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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.

18 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah yeah by NaughtyNimitz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But what will the cartridges cost? And will they 'expire' each time I unwrap and insert one?

    ("Nudge nudge, wink wink HP?")

    1. Re:Yeah yeah by mark-t · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      You will save money in the long run in printing costs if you just buy a laser printer, because toner is dry, and does not evaporate from the container. The cartridges are more expensive, but you will buy them so much less frequently that you will actually save a lot of money in the end.

    2. Re:Yeah yeah by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Same thoughts about why I don't own a color printer at home. I got a cheap ($55) black and white laser a couple years back, and I couldn't be happier. The toner is cheap (relatively), and I don't have to worry about the ink drying up, or print heads clogging before I've even had a chance to use up all the ink. I very seldom if ever need color printing, and when I do it's cheaper and easier to head over to the photo printer (Walmart) or print shop (UPS Store) when I actually need color prints. 3D printers have the opportunity to really change things, but only if I can obtain plastic for really cheap, preferably by recycling plastic from products I've already bought.

      --

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    3. Re:Yeah yeah by GameMaster · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ink cartridges that expire each time you unwrap them? Where are you from, the '90's? Welcome to the future my friend, today we have ink cartridges that expire while sitting, un-opened, on the shelf.

      I'm not really joking, we have an HP plotter where I work that does exactly this. When they went to replace the ink cartridge, they found that the entire stock of back-up cartridges had already "expired" according to a pre-set date built into a chip in the cartridge. Thankfully, HP was nice enough to provide a setting hidden away in the firmware that lets you over-ride that check. My guess is that they think the pro-market might not be willing to put up with their crap if they pushed it that far.

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  2. Why is it so cheap? by Predanuke · · Score: 5, Informative

    Because it doesn't use the standard filament. http://www.xyzprinting.com/en/... You have to buy the 'ink' from them.

    1. Re:Why is it so cheap? by Kenja · · Score: 3, Insightful

      By comparison, their filament is around three times as expensive as others (more if you just get bulk rolls) at ~$46.67/kg.

      --

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  3. "So you buy the filaments from us...." by macraig · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Proprietary consumables? Seriously? When are we gonna get past this crap? Ever?

  4. Not one link to the company in summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nice going, "editor". You managed not to provide a single direct link to the company that makes the product you're talking about.

  5. Why are 3D printers so exciting? by MobyDisk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Why are 3D printers so exciting? by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 3, Funny

      The killer application of 3d printers will be to print a new back to the battery compartment in remote controls

      --

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    2. Re:Why are 3D printers so exciting? by Laxori666 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I can wait, I just don't want to have to move.

  6. Re:3dnewsen article - auto translated? by devjoe · · Score: 5, Informative

    Specifically, it appears to be a translation-and-back-again of the LA Times article which is the first link in the article, or an automated synonym-substitution (trying to avoid being detected as copyright violation for reposting stories in full, perhaps, though strangely they link to the original article at the bottom). The other articles on their site (see Latest USA News sidebar on the right) appear to have undergone the same process.

  7. Shoes? by jklovanc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  8. I looked at it @ CES by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  9. Re:3-D printing. Pffft! by kirkb · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Due to miscalibration of the 4th axis, your object was printed 255 years ago."

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  10. Re:Pass by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  11. Re:3-D printing. Pffft! by sinij · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

  12. Re:3-D printing. Pffft! by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Funny

    PC LOAD CHRONOTONS? What the fuck does that mean?

    --
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