$499 3-D Printer Drew Plenty of Attention at CES (Video)

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3-D printing is far from new, but a $499 3-D printer is new enough to get a bunch of people to write about it, including someone whose headline read, CES 2014: Could 3D printing change the world? XYZPrinting, the company behind the da Vinci 1.0 printer, has some happy-looking executives in the wake of CES. They won an award, and their booth got lots of attention. This is what trade shows are all about for small and/or new companies. Now the XYZprinting people can go home and pump out some product -- assuming they got a lot of orders (and not just attention) at CES.

Timothy:Gary, could you go ahead and introduce yourself please?

Gary:Okay. Thanks Timothy. It is a very nice to have this opportunity to introduce Da Vinci 1.0 from XYZprinting. I think the key point that I want to talk about this printer is not just its amazing price which we offer to the market at $499, but also the printer features itself. We have no less, any less features than most of the current benchmarking products in the market. We have a larger build size, we have superb quality.

Timothy:How big is that build size?

Gary:It is 7.8 inch x 7.8 inch x 7.8 inch. So it is a fairly large build size. Also, if you can find the quality, it is also superb. But the most important is I think to bring up two points. One is the ease of use, the easy user interface. We try to manipulate the typical 2-D printers, the laser printers, plug and play kind of thing, you don’t have to do any kind of assembly or complicated setup for the printer, so just plug in USB cable, you can press print and do 3-D printing. On the other hand, there are lots of safety features for home users. So we try to put the entire package into an enclosure, so you don’t get burnt you don’t get into any kind of difficulties from the printing operations. So safety is one of our biggest concerns for the typical consumers. So again, to bring the price down, and we can do it better than anyone else, and then also, we have a nice quality ease of use and safety features for the product itself.

Timothy:Talk about the filament that you use.

Gary:Yes. It is a typical ABS filament, and also later on we will have PLA in a couple of months’ time.It is like cassette loading, very easy loading. So you buy the filaments from us, it is USD 28 for a 600 gm pack.

Timothy:Now the build platform here, is that motorized?

Gary:Yes it is.

Timothy:Is it heated?

Gary:Yes it is heated.Actually two main heating elements, one is the print head or the nozzle, another one is the print bed, so just to try to make the print quality well.So the heated bed is actually one of the features for us to make sure the quality is outstanding.

Timothy:What sort of files does it work with?

Gary:Standard STL files, you can grab from our own website or from any lots of database websites you can get, and also we have our own dedicated proprietary file formats you can transfer from a standard STL file to our proprietary formats. For printing files from files for proprietary formats, you can reserve or you can save to some dedicated configuration in order to get an optimized printer outcome.

Timothy:Can you show me how does data actually get into the printer here? It is an USB port or do you have SD slot?

Gary:Okay, from computer. So we have a lot of software all you need to have is a standard STL file downloaded from the web, and then just open the file from using our softwares and there are some easy configurations_____14:42and you just press print button.

Timothy:So it is a USB connection?

Gary:That’s right. Through a computer.

Timothy:Can we see the back?

Gary:Sorry?

Timothy:Can we see the back of the machine?

Gary:The back of the machine? Well, actually another cool thing is there is nothing at the back. Because the entire operation is within the enclosure. So the filament installation is inside the machine itself. So it is very easy to use. You might see the printer size is not that small but because we have a higher enclosure inside the machine, so the entire movement is inside the machine during operations. So that’s why the printer size looks a little bit big, but in terms of the operation size we are not bigger than anyone else.

Timothy:Now what about availability? Is it shipping right now?

Gary:Okay, it will be available in about a month and a half’s time, it should be available somewhere by the beginning of March.

Timothy:And is that worldwide?

Gary:Well, some parts of the world it is already available such as Taiwan and China. But for US market, we will available, people will be able to get the product on online channels from early March.

Why are 3D printers so exciting?

[MobyDisk]

From the latimes article:

Even though 3D printing is all the rage at the Consumer Electronics Show, many people outside the industry are still puzzled by all the fuss. "Explain 3D printers to me. Why are they useful?" one non-techie friend of mine tweeted me this week, after I posted a picture of a 3D printer at the show.

The show is called the *consumer* electronics show, not the *producer* electronics show. Most people are not makers, so they won't be excited about a technology that lets them make something. Even if people want something, a 3D printer requires that you know how to design that item.

When someone invents a 3D designer, where you can say "Build me a thing that..." then you might get the consumers excited.

Re:Yeah yeah

[mark-t]

Inkjet cartridges expire so quickly after being opened because they contain ink... which is wet, and evaporates, leaving dry residue in the compartment which cannot be used.

You will save money in the long run in printing costs if you just buy a laser printer, because toner is dry, and does not evaporate from the container. The cartridges are more expensive, but you will buy them so much less frequently that you will actually save a lot of money in the end.