A video of Autodesk’s new high-resolution 3D printer has been released.
If you don’t know, the Ember is the first physical unit that’s part of Autodesk’s Spark initiative for an open 3D printing platform. It’s quite a switch for Autodesk, who up to now have only provided software and content for the 3D printing ecosystem. Previously they’ve partnered with hardware manufacturers to complete the ecosystem, but now they’re producing their own unit, the Ember.
The “Ember” is a high-resolution resin-based unit, powered by a DLP light engine. This approach is very similar to several other resin units (others use lasers instead of DLP), but Autodesk’s printer is priced at USD$5,995, far more than other resin-printing offerings from the startup world, but of comparable or less price than big-time industrial options.
The machine is capable of resolution as small as 0.010mm layers, but has a relatively small build volume of only 64 x 40 x 134mm. The small volume is not a significant issue, as such a machine would likely be used for producing jewelry molds, dental structures or other highly-detailed but small personalized objects.
Autodesk – Printer 3D ” Ember “
by Corentin3D
on Sketchfab
The machine itself includes a beautiful industrial design, which you can see here in this 3D viewable embed from Sketchfab and the image below.
Recently a video emerged showing the machine in action. The device is printing the “Spark Logo” at 0.025mm layers. Evidently this time lapse shows four hours of printing in only ten seconds. Note that the object is actually quite small (40mm wide?), as the build chamber is only 64mm across the X axis.
Autodesk hopes to ship the printer in “early 2015”. That’s getting close, isn’t it?
