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$499 3-D Printer Drew Plenty of Attention at CES (Video)
3-D printing is far from new, but a $499 3-D printer is new enough to get a bunch of people to write about it, including someone whose headline read, CES 2014: Could 3D printing change the world? XYZPrinting, the company behind the da Vinci 1.0 printer, has some happy-looking executives in the wake of CES. They won an award, and their booth got lots of attention. This is what trade shows are all about for small and/or new companies. Now the XYZprinting people can go home and pump out some product -- assuming they got a lot of orders (and not just attention) at CES.
But what will the cartridges cost? And will they 'expire' each time I unwrap and insert one?
("Nudge nudge, wink wink HP?")
The article at dailynewsen.com is so full of grammatical errors that it looks like a machine translation. It's really hard to understand. Slashdot editors need a shared list of "don't link to this site" domains, so that if they get a submission that is based on one, they can find a better source instead.
If I had a choice between a monocolor 3d printer or a color 3d printer- it would be color all the way.
This field is so young, I expect a significant increase in quality over the next couple years too so that makes me want to wait.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Because it doesn't use the standard filament. http://www.xyzprinting.com/en/... You have to buy the 'ink' from them.
Proprietary consumables? Seriously? When are we gonna get past this crap? Ever?
Nice going, "editor". You managed not to provide a single direct link to the company that makes the product you're talking about.
From the latimes article:
Even though 3D printing is all the rage at the Consumer Electronics Show, many people outside the industry are still puzzled by all the fuss. "Explain 3D printers to me. Why are they useful?" one non-techie friend of mine tweeted me this week, after I posted a picture of a 3D printer at the show.
The show is called the *consumer* electronics show, not the *producer* electronics show. Most people are not makers, so they won't be excited about a technology that lets them make something. Even if people want something, a 3D printer requires that you know how to design that item.
When someone invents a 3D designer, where you can say "Build me a thing that..." then you might get the consumers excited.
just wait 6 month and the file format will be reversed engineered, same for the software.
As long as people base their purchasing off the initial price, instead of TCO, this will happen.
This is the most counterproductive *coin propaganda I've yet seen. Well done!
In the future, users may be able to print shoes that are tailored to the exact size of their feet, among many possibilities.
Have they looked at the different materials that go into shoes these days? The different parts need to have different qualities. The sole needs to be grippy. The uppers need to be flexible and porous. The insole needs to be cushioning yet supportive. This is done today by using many different materials. Sorry but materials that come out of thermal printers don't have all those qualities and generally don't hold up under the stress shoe are put through. Let's try to be realistic about what this technology can do.
Nope, no bigotry here.
Something that accepts .STL format (which most CAD type programs let you output now) and G Code (pretty much the standard for CNC machines) as well as their own XYZ format is hardly locked into "proprietary formats." Do you have to use their software? To do the actual printing, sure. But it looks like you can do the design in a number of other tools as well, as long as you can output the aforementioned .STL or G Code.
Buying filament from them? Sure, possibly a pain. But then, for the vast majority of printers nowadays, you "have to" buy the ink cartridge from the company. And since it's in a cartridge, it's presumably easier to load - one of the most common complaints I've seen for products like Makerbot is that loading the filament is tricky and you often have to fiddle and do numerous test prints to get it right.
Is that solution going to be best for a high-volume printer? Absolutely not. For a hobbyist who wants to print maybe a dozen things every few months? Should be fine.
The overall construction was in line with a cheap 2D printer. The rails where thin, the structure in general seemed to be flimsy in comparison to the other 3D printers that were there. The proprietary print medium and the cheap-ish construction were enough to put me off and I was ready and willing to buy.
Who cares about 3-D printing? Come get me when they have 4-d printing!
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
http://printrbot.com/shop/prin... OK. It is a kit, so you need to build it yourself. USD300. Want the new kit? USD349. Assembled it comes to USD449.
If you do not need the wood, you can have it all for USD259.
I have been thinking about buying a 3D printer, but for me the price is not yet low enough.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
"Due to miscalibration of the 4th axis, your object was printed 255 years ago."
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Do we have a 3d printing standard format yet?
PostScript 3D!!!!
Well actually PostScript is still a proprietary format.
So I guess we need PCL 6-3D!!!
If you saying something is in 3 Dimensions you need the explanation marks.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
True, for ABS.
If you use PLA, which the large majority of 3D printers do, it's not try. PLA is made from corn and is completely recyclable, either by re-grinding the plastic and re-extruding it, or by throwing it into a composting system where it decomposes.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
I want transparent aluminum, scrith, and superconductor
just wait 6 month and the file format will be reversed engineered, same for the software.
