Dremel Releases 3D Printer

Lucas123 writes Power tool maker Dremel today announced it's now selling a desktop 3D printer that it said is targeted at "the masses" with a $1,000 price tag and intuitive software. Dremel's 3D Idea Builder is a fused deposition modeling (FDM) machine that can use only one type of polymer filament, polylactide (PLA) and that comes in 10 colors. The new 3D printer has a 9-in. x 5.9-in. x 5.5-in. build area housed in a self-contained box with a detachable lid and side panels. Dremel's currently selling its machine on Amazon and The Home Depot's website, but it plans brick and mortar store sales this November.

Comments

Underspecced?

[Giant Electronic Bra]

Is it me or does it sound a bit underwhelming for $1000? I don't mean the price is non-competitive, it just seems like I'd want something more capable if I was going to take the plunge. Burn $1000 and in a week won't you be hankering for a much more capable machine?

Re:Underspecced?

[ArcadeMan]

What's underwhelming about it? That it can only print with PLA? The build volume? What do you mean by "more capable"?

Re:Underspecced?

[rijrunner]

I've seen dozens of printers listed with better specs, but most of them are dummy specs. You couldn't run most of those machine anywhere near the specs they list. How many 3D printers out there actually achieve the speeds they claim, or the print area?

Honestly, if they can deliver a machine that works at those specs out of the box without tinkering or having to recalibrate, it just might be worth that amount. It looks reasonably solid and rigid and, from an outside view, well designed. (No idea where the spool feeds from from the pics).

Re:Underspecced?

[smellsofbikes]

Is it me or does it sound a bit underwhelming for $1000? I don't mean the price is non-competitive, it just seems like I'd want something more capable if I was going to take the plunge. Burn $1000 and in a week won't you be hankering for a much more capable machine?

Yes. And spending two months debugging bed/head temperatures, print and extruder speed, and layer thickness, so your prints consistently stay solid and adhered to the bed rather than peeling, will be totally invisible to you because that $1K presumably means someone else already did that. There's a lot of value in getting something that's been debugged, and that's particularly the case for extrusion-based FDM 3d printers. It's okay to be hankering for a better machine, particularly if you're already printing. The best 3d printer is the one that's actually building parts for you.

Wrong type of machine for Dremel

[ArcadeMan]

Frankly, I would have expected Dremel to come out with a small desktop CNC, not a 3D printer. Given the price of the Roland iModela, Dremel would probably have offered a much better, bigger and stronger machine for the same price.

Re:Wrong type of machine for Dremel

[rijrunner]

From personal experience..

Trying to design and build a CNC machine to function as an appliance is very, very difficult. There are simply to many factors that impact how well the machine would work. A person who writes g-code for a milling machine has to be able to understand how it will work - balancing the motors, speeds and feeds, materials, and working head. A 3D-printer requires very little, if any, skill on the part of the person using the machine. They can just load pre-packaged items, if they feel like it. It is a much more consumer friendly product with a huge upside.

Re:Wrong type of machine for Dremel

[umafuckit]

Well, it's a CNC extruder rather than a CNC miller. TBH, I think most of the fuss about 3D printers is just that they're called "printers."

Re:Wrong type of machine for Dremel

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure he could ask, so you've never used a CNC machiene?

3-D printing, while it can be challenging, is just a matter of how fast the head can move while "printing". With CNC you have to know how big of a bite your bit can take out of your current material, what the stress loads are at different speeds and it changes while going around corners. How big of a bite you can take with your bit based on the bit, material, and speed of rotation.

Now for some additional fun. Just because you can make it work on a CNC doesn't mean it won't destroy your expensive bits quickly. Also you want it to be productive so you can't run too conservative a tool path or a 4 hour job will take 12 hours and cut your productivity to 30%. Not to mention if you mess up the calculations you might just outright destroy bits when you run. Not likely to destory your 3D print head because you took a turn too quickly.

So yes, using a 3-D printer is MUCH easier. He didn't say it was simple, he just claimed it was easier.

