Last month, Formlabs launched its lowest-cost 3D printer to date.
Equipped with a new print engine based on the company's proprietary Low Force Display (LFD) technology, and a range of consumer-friendly colours, the $690 Form Studio 1 is being positioned as the world’s 'most affordable resin 3D printer' offering professional quality, average print speeds of under two hours, and reliability.
The development was led by a new team in Shenzhen where Formlabs opened an office last year and set itself a goal of "bridging the massive gap between cheap, unsafe, unreliable printers and the professional standard Formlabs is known for", per comments from Kennedy Liu, Formlabs R&D Lead based in Shenzhen.
Fitting, then, that the machine made its official debut at TCT Shenzhen where our ManufacturingIQ Editor Oliver Johnson caught up with Formlabs co-founder and CEO Maxim Lobovsky to learn more about how the machine came to be and the significance of its Shenzhen development.
"It's a lot of hard work," Lobovsky said. "That's kind of the big challenge with Form Studio, is how to take everything we built into the Form 4, which is a professional grade system that costs around $3,000, and put it into a $700 package. We've been working hard at that for the last couple years. Basically redesign everything from the ground up for cost-effectiveness while maintaining everything in terms of print quality and print success rate and all that."
Laura Griffiths
Commenting on the importance of having a physical presence in this region of China, Lobovsky said, "It's critical. China and Guangdong specifically is a world capital for manufacturing these kind of electromechanical products. And lately, it's also become the capital for developing these kind of products as well. There's so many amazing companies here like Huawei and DJI and Bamboo and others that have talented engineers. And so we want to be the global leader in everything we do, which means we need the most talented people in the world to work on our products. And part of that team is in Shenzhen."
Below, Oli takes a closer look at the machine and speaks to Lobovsky and Rong Lin, Head of China Sales & Marketing at Formlabs Shenzhen.
