Pirate3D
Bucaneer
We learnt earlier in the year that the Singapore-based 3D printer startup, Pirate 3D, securing $0.5million in funding to fulfil their promise “To build and provide the EASIEST to use 3D printer on the market and also to place one of these machines in every single home for everyone to experience the fun of creating your own things.'
Just three months after that funding they’ve announced their flagship (this is going to be a difficult article in which to avoid puns) 3D Printarrrrr The Buccaneer (see even they can’t help it), claiming to be “the easiest to use 3D printer in the world”.
As with botObjects they’ve come under a little bit of scrutiny (on the Bounty) due to the fact that their images appear to be simply renders. Rather than be all defensive about the claims they’ve been quite amusing with our all-time favourite blog riposte.
Over the past couple of weeks the crew on the good ship Pirate3D have been running a guess the price competition on their Facebook page, which received over 4000 entries. The correct amount was the rather random $347 (£226) and we look forward to seeing the contest winner holding his/her printer aloft above their head.
The price seems phenomenally cheap for a fully assembled 3D printer. Seeing as it is about 15% of the price of a Replicator 2 it would certainly encourage people to market, if indeed this isn’t vaporware.
The images of the machine look very nice ‘n’ all but there’s once again no evidence to suggest how the printer prints, 3D printing Hornblower Kevin Quigley pointed out this on twitter:
Nice to see the octopus on @pirate3d print platform is not exactly flat to the base...definitely not a render then!
In response to a similar claim on their forum an employee of Pirate3D responded,
“By the way, the photos on the front page are NOT renders! They are actual photographs of our prototypes :)”
What with this motley crew and botObjects it is becoming rather difficult to tell what is fact and what is fiction. In a recent blog post Pirate3D said they are working on some issues with Kickstarter in order to launch on the crowdfunding platform in the coming weeks.
Watch this space…