Re:Wrong type of machine for Dremel

[aXis100]

We are no-where near the point where fused filament 3D Printing is a plug and play operation. In the last 12 months I've had to spend a lot of time and effort to get reasonable prints, and have had to regularly consider things like:

Printer idiosyncracies (which a professional printer should avoid):
- Wear & tear on pulleys and bushings changing belt performance
- Correct hot end temperatures, scorching and smoking of filament leading to clogged nozzles
- Bed flatness
- Enclosure temperature control, adhesion to the bed and control of warping

Then, even if your printer is working well there are a huge number of factors to consider when drawing and slicing your shape:
- Orientation of the shape with respect to grain in the filament to give good styrength
- Orientation of the shape to avoid bridges and overhangs
- Inside fill percentage and fill style to optimise between strength and potential warping.
- Adjustment for tolerance and oozing around and intermeshing parts

That's not a complete list, but it's what I'm down to now on a regular basis now that I've tweaked all of the other settings and am getting some consistency.

Re:Wrong type of machine for Dremel

[rijrunner]

I build CNC machines
I build 3D printers.
I am guessing you have never used a CNC milling machine. Let's look closer:
Some variables for CNC milling (Not exhaustive):

type of bit (material and shape - probably 20 base shapes in a beginner shop. dozens of bit materials)
geometry of bit (literally thousands of options here)
new or worn, and what is the wear pattern (variable every time. Usually not an issue unless you are doing very precise work, in which case, you need to mike the wear and enter it into the tool table)
number of flutes/teeth
helix angle
center cutting
roughing or finishing
tool coating
shank
undercuts
step over percent
cutter offset
surface cutting speed
spindle speed
is spindle speed variable
feed per tooth
depth of cut
conventional or climb milling
material being machined
coolant feed enable
coolant feed type
tool changer
tool number in tool table
homing and limit switches
All of these variables play off each other. You can change one variable, it can then cascade into changing 4 or 5 others easily. Many of the variables above can destroy the bit, machine, part, or injure you, if you get it wrong.

The fact of the matter, I can take yoda.stl, run it through slic3r, stick it in a 3D printer and not worry much about it. Someone needs to know the g-code along the workflow, but realistically, it is the coder for Slic3r in this example and it is automated. If the machine is calibrated, it will print. If I run a milling operation through CAM software, it needs to be test cut to verify it won't damage anything. Just not inserting the milling bit all the way can damage the machine.

Now, look at it from an appliance situation. Do I know as the machine designer, what material or bits will be used? Do I know what sort of shape they are going to try to machine? I would have to lock down that machine to a ridiculous degree to get it to behave like an appliance, and even then, I can't be sure it won't damage anything. The Dremel 3D printer looks to be locked down with very few variables. It is designed for people to just load a file and hit "run". From a marketing and legal point of view, which is a better product to market?

Re:Wrong type of machine for Dremel

[pushing-robot]

Frankly, I would have expected Dremel to come out with a small desktop CNC, not a 3D printer.

I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if the WD-40 company had created a product to make things stick together.

Re:Too expensive

[Trailer Trash]

Plenty of cheaper (and probably better) options from Makerbot etc.

Now it it came is at a $400 price point it would be a whole different discussion.

You're not their target market. There are a lot of old-school tinkerers who are familiar with Dremel - and a lot of people who are familiar with Home Depot - who know nothing about 3D printing. Many of those folks would be very interested in 3D printing if they knew about it. So here we are.

I think Dremel is going to raise the stature of 3D printing in an entirely new market and that will quite frankly help every other company out there in this space.

Re:This is so 2012.

[rijrunner]

"Dremel 3D pre-sale starts Sept. 18, 2014, on homedepot.com and amazon.com, with in-store availability at select The Home Depot® stores in early November."

That's a WOW right there.

I've been through the PC boom in the late 70's and the Internet boom in the 90's. That "no one points at 3D printers" is no more true than when it was said about PC's in 1979 or the Internet in 1994. (I heard that exact sentiment expressed those years).

This is what a boom looks like right before it goes off.

Home Depot

[Anonymous Coward]

Just don't go paying for it with a credit card ...

Re:Dongs

[felrom]

9-in. x 5.9-in. x 5.5-in will fit an AR-15 lower receiver too. Toys for everyone!

Re:Too expensive

[Em Adespoton]

Have you ever used a dremel tool?
For the most part they're crap. Perhaps before the '80s thay had good stuff but it's been downhill for a long time.

I'll bite. I've used a Dremel-brand dremel tool in the late 90's, and found it solid (if made of a lot of plastic), dependable, and accurate. The accessories were way too expensive, but Black & Decker accessories are of the same quality and fit in the Dremel opening.

