The Mark One in action
With a pitch video that looks and sounds like it was directed by Wes Anderson, comes a new 3D printer launched at SolidWorks World 2014 in San Diego.
When you launch a new 3D printer now it has to have a pretty new USP and the MarkForged Mark One 3D printer certainly has one of those: A desktop 3D printer printing in carbon fibre.
In recent times we’ve seen the rise of composite filaments for printers that use extrusion technologies; materials like Laybrick, Laywood, Taulman’s Nylon are becoming increasingly popular with hobbyists and consumers alike.
A consumer or hobbyist is not a label that suits MarkForged creator, Greg Mark. Greg is an industrial user whose other company ‘Aeromotions” specialise in carbon fibre aerodynamics to make vehicles go faster.
Having prototyped spoilers and wings for cars on 3D printers Greg was convinced there was a way to make real like carbon fibre parts on one of these machines. So he set about making a printer from scratch that could print in a range of materials.
The Mark One is capable of printing not just in carbon fibre but fibreglass, nylon and traditional PLA. This means that you can create multi-material parts with incredibly variable strengths on the one machine (though not at the same time yet).
The machine also has features like automatic bed levelling, 100 micron layer resolution, a wide format 305mm x 160mm x 160mm build platform, dual extruders and software with the ability to pause prints and use the cloud for printing. Not to mention that it is a great looking machine (that “looks like the head of Short Circuit’s Johnny Five” according to one member of the team) coming in sub $5,000.
Check out the video above to see the MarkForged Mark One in action…
