A tour through the 3D printing zone at the Consumer Electronics show 2014, sponsored by MatterCompilers LLC. Presented to the Portland 3D Printing Lab and South Bay 3D Printing Lab Meetups. Join us if you're in the area and love 3D printing tech!
There was a 3D Printing track at #CES2014! There were two things that stood out. First, we’ve seen a LOT of 3D Printing in the movies- Real Steel, Iron Man 1-3, and Pacific Rim all featured SFX augmented by 3D printed objects and costumes. Second, Jason Lopes of Legacy Effects is tasked with making 3D printing easy and usable for the rest of his artists, a job that didn’t exist just a few years ago!
Second standout point was almost lost on me. IBM Research conducted a study where they broke down 4 types of products and figured out the overall costs of 3D printing them locally (factoring in shipping and ecological impact as well). For the first time, they found it would be cheaper to print a device. Specifically, it’d be 23% cheaper to 3D print hearing aids in the Chicago area.
The theme of 3D Printing at CES was Mainstream Everywhere… but for B2B. There were dozens of new products aimed square at making businesses more effective at delivering 3D printed products!
FFF=Fused Filament Fabrication
It’s a replacement of FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling), which is TM’d
These printers are in their 5th generation and feature reliability and capacity improvements.
11% larger, camera, apps, semi-auto-leveling, smart extruder tech, new UI that makes the printer more approachable for the next set of early adopters. What hasn’t changed? Single Extruder, PLA, higher price point.
12x12x18 build volume, self-leveling
Inexpensive, no leveling (rafts required), 4x4x5 volume. No UI!
Completely new line: Cube 2 (replaces Cube) and Cube Pro (replaces Cube-X)
Kickstarter project! Scanner+Printer in one, with a very approachable, unique UI.
HyRel extrusion system supports 30 different materials and can be ganged up to print multiple copies as seen here.
Pirate 3D Buccaneer, Robo3D and Afinia printers. All have about the same volume. Afinia sells at Best Buy, Pirate 3D is a KS project, and Robo3D is largely open sourced!
Unremarkable printer, except for the large build volume at $499 price point!
In 2014 many patents for Stereolithography 3DP will expire. There was an amazing array of SLA printers at CES; this is about half of them.
Form 1 Printer - $3399
Pegasus Touch 3D Printer - KS - $2500
Envisiontec comes in around $20-$30k, but provides exceptional resolution.
Highly textured prints from Envisiontec.
Lots of improvements to 3D model creation.
Makerbot releases collections of toys and learning tools on Thingiverse. These are verified prints, guaranteed to work in all their printers.
Matterform scanner has identical scan volume, at 1/3 the price of MakerBot Digitizer.
3D Systems iSense scanner for iPad was the buzz of the show for 3D scanning.
Multimaterial 3D prints from the WhiteClouds design service.
More custom, multi-material prints from WhiteClouds, including a Hyperloop!
Lastly, PhotoShop CreativeCloud now includes direct print to MakerBot printers and Shapeways service.
This printer sprays 300+ metal alloys onto parts using additive manufacturing, and mills them using traditional CNC.
This is the first continuous 3D printing line. Note the angled print bed.
Floor-standing 3D Systems Cerajet produces kiln-ready ceramics from 3D models.
Shelf-standing Chefjet printers output flavored sugar prints. This was truly the talk of the show!
Tasty, surprisingly chewy, with a huge dose of imagination. This is the kind of 3D printed product you’ll be able to buy very soon.