B&D, Ryobi, Makita and similar manufacturer's dremel tools though -- I've found to be underpowered, made of cheap components, and have a shaft locking mechanism that is abysmal, not holding the shaft in a centred manner at all. DeWalt is also pretty good.

Likewise, I've had hit-and-miss experience with Dremel's other offerings -- some are good, some aren't. But their original tool still works as well as it ever did.

Re:Don't Miss The Point

[ColdWetDog]

I'm sorry, this is not the 3D printer you are looking for.

No tissues or organs, no little machines. Nothing earth shattering.

Think Dungeons and Dragons pieces, Star Wars figurines. An occasional spoon. All looking like a low res poly rendering from the 1980's.

It's a toy.

Re:Obligatory

[Em Adespoton]

Oh, and it appears to be a re-branded one of these http://www.flashforge-usa.com/... which say they support Linux. I'm guessing that FlashForge Dreamer drivers for Linux would drive the Idea Builder without much modification.

Re:With a name like Dremel

[ShanghaiBill]

In fact, you might probably be able to 3D-print a Dremel with it.

It can't form complex machines. Guns and explosives have chemicals, moving parts. It doesn't work that way. But it can form solid shapes. Knives and stabbing weapons.

HEY NOTCH!!!

[xeno]

The killer app for a commodity 3D printer would be a MineCraft-like interface. I was talking to my teenage kids and their friends about the 3D printer that sits unused in their school lab, and they all complained that the software was incomprehensible. But since they all create amazing structures in MineCraft, I suggested the obvious.... the idea of a crafting UI for 3D design had them jumping up and down yelling “HELL YES we would use that to build amazing things.”

Notch? Are you busy just now? Don't you have some spare cash and free time?
Howzabout a 3D crafting UI that looks like a holodeck room and adopts the standard controls for MineCraft to frame up basic block structures, plus some of the better mod controls for curves, smoothing, and multi-size blocks?

User scenarios would follow something like this:
- Adjust the size of the room you want to work in,
- Rough design using building blocks off the hot bar,
- managing multiple materials or colors from the inventory,
- more complex design with other objects (maybe compound objects) from the crafting table,
- fill/smoothing/spanning following the methods/controls of some of the better mods,
- view/flythrough, save functions, import, export, etc...,
- .... and finally printing.

I’d buy it. Seriously, I would plunk down a grand for the hardware in a heartbeat if the design GUI was fun to use.
(And HP needs to get on the stick, if they want to extend their "ink" market... :)

NOTCH!!! Seriously, you need to get on this.
DREMEL!!!?! Seriously, you need to talk to Notch.

Re:Don't Miss The Point

[CastrTroy]

It's a toy.

Which is fine though. Plenty of people spend plenty of money on "toys" to make this a viable product. $1000 for a 3D printer which is really just a toy isn't all that bad. The XBox One was $500 when it came out. By the time you get a second controller and a few games, you're probably getting close to $800. And the XBox One, or PS4, or any other console is really just a toy. You can't even run your own code on them. You can pretty much just play games. The new iPhone just came out and it's $650 for the cheapest one. And while there are some business uses of an iPhone, the vast majority of people I know with an iPhone use them solely for personal use and could do just as well with a $200 phone (or less).

Personally, I can't see the point in owning a 3D printer. The number of objects that I'd want to print out is quite small. It would make much more sense for me to go down to Home Depot and pay them to print out my parts on a $10,000 printer (assuming such a service existed), because I'd probably get better results and it would cost me less and take me less time. It's the same reason I don't own a photo printer. I can get a much better job done much faster by just taking my memory card into Walmart. If I feel like getting some really high quality prints, I can take them to a better photo place and get them printed better. But there's no way that I would have the money to afford that level of quality for my own personal use.

Re:Don't Miss The Point

[Rei]

Services like that exist online, and they're excellent, albeit rather slow. I personally use iMaterialize because they have such a wide range of material options (everything from rubber to titanium) and finishes (for example, 4 different options for silver), but there's lots of others out there, and some are cheaper.

If you've ever played around with 3d modelling, I definitely recommend giving 3d printing a try, even if just a little test piece. :) Note that plastics are a lot cheaper than metals, although metals look the coolest.