Mattel Unveils $300 3D Printer (computerworld.com) 108
Lucas123 writes: Perhaps in an attempt to get out ahead of the consumer 3D printing market, which has allowed popular toys such as Legos to be replicated, Mattel today announced it would begin shipping its $300 fused filament fabricator machine in October. Mattel's ThingMaker at-home toy-making device, reinvents the company's iconic 1960s toy by the same name. The new ThingMaker allows users to upload design files via Mattel's proprietary Design App, which works on Android or iOS devices. The 3D printer can then print single-part toys or print hundreds of different parts to be assembled into toys using ball-and-socket joints. Mattel's ThingMaker Design App is based on Autodesk's Spark, an open 3D printing platform that provides extensible APIs for each stage of the 3D printing workflow. Because it's based on an open architecture, the ThingMaker Design App also works with other 3D printers; it is available now and free to download for iOS and Android devices.
$300 bucks? (Score:1)
I won't have to buy those 1K Makerbot shitty ones after all!
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http://deltasine.com.au/ [deltasine.com.au] Disclaimer, I know the guy who owns the company and he has some really exciting new models in the pipeline.
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his point is, he thinks it will help his friend if he lets everybody know that they should hold off on buying any of his friend's products. I wonder if his friend's name is Adam Osborne.
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It depends on whether you want something that works or not. I spent years, as a kid, seeing how easily Mattel toys break. I'm not about to trust them with $300 of my money.
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makerbot 5th gen mini (1k abouts) is a piece of shit.
300 gets you a kit nowadays. a 300 bucks kit is better than 5th gen makerbots.. not better than last gen makerbots though. for under 1k you can get a clones of makerbot replicator 1/2 that are pretty decent(read: more reliable than 5th gen).
and now theres plenty of offerings in the 350-1000 dollars range. they're all pretty much based on same parts and tech though, which isn't really that bad since it means cheap parts for service.
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Could you elaborate on how makerbots or other cheap 3D printers are deficient? Is it about print speed/quality/resolution or reliability? I'm interested in this market, but it's hard to evaluate products since I don't yet know about the things they're likely to fail at.
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makerbot replicator 1/2 and clones use different, very slightly different, kind of control board and run different (opensource) firmware than most repraps. it has minor feature differences on how it deals with pressure in the nozzle to other 8 bit boards. the only reason it works really well is due to open source contributions from couple of guys(mbi released buggy).
makerbot 5th gens use a properiaty board with closed firmware and they rolled their own stepper controllers as well(which are noisy as hell). t
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Thanks, you not only answered what I asked but my more interesting question [slashdot.org] as well. So it sounds like the biggest problem with low budget printers is that the exact control of extruders and stepper motors is not something chip/firmware creators usually do well.
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well, it's ok by now. and you need good machining on the extruder/cooling it at the right spot. the trick is generating the commands beforehand on the computer(slicing) just well.
and it does not get any better from low budget to high(3000-4000) dollar hobby/home printers. they all do it same way and most of the printers on the market run the same control softwares and use the same boards, even use same heater/nozzle setups - so from that point it makes little difference if you buy a lulzbot or a prusa kit -
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None of this probably matters if you're trying to print out parts that are utilitarian, where appearances are no big deal or you have the time to finish the piece. It matter
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But at least we will get 24 months of warranty here in EU. So it will be built to last that long, or be expensive for Mattel.
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The article seems to suggest it may *only* print parts from the catalog in their custom software though, and may not allow you to print random parts. Which to my mind removes most of what makes 3D-printing good in the first place.
The price point is great (Score:5, Funny)
Priceless.
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Re: a good way to spend 300$ (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, it can, but you need to pay the 30 million dollar licensing fee.
Mattel were leaders in cheap technology before... (Score:5, Informative)
Way back in the day, they came out with the Barbie Digital Camera. It was the cheapest digital camera on the market by far. Many people who had no interest in Barbie bought them. It was $79 when most cameras were $300+, they got the price down by, among other things, using damaged DRAM chips.
http://www.superkids.com/aweb/... [superkids.com]
Question. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm asking for a friend.
Re:Question. (Score:5, Funny)
How much would it cost to print a RealDoll-type sex toy on one of these? I'm asking for a friend.
OK, printing a sex doll will cost a lot...
Printing a friend?
Priceless!
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Oh for mod points. Well played.
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How much would it cost to print a RealDoll-type sex toy on one of these?
I'm asking for a friend.
Wow.. I have a new idea.
Want to invest in my "meat in a tank meet 3D-printer technology"-vaporware company?
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How much would it cost to print a RealDoll-type sex toy on one of these?
Not as much as it costs for firefighters to cut you free from it and the trip to ER afterwards.
The original ThingMaker was AWESOME. (Score:5, Interesting)
At least, it was for a six-year-old kid. It fell victim to the "maybe we shouldn't have kids handling 400-degree hot molds" mindset, with an added dose of "maybe all those volatile organic fumes aren't the greatest thing for your kid to be huffing".
