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As a follow up to our very successful Kickstarter campaign, we're here on IndieGogo for round two of our Phoenix 3D Printer!
"What makes your 3D printer so different than everyone else's?"
At the San Mateo MakerFaire, virtually everyone we spoke to asked us this question. With so many printer models to choose from, we were glad to see consumers becoming better educated about their options in the ever-growing 3D printing market.
So what makes our printer different?
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It's the software.
Our software makes 3D printing easier. It helps you manage your filament, grouping your STL files into logical groups, and a unique feature: print recovery mode. 3D printers are still susceptible to many flaws, including filament tangles and nozzle jams. Should something go wrong in the middle of your 12 hour print, you used to have to throw it in the trash and start over. With our software, we allow you to pause the print, fix your tangled filament or clogged nozzle, rewind the print to the point of failure, and try again. Our software also works directly with our iOS mobile app (Android version forthcoming).
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The Z Axis
Most traditional 3D printers use threaded rods to drive their Z axis up and down. This has a few drawbacks. For one, it's very slow to move the build platform into position. Secondly, screws can be manufactured imperfectly, causing a pattern to be ingrained into your print. By eliminating the screw, and using a belt instead, our printer produces perfect walls and edges, and no wobble pattern can be seen.
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The Extruder
Our extruder is designed to help prevent heat from traveling up the filament. Heat that travels up the filament can cause the filament to "soften," which makes it less effective at pushing filament out of your extruder's nozzle.
A warranty.
Yes, we have a one year on parts and labor. The only thing it doesn’t cover is shipping the printer to us.
Sample Prints
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Yoda and his puppy!
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This spider house was printed in about 20 pieces, then glued together and painted.
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Earbud holder
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A heart
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This "box / cylinder" test shows how straight the walls are of our printer. This was printed at 0.3mm resolution, and the distortion at the top is due to the slicing engine printing circles faster than the combination of a square and circle.
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Printer Specifications
- Build Area: 240 x 215 x 200 millimeters
- Resolution: 0.1mm all around
- 12-volt, 40-watt heater 0.35mm brass nozzle
- Accepts 1.75mm filament
- Heated build platform, which means you can print with ABS!
- 12-volt, 20-amp, 240-watt power supply
- Integrated filament spool holder. No need to buy special or proprietary cartridges!
- Adjustable Z-axis cutoff switch for reliable print starts
More About the Software
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Parts Library
The more complicated your object, the more STL files you need to keep track of. By allowing you to group your STL files into “assemblies” and “projects,” you can keep better track of what you need to print.
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Print Recovery Mode
Did your filament tangle 70% of the way through your print? No worries, you can fix your filament, rewind your print, and try again. No other printer provides you with this flexibility.
Mobile App
Monitor your print progress or check estimated time remaining from your iPhone or iPad. An Android version is in the works!
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Integrated Diagnostic Tools
We’ve rolled a variety of tools into the software to exercise each axis, print test patterns, Z-axis calibration, nozzle flush, etc.
Production Plan
Plastics
Plastic resin casting is an exciting middle ground between the upfront tooling cost of injection molding and the speed of injection molding. We will first create molds for the various printer components. We will make as many molds as we have labor to assemble printers. This may take us a week or two to finalize. Once the molds are created, parts set up in 24 hours. The only difference is molds are much cheaper to make than printers, allowing us to hire more people to build printers faster.
Assembly and Testing
It currently takes us approximately 3 hours to build one printer and test it. As we grow and become more efficient, we believe this number could be cut even further. With our core team of three people working 8 (or 9) hours per day, we could produce 9 printers per day, or 180 printers per month. Obviously, if our campaign is successful, we're incredibly excited about the possibility of hiring more people to build printers.
Metal Parts
A vast majority of the non-plastic parts are acquired and used as-is, which leaves very little for us to do.
Electronics and Hardware
We have a specialist lined up who is going to be able to connect us to efficiently priced electronics manufacturing. This is the key component to our pricing model. Because we are using a readily available open source hardware component, the RAMPS card, we foresee no problems acquiring the card in bulk.
Software
The software is almost “complete,” though no piece of software is ever complete. We plan on releasing regular updates to add new features, fix bugs, etcetera. The last major functionality we need to create is an installation tool. Once that’s complete, we’ll be ready to distribute it!
Timeline
- We are starting to create molds for resin casting as soon as possible.
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Orders to China will be going out on approximately October 24.
- We expect a 6-8 week wait for those parts to arrive. During this time, we will be casting as many parts as possible.
- We will be fulfilling Kickstarter orders. Our deadline for this is March, but we hope to be done even sooner.
- IndieGogo orders will be fulfilled in pledge order.
Shipping
You may have noticed that shipping is not included in our pledge amounts. This is because the cost of shipping the printer can vary quite drastically, even within the United States. Almost everywhere in the lower 48 states will cost $50 or less to ship to. You can get an exact quote here. When we're ready to ship your printer, we'll contact you to collect your shipping information and payment.
T-shirts!
If you don't want a 3D printer, but still want to support our efforts to make 3D printing easier for the masses, you can pledge for a T-shirt! The design we have in mind can be found in the "Gallery" tab
Thank you!
If you made it this far, congratulations! We've come a long way since our first prototypes, and an even further way since our first 3D printer model.
We'd also like to express our thanks to the RepRap community, who've put the work into creating the RAMPS card. While not much is out yet, you can find our open source work on Github.
