Strucur3D announced they’ve established an intimate relationship with Ultimaker to enable plug-and-play paste extrusion on Ultimaker equipment.
Structur3D has marketed a unique paste extruder as an attachment to 3D printers for almost two years. Up to now, it’s been an independent attachment that you must install on your 3D printer. While the team at Structur3D has made this as easy as possible, there is still effort required to get a Discov3ry paste extruder installed on arbitrary 3D printers.
But now that’s changed. The company announced they’ve become an official Ultimaker reseller. This, combined with Ultimaker’s open source design, allows Structur3D to create a hybrid machine that’s part Ultimaker and part Discov3ry paste extruder. It’s like having an Ultimaker that prints in paste as well as the normal plastic filaments. Well, that’s exactly what it is!
They’ve done all the required integration, which includes not only the physical installation of the special extruder mechanism, but also the electronic integration. There’s not much for you to do, other than print in paste!
There’s one mystery, however, as Structur3D does not provide a price for this combo, and instead asks you to request a quote directly from them. I’m not sure why this would be required, as I would imagine the work required to do the integration would not vary by machine. However, they say:
We work with you to build the best integrated system to get you the results you need.
So they must know something about paste extrusion that we don’t.
Nevertheless, once installed, you’ll be able to print in almost any kind of extrudable paste, including, perhaps, cookie dough. Presumably if you turn the Ultimaker’s glass plate temperature high enough, you might even be able to cook the cookies, too.
Yum!
Via Structur3D
