3D Printer On sale in Currys for under £1,200

Hi There

I have added a new topic to this site. (I am sure Diane won't mind.)

In the Sun newspaper today, there is an article about a ready to use straight out of the box 3D printer going on sale for under £1,200. It is called the Cube and retails at £1,195. The machine can print out objects in a 14cm cube.

Replacement plastic cartridges come in 16 different colours and cost £52.80 each.

The machine comes with 25 3D templates (I assume software programs) and can be used with design software. The Sun does not say what design software.

Maplin already supplies a 3D printer that requires assembly for £699.

I look forward to seeing where 3D printing develops in the future.

regards David

Edited By David Clark 1 on 02/10/2013 20:28:01

Good grief David !

And I thought my (2D! ) A3+ Photo printer ( with 9 inks) was expensive (and expensive to run) !

Regards

Norman

They will progress in the same way that laser printers have.

10 years and we will all have one.

Have a look here:

This is worth a watch from Jay Leno.

Geoff - Would love one of those!

Edited By OuBallie on 02/10/2013 14:32:18

Hmm, more probably like the inkjets. The printers will be sold as loss leaders for £200 and the cartridges will cost £250 a pop and be 'chipped' so they register 'empty' when they're still half full!

Joe

**LINK**

Got an Email from Maplin the other day about an UP unit they sell online, this seems to have a similar object build size.

Not seen the Sun, so do not know about any other features.

Edited By V8Eng on 02/10/2013 16:06:07

DC if its going on sale at "under £1200" why does it "retail at £1950" ? or are all Sun readers not that good at maths?

The Cube is made by the company that has taken over Alibre thats why the home PE addition is now known as Cubify

Edited By JasonB on 02/10/2013 16:17:04

The printer in Currys is the Cube from Cubify in the states which sells there for USD 1532, about a grand at current exchange rates so the "retails at £1950" is the usual rip off exchange rate or just marketing bu****it.

Both that one and the Maplin offering are standard filament melters which can be put together from kits by many suppliers starting at around £300, mine completed this year was £280 complete.

Most of the work on 3D printers seems to be done by enthusiasts or small start-ups so innovation and rapid development ought to follow. There is definitely room for improvement in the engineering in many of the designs.

After playing for a few months now my feeling is that this level of machine can not offer the resolution needed for our uses - I wanted to print masters which I would "lost plastic" cast but the finishing required renders it uneconomic.

I have still to source software which will let me mill on the unit using a dremel like head and machinable wax which might be better - the print head seems to be the "weak link" in the concept at present.

Andy

Edited By AndyP on 02/10/2013 16:16:27

Andy the £1950 is not the rip off its DCs typing error, they sell for £1195 which is your £1000+VAT

Edited By JasonB on 02/10/2013 16:20:00

By chance, I have just read the pullout mag from the ECONOMIST Sept 7 - 13 2013 Pages 11- 13, where in China, they are Printing wing 'spares' on a 12 meter long printer (Blimey, did they mean wing SPARS), fuselage frames in titanium. An F18 fighter has 90 parts 3D printed and the F35 a wopping 900 parts that could be made this way. Materials include ABS, metal and ceramics making it possible to make printed circuits - Real ones.

I wonder when we will see a copper boiler made this way ?

Bob H

Copper is currently a 'problem material' for 3D printing because of its excellent thermal conductivity - i.e. need to put in a lot of heat to melt the powder. Having said that usable materials are increasing all the time.

I have done quite a bit of research over these 3D printers as I have identified a niche market in the repair industry where one of these would be a godsend.

However not all machines are built equal. I have been to see and play with the rep rap machines and the UP! Mini which I regard at both ends of the affordable spectrum.

The reprap machines are a joke, yes they work to prove the concept but the quality / accuracy of them is pathetic.

In the recent issue of MEW the photos of the parts made were terrible, not square, layers not lined up, fuzz and stringers all over.

The demo of the UP! Mini was far in front, not only could this machine calibrate itself to compensate for size and out of squareness but the quality was head and shoulders above the 4 Repraps I have seen.

Perhaps it boils down to you only get what you pay for ?

One thing that is glossed over is that you must be very proficient in solid modelling or drawing in 3D. Without a decent 3D model you can't print anything unless you do all the silly freebies like lego bricks they give away.

Don't even think about a printer until you can meet this requirement.

Edited By John Stevenson on 02/10/2013 19:03:04

The software to go with this printer is cubify invent, its a bit like a very simple version of solidworks. a free trial version can be downloaded from their website.

**LINK**

I must admit I was impressed by the UP! and would get one if I had a spare grand or so and fewer claims on it!

Neil

Hi There

I mistyped the price.

I don't buy the Sun.

It comes into the house free of charge so I flick through it.