According to their website the printer will accept STL files, which is an open, well documented, and widely supported industry standard format. Nearly any CAD software, including nearly all FOSS CAD programs, will export STL, in either compressed binary, or human readable ascii text.
make the gun cheap but the ammo expensive.
Here at the UW, a major science university, we have 3D printers that use compostable material that can be used for food production inputs, and print using a "plastic" that isn't a plastic at oil, breaking the oil chain and allowing clean fuel sources like hydro, solar, and wind to replace inputs from oil and coal in other systems.
There's even a new startup building next to the HUB.
Change is here. And, while 3D TVs aren't doing well, 3D printers are doing quite well.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
No, not again. I... why does it say time jam when there is no time jam? I swear to God, one of these days, I just kick this piece of shit out the window.
Didn't the Solidoodle come out at $499 years ago? Takes 1.5mm filament on a spool. I'm a little confused by this.
From the article "Gary Shu, XYZprinting's market development division senior manager, said the 3D printer can quickly create objects that users may need in their homes, such as a plastic cup or a plastic spoon.". I hope he comes up with a few better ideas than that.
Actually, a 3D printer would be useful to me for hobby projects like cosplay props, although probably a bit expensive. But around the house ? I look around for things completely made out of plastic that it would be practical to print if they broke or I needed another one but it's a struggle.
I suppose what all of these 3D printer manufacturers want to convince themselves and their investors is that there is a mass market for their product. The cheap printers still look very much like a hobbyist tool to me though.
PC LOAD CHRONOTONS? What the fuck does that mean?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
In two or three years, I might have bought one toner cartridge. Been so long I'm not sure. So much cheaper than inkjet.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Aren't market development senior managers supposed to be kind of visionary....or able to fake it? Cups and spoons? Really?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Most people are not makers
I challenge that assertion.
Just look at the size of the scrapbooking industry, or hobby stores in general.
Or cooking classes and cookbooks.
Most people ARE makers. Most people like creating things. There's no reason to think that devices that can produce small useful things for a myriad of hobbies will not be accepted by a huge range of people.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If unusued for a week or two, my Brother printer will exercise the ink cartridge briefly to prevent it from blocking. Yes, this does involve using up a bit of the ink. I had our brother printer sit unusued for a year, plugged in, turned on (just in case we needed it -- but we happened to be in a phase of our lives where we didn't for a long time). I noticed that the ink level would go down slowly even when unused.
Compare that to my old HP inkjet. Sat unusued for a season or so, and then the ink cartridges were unusable. Had to be replaced.
Don't know if exercising the cartridge was the only factor, but I am impressed by how the Brother printer maintains itself. Now 7 years old, and still going strong.
As for cheap ... one HP inkjet cartridge (black ink only; order colour separately) is about $25.
For the Brother printer, 4 black cartridges, two cyan, two magenta and two yellow cartridges (individually wrapped) is $6.25 on Amazon for the ten cartridges.
Yeah, I think I'll stick with the inkjet for a bit longer.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Inkjet cartridges expire so quickly after being opened because they contain ink... which is wet, and evaporates, leaving dry residue in the compartment which cannot be used.
BS. Back in the 90's I used the same ink cartridge in an old deskjet for something like a year or two and it worked just fine; it eventually ran out of ink and had to be replaced. I live in a state where it gets extremely dry during the winters. No issues.
We have a giant plotter-size inkjet at work that hadn't been used in 3 years. The print head was clogged to hell and back, requiring a lot of squirting of alcohol and deionized water, but after I had run several cleaning cycles, all the jets cleared out. I'd been worried the ink inside the mechanism and cartridges would be bust, but the same cartridges lasted us for several rolls worth of prints that looked great, and new cartridges were not noticeably better (yes, I waited until we'd likely used up the ink in the tubing.)
The deskjet was built well before companies started going crazy with chipping everything. The plotter-sized printer was built for a market that wouldn't tolerate that kind of bullshit; the printer warns you if the cartridge is old, but the error message is buried in the ink settings page and it never complains again.
Please help metamoderate.
The market for 3D printers could be bigger than the CNC + Laser cutter + Vinyl cutter market combined. It's still a small fraction of the whole population, but the market is there.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
"Due to miscalibration of the 4th axis, your object was printed 255 years ago."
Be grateful that the programmer declared that variable as char and not int, then your object could have been printed 65535 years ago.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
It's called STL, short for stereolithogrophy, and it's been around for decades.
Call me when I can get a 3D printer that can print a 3D printer, CC licence preferred.
Let us not get too involved with wishing for reasonably priced ink for it. RMS could explain what I am trying to imply.
--
I could try to list the things for which I thank RMS, but I don't think he would approve of some of them.