for a bit less than that.

Yes the supercheap ones ($300~500) tend to be DIY packages but there are sub-1000 pre-assembled machines out there as well. Here's a few:
Solidoodle 3, $799
Solidoodle 2, $499
Creator3D, $760
MetalBot 3D, $840
Evolution 3D, $990
RapidBot 3.0, $829
Sumpod Delta, $465

So there are plenty of affordable premade boxes out there already. Whether or not the software is as good as the Staples' one... I haven't the foggiest.

Steve Schulze

eld wrote: »

It does seem to have a plastic wire coming out of the cartridge so refilling the cartridge would be possible in hack-territory but something they'd actively not want you to do, and the design would probably do all to prevent it!

I'm with the rest here: the reprap community is where it's at, considering the opensource nature the 3d printing community has had, but i'm extremely curious at seeing more consumer extruder printers coming to the market, and as with this I'm certain they will overprice the cartridges and make money that way.

Unfortunately for them the fundamental design of the extruders require only a plastic wire so it'll be an easy thing to break

The beauty of a 3d printer is you can just print out a new cartridge to the same dimensions as the original but redesign it for easy loading.

Skillmister

Jackablade wrote: »

The beauty of a 3d printer is you can just print out a new cartridge to the same dimensions as the original but redesign it for easy loading.

JohnnyRaptor

Damn! Those are some affordable printers snader! Any idea what 0.1mm layer thickness translates to as in print quality on an actual character?

Steve Schulze

The default on a Makerbot is 0.2 mm which gives you some fairly noticable layering, although there are some tricks you can use to improve that. 0.1 would still have visible and tactile layering, but should allow for some pretty fine details.

leilei

SouthpawSid wrote: »

print a pistol! XD

The last thing we need is 3d printers being totally outlawed once criminals are motivated to use it to reproduce firearms and then use them

This is why we can't have nice things

ZacD

Plastic will hold up to fire a dozen shots, but it will never be a fully functional gun. I'm actually more excited for things like 3d printed houses with concrete.

SouthpawSid

ZacD wrote: »

Plastic will hold up to fire a dozen shots, but it will never be a fully functional gun. I'm actually more excited for things like 3d printed houses with concrete.

we'll certainly see, soon!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/05/05/meet-the-liberator-test-firing-the-worlds-first-fully-3d-printed-gun/

eld

leilei wrote: »

The last thing we need is 3d printers being totally outlawed once criminals are motivated to use it to reproduce firearms and then use them

This is why we can't have nice things

And nuclear bombs!!, they'll just have to add refined uranium aftewards, which shouldn't be hard to find right?

In all seriousness though, if they can get their hands on ammo they can get their hands on guns, upside with 3d printing is the community can fix the ammo cartridge design so you can print a new one for easier loading

Xoliul

Just gonna echo that the "cartridges" for this thing are a terrible thing and you shouldn't even consider buying one because of that. It's purely so they can keep extracting money from you and completely goes against the open, diy attitude of the 3D printing movement!