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Staples Starts Selling 3-D Printer

Posted by Soulskill on from the slowly-stepping-into-the-mainstream dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Soon anyone will be able to head out to the store and buy a 3D printer: 'Staples, one of the leading office supply retailers in the U.S. announced it would begin selling 3-D Systems' entry level personal 3-D printer, The Cube. This is quite simply the single largest 3-D printer retail move to date by any 3-D printer manufacturer.' 'The Cube is one of a number of 3-D printers designed with traditional consumers in mind. Specifically, this unit can print items up to 5.5 inches tall, wide and long in one of 16 different colors. The retail bundle includes 25 free design templates to get users started but the real fun is designing and building something all your own.'"

8 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. cartridge based by Lehk228 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    of course it would be a proprietary cartridge based piece of shit.

    --
    Snowden and Manning are heroes.
    1. Re:cartridge based by EkriirkE · · Score: 5, Informative

      Here's the answer to that: http://www.howmuchsnow.com/cube/

      commentary on http://hackaday.com/2013/04/26/cube-3d-printer-hack-lets-you-use-bulk-filament/

      --
      from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
      to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
    2. Re:cartridge based by Mitreya · · Score: 3, Funny

      of course it would be a proprietary cartridge based piece of shit.

      but... but... these cartridges will helpfully warn you that you are running out at 50%-capacity and stop working at 30%-capacity. It is a very valuable service.

    3. Re:cartridge based by Dan+East · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The solution [Chris] went with still uses the cartridges to ‘trick’ the machine into printing. Basically the interface will tell you that you don’t have enough filament left, but as long as there’s a cartridge in place you can tell it to print anyway.

      In other words, this hardware hack is only one firmware update away from being shut down. Once they remove the option to "tell it to print anyway" when the cartridge says it's empty, then the hack is no longer usable.

      --
      Better known as 318230.
    4. Re:cartridge based by Jarik+C-Bol · · Score: 3, Informative

      which is why you just never update the firmware.

      --
      I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
  2. Staples huh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    So it will cost 3 times what you could get it for normally?

    Seriously... Everything they sell is overpriced by at least 2x.
    They're for office workers. (where people who come get stuff don't care how much their employer spends)
    And for those emergency 'I GOTTA HAVE IT RIGHT NOW' type things.

    "And no i don't wanna join your rewards club dammit. I just want this replacement mouse. No i really don't want to join. NO! i don't want to join. Just ring this up. It's $15. Here take my money. No i don't wanna join the rewards club and i'm REALLY sure."

  3. I love it by sml156 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Cool the first thing I am going to do with mine is make a ashtray for my dad

  4. Why limit length? by GrahamCox · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't understand why the objects need to be limited to 5.5 inches in 3 dimensions. A better design would be to have a moving base plate that allows the length to be much larger and limit the motion of the print head to two dimensions, more like a standard inkjet where the paper moves under the print head. The need to fit your object into such a small cube is a serious limitation - even letting one dimension become substantially larger would be a huge improvement in versatility and hence, likelihood of purchase.