Hardware

The Strooder Filament Maker

OmniDynamics is a Bristol (UK) based company that launched a Kickstarter campaign this past June to develop a compact, accessible and robust filament extruder. 

BEECONNECT Announced

BEEVERYCREATIVE announced a new add-on to their BEETHEFIRST personal 3D printer: BEECONNECT.

GeckoTek’s Build Plate

There’s a small explosion of build plates occurring, if you haven’t noticed. Another good option has popped up on Kickstarter: GeckoTek. 

The Goliat Extruder

Several companies now develop and market high-performance 3D printing extruders. Poland-based Tytan 3D is one of them. 

Third Party 3D Printer Resin

With the rise of multiple personal 3D printer options based on resin technology, one would think third parties would begin supplying resin for them. You’d be right. 

Making a 3D Printer Out of Junk

These days the focus has been on increasingly sophisticated, pre-assembled shiny 3D printers that work out of the box. But what if you wanted to build one from scrap?

Home Plastic Recycling

Plastic recycling, while seemingly a good idea, has apparently had a difficult time. Dave Hakkens, a student at the Design Academy Eindhoven,  has created an inexpensive way to do it yourself. 

Needed: 3D Printer Auto Ejection

Years ago the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic had a peculiar optional feature, the Automated Build Platform, which could automatically remove prints from the bed when complete. We need something like that today.  But what was this amazing option? It was essentially a conveyor belt laid around the heated build platform. When the print was complete, it was… Continue reading Needed: 3D Printer Auto Ejection

Build Your Own Ultimaker?

Looking for plans to build your own 3D printer? Now you can consider building an Ultimaker 2. While it’s for sale in assembled form, you can now inspect the plans for it. 

Artec’s Handheld 3D Scanners

There are now several inexpensive handheld 3D scanners on the market, but they just aren’t as good as commercial units that have been available for some time. 

Fuel 3D’s New Funding

Fuel3D launched in a very successful manner on Kickstarter some months ago, but now they have a new success story.

Makeraser’s Smooth Launch

Finally Makeraser is available for purchase, having launched on Kickstarter this week. It’s not a 3D printer, but everyone who owns a 3D printer should certainly get one.    It’s a multi-use accessory that leverages acetone’s peculiar property of dissolving ABS plastic. In the past we’ve seen various attempts to use acetone to smooth ABS… Continue reading Makeraser’s Smooth Launch

Cubify’s Advanced Material Cartridges

Cubify’s new Cube 3 includes a fascinating new feature: extremely simplified material loading, made possible only through the development of a new way to handle plastic filament.    The new cartridges are quite different from any generic spool you’ve seen before. They’re sealed to prevent dust and dirt from contaminating the filament (which eventually clogs… Continue reading Cubify’s Advanced Material Cartridges

Matterform’s 3D Scanner in the Flesh

We managed to chat with Adam Brandejs of Matterform at CES, where he and colleagues demonstrated their powerful and inexpensive tabletop 3D scanner.    We wondered how they felt about recent announcements by other companies of various kinds of 3D scanners. Matterform is not concerned and reports that “pre-sales have been going very well” for… Continue reading Matterform’s 3D Scanner in the Flesh

What Will 3D Systems Announce at CES 2014?

We knew 3D Systems was set to make significant announcements at CES 2014 in Las Vegas, but now we have a preview. In a press release they said they would make not one, but TWELVE announcements. This is startling, as they previously announced a dozen or so new items at last month’s EuroMold conference in… Continue reading What Will 3D Systems Announce at CES 2014?

3D Printed Underwear?

A UK firm has revealed plans to produce a line of apparently 3D printed underwear. Tamicare has developed a new process that is said to enable 3D printed fabric, which they intend to produce underwear with, at least at first.    The fabric generated through this process is trademarked as “CosyFlex”. It’s not entirely clear… Continue reading 3D Printed Underwear?

Stratasys’ Nylon Material

A few weeks ago we speculated that Stratasys might begin focusing on new materials to exploit their huge base of installed 3D printers as their FDM patents expire, and it appears they’ve done so with the announcement of their new Nylon-12 material.    Fred Fisher, Director of Materials at the company explained to Fabbaloo that… Continue reading Stratasys’ Nylon Material

Formlabs Releases a New Resin

Formlabs, makers of the popular Form 1 personal 3D printer have released a new resin. Previously, the company offered only two resins: Grey and Clear. The new material is “White”.    For a rapid startup company such as Formlabs, it’s totally understandable they may take some time before introducing new materials, but now they’ve done… Continue reading Formlabs Releases a New Resin

Development is Underway for a Graphene 3D Printing Material

In a recent press release, Lomiko Metal, a Vancouver based firm, announced its intention to create a laboratory dedicated to the development of “graphene-enhanced” 3D printing materials.   Graphene, which recently proved to be the world’s strongest material, has been of keen interest to a wide range of industries since its first isolation in 2004.… Continue reading Development is Underway for a Graphene 3D Printing Material

3D Systems’ New Scanning Solution

3D Systems announced an inexpensive personal 3D scanner last week, but they also announced a professional 3D scanning solution, too.    The new GeoMagic Capture bundle is a combination of a blue-LED 3D scanner and application-specific software to integrate the scan directly into several high-end 3D modeling solutions, including: SolidWorks, SpaceClaim, Design X, Design Direct,… Continue reading 3D Systems’ New Scanning Solution

The FilaFab Filament Maker

We had a close look at the FilaFab, a “Desktop Filament Fabricator”. It’s pretty simple in concept: put in some plastic bits and usable 3D printer filament comes out the nozzle.    But there’s a lot more to it than that. The device has been carefully designed to ensure consistent melting temperature and flow rate… Continue reading The FilaFab Filament Maker

