The RoBo 3D Printer is for the “average joe.”
Posted on 01/11/2013 10:25:31 AM PST by null and void
New Kickstarter project could well be first affordable at-home 3D printer brought to market
Staples may be planning to bring 3D printing to the consumer marketplace, but three men from San Diego want to bring it right into your home office, and they’ve created an overwhelmingly successful Kickstarter campaign to help them do it.
Called the RoBo 3D Printer , the device is not the first personal 3D printer out there, but it is one of the most inexpensive. Its creators believe that they’ll be able to sell the product for just over $500 — a veritable steal compared to home 3D printers with price tags in the thousands.
The RoBo 3D Printer is for the “average joe.”
“For the average joe, there’re not many opportunities to buy a 3D printer without breaking the bank,” says co-founder Braydon Moreno. “So we decided to build it ourselves for people like us and to keep it open source so there’s no barriers to how this machine can evolve.”
Additionally, Moreno and his partners say that RoBo 3D was designed to remove many of the entry-level barriers associated with in-home 3D printing. They promise that the printer will be easy to use and require very little design knowledge, making it the perfect starter printer for beginners, hobbyists, educators, and artists. It is plug-and-play with a USB connector and works with open-source 3D modeling software, like Google Sketchup.
Model of Yoda printed by the RoBo 3D.
For those interested in a more advanced printer, RoBo 3D stands up well to its more costly competitors. It has a 10 x 10 x 8-in. print area — large for an at-home printer, but still small enough to fit into the personal office. It prints at 100-micron layers in 3-mm-diameter PLA plastic filament, which results in strong, hard-wearing products.
With just under a month left in their campaign, RoBo 3D and its founders have already well surpassed their funding goal, with more than $121,000 pledged by nearly 300 backers. Once the campaign is completed, the trio plans to begin mass-manufacturing the printers — ordering some components and printing others in their RoBo 3D farm.
For more on 3D printing, read How 3D Printing is Building Our World and 5 Things to Know: 3D Printing .
For more information about RoBo 3D, visit the Kickstarter page . ■
Printed product looks a little grainy. I wonder if PLA can be vapor polished like acrylic?
Yeah, they are inexpensive, but how much is the ink? };^)
Homeprinted grenade casings, with the whole inner works.
Just add ballbearings, powder and a lighter flint.
Oh, and mines.
I see this as the modern equivalent of the Sinclair “home computer”. That is, though it is really cool it isn’t really all that useful, it speaks to what we can expect in the future and is, from that perspective, very exciting.
Dude
I think you’ve hit upon what this thing will be used for.
There are several sub $500 kits available on eBay. People found out something quickly, you can buy one and use it to make parts to replicate itself. At least two of the makers have open-sourced their designs and encourage replication. I am really considering buying a kit. I was just thinking of all the little things I buy like cord organizers, repair piece of trim for my car (or replacements for a classic that you can’t get parts for any longer), parts to repair handles, etc.. all those little $20-$30 items add up quickly. Now, you can get plans for gun magazines online to ‘print’. We may be looking at a potential new economic boom like what happened with the Internet in the 90s- an entirely new economic sector.
Run off a bunch of $1T coins and save the country.
Incredible! I think there will be some inventor uses, some artistic uses.and then it’s going to take off. This level is probably way imperfect now ( but remember the first consumer computers?) but making it available to the non -specialist public is very exciting.
Less than ink jet ink and it goes pretty far. $30-$50 per spool.
Thus, paving the way for inventors who lack the tools or mechanical know-how to build their prototypes by hand.
I like it.
HOLLY: I was in love once — a Sinclair ZX-81. People said, “No, Holly, she’s not for you.” She was cheap, she was stupid and she wouldn’t load — well, not for me, anyway.
LISTER: What are you trying to say, Hol?
HOLLY: What I’m saying, Dave, is that it’s better to have loved and to have lost than to listen to an album by Olivia Newton-John.
CAT: Why’s that?
HOLLY: Anything’s better than listening to an album by Olivia Newton-John.
Caseings are the easy part its the timer and detonator that’s the hard part.
Ahhhh, that’s Old School!
“We may be looking at a potential new economic boom like what happened with the Internet in the 90s- an entirely new economic sector.”
Yes, and I don’t think China is going to like it. Half of the stuff they make and sell us can probably be made at home.
Interesting ideas. That’s what I think, too: It puts production within the reach lot everybidy.
...and testing.
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