Let's hope the new one is worth of the name.
Fumes (Score:3)
Battery covers. (Score:4, Interesting)
Can I print replacement battery covers with it? That would be pretty useful. The finish looks pretty good I wonder if the tolerances are good enough for the clips to work.
Re:Battery covers. (Score:4, Interesting)
Can I print replacement battery covers with it? That would be pretty useful. The finish looks pretty good I wonder if the tolerances are good enough for the clips to work.
I've thought about this too. There are a lot of little things around the house that might be worth printing (or ordering printed from a "kinkos" type service). The biggest problem is that you need a 3d model of it before you can print it. Even if you have a 2nd one to copy, the 3d scanners aren't really good enough to do it without post editing. It would be great if manufacturers let you download battery cover 3d files like you can download printer drivers but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
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Why couldn't we have pirated battery cover models? You could even make a pirate logo into each one.
There are just a few hundred brands and styles of remotes at current shouldn't be too hard to get a collection going.
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My guess is that the manufacturers really aren't going to care about pirating for basic replacement parts like battery covers. Once 3d scanners become more popular, if it's a popular item you could borrow from a friend or even get online and ask for a 3d scan of it. Battery covers although thought of as cheap need to have a fairly tight tolerance to fit correctly so winging it would probably take multiple attempts and/or an exacto knife. Even with a 3d file, my guess is that it might take multiple prints
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Can I print replacement battery covers with it? That would be pretty useful. The finish looks pretty good I wonder if the tolerances are good enough for the clips to work.
Since you have to use a toy-oriented mobile app for modeling, you probably won't be able to make any sort of precise design.
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I highly doubt it will be a requirement to use only their app after all the goal is to sell the hardware and supplies.
Well then again afaik the cricut machines are still pretty worthless.
Limited (Score:1)
Looks like can only print from a propriety library of models. Associated cost?
At least until soneone hacks the firmware to allow Repetier control.
Uh. Replicate lego? Not bloody likely (Score:2)
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FTFY:
Not with any current cheap 3d printing technology, at least.
We have a six figure priced printer in the shop where I work, which is actual now several years old, and it can easily make the tolerances for Lego bricks, and with several materials. It would be a waste of money though even with the price of Lego bricks. Our is mainly used for things that can't easily be CNC milled or for non-critical parts when the CNC mills are backlogged.
I'm curious. What are the tolerances of your high dollar printer? What is the actual cost of printing a lego not counting the cost of the machine?
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Re:Uh. Replicate lego? Not bloody likely (Score:5, Insightful)
The tolerances for Lego are at only 2 microns. Still think it "easily" makes it? Considering the printer you describe is a few years old, I'd be surprised if it is even within an order of magnitude of that tolerance. I know of absolutely no 3d printer, at any price, that can reliably create parts at the levels of precision that can be ordinarily met with injection molding.
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I've seen that reported as the mold tolerance, which is not the same as the plastic tolerance which is more on the order of 10-20 microns. Some engineers at my work place got an argument about this once, and bought a small pack of Lego bricks and it is closer to 50 microns for wall thickness and larger for some of the big dimensions (as in the full range of values, not the standard deviation). This makes sense, because if they need 2 micron accuracy to work over all dimensions, pieces warmed up by your ha
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First of all, ABS plastic such as what is used for Lego isn't affected that much by temperature change at the scales that things like Lego are made, in general the difference in size for that tiny a temperature change would be about on the order of a fraction of a micron. Secondly, the expansion or contraction for larger temperature changes could indeed pose a problem for some Le
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Some observations (Score:5, Insightful)
Lots of people will point out the many problems with this system, but from an initial glance(*):
1) The filament spools are not chipped. You can get filament from other vendors and rewind them on your spools. Chances are, other vendors will notice this and start selling ThingMaker spools.
2) The FAQ states that if you don't have a printer, there are many places that will print parts for you. I assume this means that the output format *isn't* proprietary, possibly a bog-standard stl file that you can have printed anywhere.
If, and this is a big if, the heads can be easily replaced, then this could be quite an exciting development in 3d printing. As hackers, we'll be able to get cheap used 3d ThingMakers off of eBay for decades.
(*) Please correct me if any of these are wrong
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Apparently the software is just a branded Autodesk Tinkerplay [123dapp.com]. Surprisingly enough, Autodesk seems to be serious about consumer-level 3D printing and they seem to get that proprietary is pretty much a non-starter at the moment.
Print Your Own Chokables. (Score:2)
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Well, you could always bit a peanut-butter sandwich into the shape of a gun!
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You laugh. But I met this guy several years ago.
http://bioengineering.rice.edu... [rice.edu]
He helped me build my 3D printer.
Ken (Score:5, Funny)
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Yeah! He's going to get a 3D printer!
Oh wait, that's not what you meant at all...