The CADScan Cubik 3D Scanner

We spoke with Dr. Alastair Buchanan, the man behind the Cubik full-color tabletop 3D scanner at the London 2013 3D Printshow.    The device is a tabletop unit, meaning you can only scan items that will fit into its scan chamber. It’s also a sealed chamber, meaning that you can operate the scanner in a… Continue reading The CADScan Cubik 3D Scanner

Cosmo’s Patina Kit

During 3D Printshow 2013 we spent some time with Cosmo Wenman, the fellow who has captured 3D scans of numerous famous sculptures over the past year. But it’s what he does with the scans afterwards that is so much more interesting.    Wenman 3D prints the sculptures on his aging yet still reliable MakerBot Replicator… Continue reading Cosmo’s Patina Kit

Cubify’s New Handheld Scanner

Cubify announced the “Sense 3D Scanner” in a surprise announcement. The 3D printer manufacturer has thus far produced only 3D printers, making the Sense a completely new product line.    It’s a handheld 3D scanner capable of rapidly capturing 3D shapes. We examined the specifications for the device and noted the following:    The scan… Continue reading Cubify’s New Handheld Scanner

Something Interesting is Inside the new Builder 3D Printer

At the 2013 3D Printshow we stopped by the Code-p west BV booth, who produce the Builder personal 3D printer. These folks produce a typical personal 3D printer, but as we talked with their spokesman, something very interesting was revealed.   At first, their machine appears much like many other personal 3D printers: a cubic… Continue reading Something Interesting is Inside the new Builder 3D Printer

Adorable 3D Printed Humanoid Robot

Researchers studying bipedalism and human-robot interaction at France’s INRIA have created an affordable 3D printed humanoid robot.   Called Poppy, the 33 inch tall robot was designed, printed, and built for about US$11,000. This is around one third of the cost of comparable robots.   Most of the budget is spent on complex servo motors.… Continue reading Adorable 3D Printed Humanoid Robot

Ancient 3D Printer Converted Into a Laser Engraver

Some months ago we proposed a list of things you could do with your now-expired ancient personal 3D printers. We said you could   upgrade them; use them for simple prints; donate them; toss them out; or make them into a museum piece. At the time we considered museuming as the best option for our… Continue reading Ancient 3D Printer Converted Into a Laser Engraver

3D Scans Obtained By Drones

A new approach to capturing 3D scans of extremely large objects has been pioneered by senseFly, who produce the eBee drone series. They teamed with Drone Adventures, an organization dedicated to demonstrating the power of drones, to capture a detailed scan of the Matterhorn, Europe’s tallest mountain.      A team scaled the mountain and… Continue reading 3D Scans Obtained By Drones

Move over Michelangelo – 3D Printing with Marble

For millennia marble has been one of the most impressive materials for building and sculpture. However, marble quarrying wastes material and creates plumes of calcium carbonate dust.  Unfortunately, this dust represents a major environmental and public health risk.   In an effort to eliminate the negative effects of marble dust, engineers created MarbleEcoDesign.  This company… Continue reading Move over Michelangelo – 3D Printing with Marble

MadeSolid’s Colored 3D Printer Resins

If you happen to have a Form 1 resin-based 3D printer, you’ll likely to have purchased resin from Formlabs, its manufacturer. Formlabs provides resin tuned specifically for their machine, but as of now it comes in only two colors: grey and clear.    That’s changing because MadeSolid has launched a new series of resins that… Continue reading MadeSolid’s Colored 3D Printer Resins

“Green” 3D Printer Filament

No, no, we don’t mean “Green”. We mean “Green” as in environmentally responsible. We’ve been looking at filament supplier GP3D, who sell a decent selection of ABS and PLA plastic filament in 1kg spools.    Their pricing is decent (USD$32-44 per kg depending on the color and choice of material) and their color selection is… Continue reading “Green” 3D Printer Filament

3D Printer Filament Available at Monoprice

We hadn’t noticed it before, but evidently Monoprice has been selling plastic filament suitable for 3D printers for months now.    If you’re not familiar with Monoprice, they are a large online retailer of electronic goods, specializing in ultra-inexpensive cables. For example, you can get yourself an HDMI cable as little as USD$4, while you’d… Continue reading 3D Printer Filament Available at Monoprice

The Makeraser Smooths 3D Prints

A new startup offers something called “The Makeraser”. It’s a handheld tool that can smooth your unattractive visibly-layered 3D prints into beautiful smooth objects.    Current technology for smoothing ABS 3D prints involves suspiciously dangerous acetone vapor chambers or massively expensive commercial smoothing devices. That, or you spend many hours with sandpaper. The Makeraser hopes… Continue reading The Makeraser Smooths 3D Prints

Matterform Sales Open

Matterform’s fundraising campaign closed this spring achieving a total of “only” six times their target, but until now that was the only way to order one of their attractive tabletop 3D scanners. We received word from Co-Founder Adam Brandejs that their website now accepts pre-orders.    We were also informed that the latest version of… Continue reading Matterform Sales Open

The Structure Sensor

The folks who developed Skanect, one of the best software solutions for 3D scanning with your Microsoft Kinect, have launched a new scanning venture: the Structure Sensor.    Occipital, the company behind the sensor, bills it as “the world’s first 3D sensor for mobile devices.” The device attaches to iOS devices via the Lightning connector,… Continue reading The Structure Sensor

Expect Superior 3D Depth Cameras in 2014

NetworkWorld reports that Intel is actively developing a “depth sensing camera”, which will be capable of detecting “movement, track emotion, and even monitor reading habits of children.”   We already have inexpensive depth cameras available such as the common living room Microsoft Kinects found everywhere. But while the Kinect was revolutionary in its time, its… Continue reading Expect Superior 3D Depth Cameras in 2014