I normally read the headlines on all the papers when I go to the supemarket. Other than that, I don't read newspapers except the occasional Times on a Saturday to check my shares.

regards David

I have some experience of 3D modelling (solidworks) and stereolithography which is producing the solid object from the screen model by use of a laser - a bit like 3D printing but far superior (and very much more expensive). The 3D printers like 'cube' and 'up' give very poor resolution and it is far better to produce your part by conventional means. This will probably always be the case because they melt plastic material in successive layers - never likely to produce an accurate part.

I would support John Stevenson above in pointing out that unless you can do 3D modelling on screen using Solidworks, Solidedge, AutoCAD Inventor, etc, a 3D printer is no use to you anyway!!

You don't need to spend thousands of pound on CAD software like SolidWorks or Inventor - there is a good choice of hobby-priced software that does the same job with no loss of quality.

Martin.

I've worked with this technology for quite a few years now and I agree with the above, 3D modelling is the real key to this technology, I personally think until one of the major manufacturers can see a real market for this it will remain a bit of a gimmick, the resolution of these very cheep machines is a joke for any real world stuff.

There a development of the liquid polymer type printer, which utilises an led screen to create the models layers, this has the potential to dramatically increase printing speed, however at present the liquid polymer is prohibitively expensive, If a major manufacturer (HP or IBM maybe) got involved they would have to provide good 3D modelling software with the machine or a at the very least a light version or an existing software product.

Perhaps a complimentary 3D scanner would add to the product list, this area is growing faster than the above it seems.

I have in front of me here a test piece, printed in one hit that has both transparent areas and also two coloured areas that look and feel like hard plastic, but get this, in addition to that it has three what look and feel like rubber push buttons, two that are integral but one can rotate, but here's the real trick all three have different shore hardnesses, and it looks like molded part.

sadly the machine that printed this cost well over a £100,000

I think the more likely scenario for high quality one of Stereo's (prints) is a bureau service, but this ain't cheap, an item the size of a man's shoe can cost a couple of grand, I have one here that was a pre tooling prototype for a sports drinks holder, it holds 8 bottles and cost £4000 + vat two years ago, but is of such high quality its pretty much indistinguishable from the actual finished moldings and worked well as a proof of concept item.

So until they can match watertight models at 0.05mm resolution it will remain a gimmick, although I do hope I'm proved wrong.

Shaun

I think for the vast number of users attracted to 3D printing it could be classed as a gimmick. You only have to look whats available on Thingyverse to see what i mean.

Over Christmas my grandaughter, big Dr Who fan, printed out a Tardis kit, 60mm sides, 120mm tall.

Took the best part of 8 hours to do all the bits and probably used £10 worth of filament and she's got something you could get from Poundland.

In this case I'm not bothered, it's my grand daughter and it's a learning experience but look on there and decide what you want to print.

For myself I have printed a compound gear that I cannot make in the 50 minutes it took and will be fine for the limited use it's needed for.

I have also prototyped some internally toothed gears that will work OK in plastic as a prototype, the two gears I needed are about £30 each from HPC but one is special in that it;s the same diameter as it's mate but two teeth different and the wrong PCD for a stock gear.

At the moment I'm not set up to do internal gears but proving this concept will allow me to set up to do metal gears.

Working on an electronic board over Christmas that has 4 different IDC sockets on it so ordered the plugs and leads before Christmas. Bit of a mess ordering as some are in 1's, some 5's and some 10's

Came to wire it up and spot the deliberate mistake

There are 5 plugs, I missed the 6 pin one against the blue cap, RS is shut, so is Farnell but hunt round on RS's web site and find a 3D drawing of a 6 pin IDC connector.

Print it out, 7 minutes once warm, and rob some pins out of one of the spare sockets and way to go.

Want a box for it ?

Traceparts this time, all the major manufacturers are supplying 3D files for free because if some lazy designer puts them into his / her design they are guaranteed sales.

So find a box, download the drawing and away you go.

Ok the quality isn't as good as liquid polymer but hey, what quality do you want for a case that you don't have to wait for.

Hmmm, IBM haven't made anything in years, not since they focussed on their services strategy, though I am out of touch with their CAD offerings. Doubt they are the right organisation to do low cost stuff anyway, though they did achieve the lowest per unit manufacturing cost for the PS/2 whilst achieving the highest market price. That was a long time ago. Suspect your answer will come from China/India/small startups.

Remember the £1m CNC machines with a Kongsberg/Fanuc/... controller in a 6ft rack? Arceurotrade will ship a KX3 for 5K which I understand is good to 0.01mm repeatability. If it's only 0.02mm you get my point.

3D printing is in small workshops and is generating revenues, so this thing is rolling and will pick up pace. This will drive capability which will drive volumes and price.

There are a couple of guys in a bar somewhere saying "remember when we could charge £4k a copy for this stuff?"

Steve