CES 2016 3D printing impressions – part 2

Second part of my CES 2016 3D printing expo visit starts outside the 3D printing expo, at the main halls of the convention center, where Sony, Panasonic and Samsung construct their mega booths and where you never see a 3D printer… well until CES 2016. Its always fun to see big consumer tech companies step in and  join the 3D printing revolution.

The last one to do so was Polaroid, who two days ago introduced a consumer grade, desktop 3D printer, the ModelSmart 250S  .  Its a slightly big, stylish FDM 3D printer. the ModelSmart aims at populations who are not necessarily tech oriented or designers/makers and as such it  is presented as a hassle-free and extremely simple to operate 3D printer.  It has a solid and robust build, uses polaroid proprietary filament cartridges (again, aiming at hassle-free) and has a built in camera (how very Polaroid of them). it slices using Cura. Price is not out yet, but I suspect this one won’t be cheap…

the cool looking ModelSmart

9 Colors of filament cartridges

Polaroid CES 2016 booth

ROBO 3D‘s R2 & R2 mini

ROBO3D is a manufacturer I very much appreciate in the 3D printing ecosystem. The have the right approach and the right 3D printer at the right price. Well reviewed with a growing community of users these guys seem to have it figured out

6 foot tall 3D printed ROBO3D mascot – made by the ROBO3D community

they are showing two new 3D printers with a very promising name the R2 and the R2 mini. The R2 is a very attractive looking printer with a huge 10X10X10 (inches) build volume, a heated, self leveling bed, dual extrusion up to 300 MS speeds (!) and much more and will cost $2000,  its young brother, the R2 mini, is half in everything (except for speed) and costs half – $1000.

ROBO3D R2

R2 dual extruders

ROBO3d were also showing their new 3D print kits – content kits for 3D printing. A very nice concept were the customer purchases a kit, lets say to make a guitar the box includes  every part that cannot be 3D printed, as well as instructions on how to construct the final product, and STL files for the rest. Looking forward to see how this develops.

ROBO3D print kit

DWS LAB – finally out, the XFAB

After several years of trade show teasing and thousands of hands who touched the displayed printed products in disbelief. The much anticipated (at least to me) XFAB SLA 3D printer is out and available to order. DWS LAB is an Italian manufacturer of industrial grade printers and materials with numerous innovation developed and patents, especially in the field of materials. The XFAB offers an interesting and truly impressive range of patented resins. From strong to flexible, rubber like and from transparent to opaque the monochromatic range of materials has an excellent smooth finish. the Build volume is 180x180mm cylindrical and the price is $5000. Maybe not cheap, but in what it does, the XFAB is unique and in my opinion justifies the price.

XFAB materials samples

the Beautiful XFAB

XFAB in action – and FLEXA 692, black rubber like material

On a side note… after a short walk through the CES 2016 3D printing expo it seem as if there are simply too many SLA printers around. From the well known Form 1 and XFAB to the affordable XYZ Nobel1 and the lesser known UNIZ, PhotoCentric and MoonRay (probably forgot one or two others) it starts to feel crowded in the desktop SLA world… first thought that comes to mind is … What The Hell they are all thinking? who needs this as a consumer technology?… its expensive (yet prices change fast) and somewhat messy for the average home user…     Second thought that comes to mind is that with all these SLA printers being made someone should start thinking of relevant  well designed content     * stay tuned on that one… we’re on it.

3D Printlife’s ENVIRO Bio degradable ABS

The LA based distributer has started making filament in the past year and they are presenting Enviro a type of ABS that unlike the regular type, is bio degradable. So if you print a lot with ABS, or even if you don’t, but run into a specific need for ABS’s strength.. you can switch to Enviro and know you are helping the planet

Hope you found this interesting.

hector.