OpenBeam – MendelMax / Rostock Challenge

A few months ago I discovered a really cool Kickstarter project that developed a new type of Aluminium Extrusion.

The aim was to get away from the current setup where the extrusions are cheapish and T-nuts that fit the extrusions are costly. Basically its just a marketing strategy where they sell you the extrusions at cost price and make their money on the T-Nuts.

Enter Openbeam. Openbeam is also a cool looking extrusions but with one difference. Gone are the specialty t-nuts and in their place you can use standard M3 nuts. M3 nuts are widely available and very cheap. Switching to commodity nuts can save you between 20-50% in build costs.

So we decided to get the creative juices flowing and started a Openbeam Challenge (New Zealand only at this stage). We provide the extrusions at a reduced price and offer our 3D Printing service to get them started.

We have received lots of interest and have a few builds going already.

Simon from Nelson is a great example. He started a build log showing his Openbeam build(the above picture is from his blog). You can follow his blog at http://www.nzec.co.nz/r3dwood/

I will add more details from the builds as they progress.

OpenBeam extrusions are available from our online store.