Eeew what is that girl holding? (Score:2)
Nice, but... (Score:2)
Nice, but I expect it will use proprietary everything, from the feed-stock to the nozzles to the software and whatever else they can make non-standard...and my guess is that it'll all be heavily DRM-protected as well.
If I'm wrong, great, but knowing Mattel and the current state of the market I won't hold my breath.
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The article suggests It's open, interoperable (Score:2)
The article says that the design / print software is based on an open software package and it works with other 3D printers.
If the software uses standard protocols to talk to printers, that suggests that printer accepts the standard protocol and can therefore be controlled by other software.
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The article says that the design / print software is based on an open software package and it works with other 3D printers.
The article I read said, "Users upload design files via Mattel's proprietary Design App....", so it doesn't sound open to me. (??)
But I also see that it's "based on Autodesk's Spark, an open 3D printing platform", so now I'm a bit confused....maybe some bits are open and some aren't.
As for hardware, I hope it's made from standard parts and pieces, but if not, an aftermarket will probably spring up to provide alternatives.
All in all it sounds interesting, but at $300 I'm keeping my expectations low.
$300? (Score:1)
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It cost way more than that for my girlfriend's two updates.
How about free? (Score:2)
Okay, not really free. But I thought the only part of a 3D printer that a talented tinkerer couldn't build is the controller/software/firmware and the extruder. Does this really cost $300? What are the pitfalls of making your own printer with an extremely minimal kit (only an extruder and a chip)? Getting compatibility between the parts would take bloody ages, but is there any intrinsic reason why this doesn't work, or is it merely difficult (like restoring a car)?
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I hope it lives up to his expectations. Also, we have a gamer in our tabletop group who'd really love a set of braille dice as she's totally blind, just ask her guide dog, so we have ulterior motives for that one to work well.
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I've a friend who's tried two kits, and is so totally fed up with them being pieces of finicky (@#%$^&!) garbage that
In what way were the kits junk? I'm curious about whether a fully built printer would necessarily be better. Was it about part interoperability, or just that the kit had bad controller/interface? (I mean, was it because they weren't good kits, or because they were kits?)
Re: How about free? (Score:2)
The problem with kits is that you only get the precision you put in it. Between the metal/plastic/wood parts having their own tolerances and the need for very precise measuring tools to put them all together, for most people that's near impossible to get right. A unibody system would solve it by injection molding or laser cutting the parts that have to be precise and at uniform lengths.
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I'm curious...what are the specifications for braille dice?
people do it. Tolerances add up (Score:2)
People do build there own, and there are about a jillion web sites with more information, including detailed plans in some cases.
A main reason it's not cheaper is that tolerances add up. If you have .05" of slop in your screw drive, and 0.05" in your motors, and 0.05 in your bearings, and 0.05 sideways slop in your Z axis, that means each layer may be 0.2 inches off from the last - almost a quarter inch. That's totally unusable. To get 0.001" or better on all your moving parts means you'll be buying some
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look for BOM on reprap.org for some printer or on thingiverse.
or google for repstraps(repstrap being a term for a home built 3d printer that doesn't use 3d printed parts). people do them all the time.
the pitfall is that it takes time to get it working right. the upshot is that at least you know how the gddamn machine works - and maybe have a better chance of knowing why it's not working when it doesn't.
the upshot is that there's online stores where you could buy all the parts you need and there's really n
Legos to be replicated? (Score:2)
That said I'm somewhat surprised that LEGO haven't produ
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Wrong (Score:3)
Bzzzt, WRONG!!!!
There is no such thing as Legos, you buffoon.
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Does it use Plastigoop (Score:2)
WHERE IS MY 3D LEGO PRINTER???? (Score:2)
Print the parts you need, when you need.... LEGO 3D
YES!!!!!!!
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http://reprap.org/wiki/MendeLe... [reprap.org]
No specs? (Score:1)
What are the X, Y, and Z microns? What are my infill options? How about supports? Does it have a heated bed?
I looked around on the internet and didn't find any of the information which says what quality of printer this is. The samples look pretty but then again they're the best that could be done by professionals using perfectly tuned equipment.
My 3D printer was $350 and does 15 microns on the X and Y and down to 50 microns on the Z. I can control my infill. I can download from various file sharing sit
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Which 3D printer did you buy for only $350 that can do 15 microns on the X and Y and 50 microns on the Z?
Do you have to design it on your smartphone? (Score:2)
FTA: "...proprietary Design App, which works on Android or iOS devices"
Does that mean you must design on smartphones?
I like mine (Score:2)
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It's a collectible, from an era before Makerbot went to the dark side.
You Can Tell It's Mattel! (Score:2)
It's Swell! [snopes.com]
Razor economics (Score:2)
$300 for the printer
$25 for the filament and it does a very limited number of items.
Considering that it's aimed at children who will have no concept at limiting how many items that they will print (unless it's really slow and they get bored by it) then they will make their money selling refills.