3D printer, printing the cheapest consumables

The first question asked by anyone who is interested in 3D printing technology for the first time:

- How much will consumables cost?

And the answer makes you think about it - can postpone the purchase of a 3D printer until the time when the cost price approaches reasonable limits?
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And then there was a print, according to the creators of the technology , 50 times cheaper than the nearest competitors!

And all because ordinary paper 80 mg is used as a consumable material. The paper is sealed with water-based glue. So with environmental friendliness in the project everything is in order.

But the most interesting thing is that it’s strange that no one had thought of such a simple idea - to print 3D models with paper and glue?
 

How it works

At the moment, one device is presented under the name MATRIX 300. A pack of A4 paper is loaded into the tray, each sheet with a thickness of 0.1 mm is cut by a laser with a hard- faced cutter ( trimmed GreyCat ), the sheets are glued together in a block. At the exit, you also get a glued paper block, from which the 3D model has yet to be pulled out manually:



Models in width and length are limited to A4 format, 277 × 190 mm, height 150 mm. Not the most impressive sizes, considering that many desktop models print a little bit less.

In this case, the entire printer takes up a lot of space, not the desktop exactly:



Exact dimensions: 950 × 700 × 800 mm. And you also need space to open the lid!

 

Full color or multicolored?

No full color yet. You can use paper of different colors, but at the output we get a “layer cake”. Not the most common joke, right?



Meanwhile, if you embed a simple inkjet printer inside and apply paint around the edge, you can immediately print full-color models. Let's hope it's a matter of time.

 

How much is?

Produce vehicles in Ireland, they cost almost 9000 euros, promised installment for 3 years. It remains only to figure out how to make money on it at least 10,000 rubles a month, and self-sufficiency has been achieved.

 

Pros and cons of technology

Pluses are obvious:

• low cost and availability of consumables,
• environmental friendliness.

True, "environmental friendliness" raises several questions. B main: a huge exhaust of unused paper with glue. All this needs to be scrapped.

Rather, the decisive factor is still the cheapness and availability of paper.

Shultc , SLY_G and ArtRoman noticed that the printer can be a wonderful way to recycle accumulated paper: drafts, old journals, damaged documents. In this regard, environmental friendliness is simply rushing!

There are drawbacks too. First and foremost, non-smoothed surfaces, “ladder”:



The existing technology of printing photopolymers can print the model and better. Shirixae adds that sandpaper easily removes this gap.

Another disadvantage is the inability to print hollow inside the model. Again, in other ways it is possible to either dissolve or shake the remnants of consumables inside. That is, if we need, for example, a hollow cube, we will have to print it in two parts.

GreyCat added that, under certain conditions, a 50 times cheaper price is just a marketing ploy. Because if you print a shape that is hollow inside, then plastic consumes very little, and in this case the same paper pack will go away.

 

Technology perspectives

Giving predictions is always a thankless task. Nevertheless, I would venture to make them, and I hope that in the comments I will be supported by habrausers.

Consumables paper makes it possible to purchase devices with any document center. This is a big plus, which can help in general the development and popularization of 3D printing. So the technology has prospects.

I think that there are prospects for combining MATRIX 300 with a color printer, and this will immediately give the opportunity to print more color, any color.

If necessary, it will be quite easy to adapt the technology to large sizes.

And who said you can't use plastic at all? Similarly, you can take plastic sheets, cut layers out of them and glue them with a separate glue.

So, in my opinion, technology has a future.

 

Authorship and thanks

The comment left by Antares19 inspired to write this post.

All pictures and videos from the Mcor Technologies developer site.

The text of Vadim Galkin . When copying please refer to my personal page.

 

Post script: full color print already!

A little more than two months have passed since the post was published, and the news came that Mcor Technologies released a model with a color printer right away.



Added four-color (CMYK) inkjet printing, with the promised that the ink is applied to the edges of the paper. Quickly one of the prophecies came true!

Nothing has been said about the price yet, the site has published a previous offer of 9 thousand euros in installments for 3 years, but for a model without a printer. But you can write a letter to manufacturers , maybe they will answer.

Thank you Sterhel