You might have noticed that Stratasys announced a new, powerful color 3D printer this week, the Connex3. The new device is the world’s first 3D printer that can mix both differing materials and colors to produce more than 500 possible combo materials.
But evidence of the machines existence has been apparent for some time. The first clue was exhibited at Centre Pompidou in Paris last year. In that exhibition, sponsored by Objet/Stratasys, amazing works by Neri Oxman were publicly displayed. Industry observers including ourselves wondered how the prints were produced as they used brilliant colors not then available from the then Connex series. We were told it was simply a matter of some “new unreleased materials”.
Sure. We now know these “new materials” were actually early versions of the color resins used by the new Connex3 machine.
But the question is, why did Stratasys wait so long to announce the Connex3?
The answer could be that both Objet and Stratasys were buried in merger activities during this period. Worse, they also purchased MakerBot, adding further complexity to the internal management situation.
We think they were just busy.
