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Sculptifty
Meet David
Sculptify release first images of their prototype
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Sculptify David
UPDATE: The Sculptify David 3D Printer has now launched on Kickstarter and is going great guns after less than 24 hours. Stay tuned for an interview with the Sculptify team.
“Vaporware!” – they cried on various forums when Sculptify announced that they had a 3D printer that did away with filament instead turning to direct 3D printing with plastic in its raw form, pellets.
Sculptify are calling this form of technology Fused Layer Extrusion or FLEX, which considering that Sculptify rave about their various plastics elasticity is rather apt. The use of pellets could significantly expands the types of plastic used; including HIPS and TPU; as well as massively reduce the cost of 3D printing at home – estimates suggest that pellets could be up to 70% cheaper than filament.
The latest updates on the Sculptify printer should do away with some of the scepticism surrounding their claims. This type of printing with pellets did always seem the next logical step in extrusion-based 3D printing after complaints about the lack of materials, lack of consistency and price of filament it wasn’t long until somebody did away with the need for filament at all.
However, some nice pictures and a Kickstarter campaign does not mean we should be totally sold, the prints on Sculptify’s YouTube channel certainly look impressive, but we’ll have to wait for the Kickstarter campaign to see what stage of development CEO Slade Simpson and team are up to.
The parts used on the pictures certainly look expensive and Sculptify are claiming only precision components are being used in order to make the machine print smoothly, accurately, and quietly. David’s removable print platform is designed to resist scratching and remain perfectly flat.
This could well be a machine to look out for in the coming weeks.
