Peachy Printer Campaign Ends - But Not Really

The world's first USD$100 3D printer's launch campaign has closed, with the Peachy Printer project raising over USD$650,000 on their Kickstarter page. 

 

This amount may be somewhat less than other notable crowdfunding launches, such as Formlab's, which raised USD$3M, but there's a difference: the Peachy Printer costs only USD$100, while previous printers were much more expensive. The Form 1, for example, cost over 20x as much. This means that the Peachy Printer has likely been purchased by many more people than any other 3D printer launch. Our count of printer buyers on their page is 4,107. That's a lot of 3D printer owners. 

 

Did you miss out? Don't fret because you can still buy a Peachy Printer on their Indiegogo page, which remains open until October 24th. The company is also opening an online store to sell units. 

 

Via Kickstarter and Indiegogo

3D Hubs Offers Community 3D Printing

3D Hubs joins several other startups attempting to crowdsource inexpensive 3D printing. The idea is that idle home or business 3D printers could be put to work producing objects for requestors in local or distant areas. 3D Hubs provides a "hub" where you can find participants offering such services. 

 

The process is straightforward, according to 3D Hubs: 

 

• Upload your 3D design in the simple .STL format
• Choose a print location using our interactive map
• Pick up your product and meet the printer
• Join the community keep on sharing & learning

 

Their slogan: "Connecting printer owners with people who want to 3D print". 

 

It only works if there is a sufficient number of participants in each community. You need twenty people with 3D printers to "unlock" a city. Unlocked cities as of this writing include: Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and others, while in Europe there are many cities involved, including London, Brussels and more. 

 

We're not sure of 3D Hubs business model, but we presume they take a cut of each transaction in exchange for connecting the buyer with the maker. 

 

Via 3D Hubs

Follow the White Rabbit, the 3D Printed One

In the classic movie, The Matrix, Neo is challenged by a mysterious online message to "Follow the White Rabbit". Such a rabbit appears before Neo who follows it all the way to the famous quote from Morpheus: "You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes". 

 

Fun stuff, but it was only a movie. Or was it? 

 

Sculpteo reports on an incredible project to reproduce the mysterious rabbit using 3D printing. Mysterabbit hopes to put white rabbits across the world: 

 

Mysterabbits are tiny sculptures – in the shape of a meditating rabbit – designed to be placed in public spaces. We hope they will stop people from their daily routine and for a brief moment, make them wonder about their mysterious, newly found gift, and a small piece of the beautiful world that surrounds them.

 

You can either 3D print the White Rabbit yourself or you can request one - at no charge! 

 

Mysterabbit's gallery shows the White Rabbit in many global scenes. It quietly meditates, awaiting your gaze. 

 

Your job: Find them. Print them. Place them. 

 

Via Sculpteo and Mysterabbit

A Collaborative 3D Printed Sculpture

Calgary-based PrintToPeer is experimenting with what could be the world's first crowd-printed sculpture. Anyone with access to a 3D printer can participate. 

 

The idea is quite simple: each participant signs up and is able to customize a single piece. The customized piece is converted into a 3D model and downloaded for you to print. You could use your own 3D printer, or perhaps you can use a 3D print service if you don't have access to one. Once your print is complete, you send it to the project, who then assemble it and many others into a gigantic 3D printed sculpture. They say: 

 

“Linked” will be the world’s first collaborative 3D sculpture, created by makers and hobbyists across the world. 3D printing is bringing open-source creativity to the physical world, and that's why we're making "Linked" - it's a celebration of the new-found power of the community.

 

It's not known how large the sculpture will be. It depends on the number of participants. Therefore, we strongly recommend you join this project and make your piece of "Linked". 

 

The completed sculpture will be presented to the public at the Beakerhead festival of art and engineering in Calgary on September 14th. 

 

Via PrintToPeer

The Rygo - Printed

We wrote of an unusual crowd funding project to back what would be North America's largest 3D print to date. The project was to print noted 3D artist Bathsheba Grosman's Rygo sculpture using the D-Shape concrete 3D printer. 

 

We're happy to see that the project was indeed successful as the print has been completed, even though the crowd funding initiative fell a bit short of its monetary goal. The project reinforced a couple of key things: first, it's possible to crowd fund an artistic 3D print. Secondly, you can print big things. 

 

Where can one gaze on this amazing 3D sculpture? You'll have to visit the VanDusen Visitors Centre in Vancouver after the print is unveiled on July 26th. 

 

Via D-Shape

eMaker Increases Capacity in an Unusual Way

You'll recall that 3D printer manufacturer eMaker recently ran an IndieGoGo campaign to raise funds to kickstart their company. The campaign was wildly successful, raising not their intended USD$30K, but instead well over USD$158K! 

 

Today they've announced a change in their manufacturing strategy that permits them to produce not 150 machines as was originally intended, but instead 300 machines. How are they doing this? Evidently they're crowdsourcing the production of some parts by purchasing them from RepRap 3D printer owners. According to eMaker's Managing Director, Jean-Marc Giacalone: 

 

We set up www.emakershop.com to let anyone sell their RepRap-printed parts to others for free.  We have now applied this philosophy to our own RepRap production and bought many of the parts for the machines that we will sell from the same RepRap community.

 

And:

 

Any RepRap owner, including our customers of course, can recoup some of their initial investment by selling printed parts back to us.  We will do a quality check, then use those parts in future machines.  So our customers can become our manufacturers, allowing us to supply more new customers.

 

This is perhaps the second instance of customers becoming suppliers we've seen, the first being MakerBot some two years ago. We haven't heard more from MakerBot on this since, so it should be interesting to see eMaker's results. 

 

Via eMaker

A Distributed Manufacturing Experiment - Get Involved Now!

We received a note from Vernon Effalo of Effalo.com, who's performing a very interesting experiment. He's designed a unique geodesic dome connector (you know, the five-way joint for the arms of the dome) and wants you to build them for him. And it's not begging - he's willing to pay USD$2 per connector! 

 

So far they've only received 5 participants, but need 21 more to obtain the necessary 26 connectors. You can also customize the 3D model to include your name or logo on the connector if you wish. 

 

The idea is to "experiment with distributed manufacturing to see how quickly we can assemble a geodesic dome from crowdsourced parts, fabricated by makers from all across the world."

 

Let's warm up those extruders, everyone! Entries close tomorrow!

 

Via Fabricating and Thingiverse