New Matter updates

[curious aardvark]

that is a nice looking machine.

Curious about the enclosure, it's not got a heated printbed. So why bother to enclose it ?
Ah - would it be a safety feature to help get CE certification ?
Stop the little sprogs sticking their fingers on the hot printhead maybe.

But you could probably slip a small heating element in there to help stop warping as well :-)

[Feign]

But you could probably slip a small heating element in there to help stop warping as well :-)

But that's patented!

... Yeah I'll totally be doing that too.

Officially, the enclosure is likely a safety measure and to keep any draft from changing the print environment. Also, the open handles are likely a loophole to keep the print volume from being entirely enclosed (also patented, I believe)

[Duck]

It is probably to stop drafts and keep the heat in. On my CubeX, when printing with open sides it is very susceptible to temperature changes. It would cause peeling up of the bottom layers. By enclosing the sides with panels, the heat of the electronics + extruder is enough to keep the inside toasty and warm and mitigates this problem.

I agree that this is a very nice looking machine. The XY/spline drive is a great idea with a lot of advantages. It will be interesting to watch the progress of this one and the M3D Micro, as both were on Kickstarter at about the same time.

[Feign]

My apologies in advance for the huge image, but there's some interesting details in there.

The team has been hard at work assembling more MOD-t prototypes and today you get to see them! A couple don't have the stickers on yet, but we figured that if you enjoyed seeing one, you'd enjoy seeing three even more! We've been testing them day in and day out, making sure they are all functioning seamlessly.

You can pretty clearly pick out which one is the prototype we've been seeing so far and which are the two new ones, also, it looks like they've got quite the collection of whimsical prints on that cart from their stress testing. The big green cylinder looks like it might have taken up most of the printer's build volume, and from what I can tell might have been used to test out different methods of infill.

Still looking good, there.

[curious aardvark]

well if they can get this produced for under $300, I think it'll outsell the micro. Just a classier looking unit.

And if they can get distributors in the uk or europe so we don't end up paying double the price in tax and postage. I'll buy one.
Most of the stuff I make would fit in it's print volume.

[Feign]

Well, then. This is rather unexpected!

We have a huge surprise for everyone! We've been working hard and we'd like to reveal that we were able to get the MOD-t printer to officially support 100 microns layer thickness! This was initially our incentive for the stretch goal of $750K for our Indiegogo campaign and even though it was not met, we were still able to include this important feature into the MOD-t. We're so excited to be able to share this awesome news with you!


The MOD-t printing seamlessly at 100 micron layers!

So it seems the printer not only can go to such small layer height, but they've decided it can do it consistently enough to make it a standard feature. Once again, sorry for the big image, but it seems pretty relevant to the update itself.

[Duck]

What stage is this project at? How close are they to shipping?

[Feign]

I'm not sure if this set of prototypes constitutes the beginning of the "pilot run" for testing or not, but the shipping date still definitely looks on track for April 2015. There are still many steps between here and store shelves, but they are on the right track.

[curious aardvark]

Interested to see what the final price of the production model ends up at.

It's a really neat machine.

Software wise - is it still going to be tied into it's propriatary slicer ?
I'd quite like a printer I can use any of the standard free slicers on.

[NewMatter]

Software wise - is it still going to be tied into it's propriatary slicer ?
I'd quite like a printer I can use any of the standard free slicers on.

The MOD-t isn't at all tied to a proprietary slicer. It will accept standard G-codes generated by all the common slicers. You can take models you create (or models from someplace like Thingiverse), slice them using your favorite slicer, and then print them on the MOD-t. Models from the New Matter Store, however, will be pre-sliced and will download directly to the printer from the store.