3D Printer Cost

With the unveiling of our Mojo 3D Printer today, at Stratasys we’re feeling a bit like stars from all the media attention. While it may not be the paparazzi covering us, here’s a sampling of the coverage we’re seeing from some of our top industry media.

Leslie Langnau at Design World: “From my engineering perspective, this is a sweet system.” Get Your Motor Running

Desktop Engineering’s Jamie Gooch on a Mojo beta test: “In my mind, Stratasys had locked [Todd Grimm] in a room with a Mojo. The only...

Offering the rare treat of a smart choice that’s also super easy, our Dimension team has bundled its popular 3D printers with the materials and accessories that every user needs anyway. The option is called a Dimension 3D Print Pack, and it boasts a nice price incentive versus buying the items separately.

When engineers and designers decide to adopt FDM technology, it’s often because they need time and money savings. The last thing they want to deal with at that stage is surprise costs. Besides...

Many years ago I was given the opportunity to design my first product. The terms rapid prototyping, 3D printing, and 3D prototyping were foreign to me. Although I felt confident in my abilities to design a complex piece of equipment, I was ill-prepared when it came to making the parts I needed.

We had a large in-house machine shop and I was assigned a machinist to build my prototypes. I would bring him a drawing of a part I’d worked on all day. He would bring me the part and I would find an error...

Stratasys recently observed the 10-year anniversary of the Dimension 3D Printer line. The Dimension laid the foundation for the 3D printing revolution we see today. This model drove adoption by bringing 3D printing to a whole new demographic that previously couldn't access the technology.

In the early years of the additive manufacturing industry, a "low-priced" machine cost about $200,000, and additive manufacturing was mainly used by Fortune 100 companies.  About 10 years later -- in 2002 -- the...

At Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, students are hard at work becoming tomorrow’s aerospace engineers. The institution’s College of Engineering emphasizes precision in aircraft and spacecraft design, according to laboratory manager Chris Smith.

But once students had perfected a CAD design and were ready to test what they’d created, they had to hand carve models from mahogany or rely on offsite machinists to make models by hand. The school needed a cost-effective way for students to create...

The RDASS 4 is a remotely piloted, 3D printed helicopter from Leptron. The little five-pound drone contains modular, nesting layers. Depending on purpose, these clever interchangeable layers stack inside the fuselage to provide tailored functionality. Applications include flying ahead of armored vehicles to see over the horizon.

Leptron had to develop eight layer variations, crash-test the prototypes, and create end-use parts on a competitive timeline. This would have been prohibitively expensive...

“We get rid of waste. We only print the things that people actually want,” says Autodesk Labs vice president Brian Mathews in part of Bloomberg Businessweek’s CEO Guide to 3D Printing. The collection of articles, photos and multimedia aims to clue the corner office in to what engineers have known for years: 3D printing is revolutionary.

Alongside content on aerospace and bioprinting, Mathews’ video focuses on the future of finished consumer goods. Though cost-ineffective with old-fashioned...

At year-end there are always a ton of “Top 10” and “Best of” lists. At Stratasys, we’ve compiled our “Best of 2011 Webinars” list too. Whether you’re looking for inspiration to maximize your existing additive manufacturing equipment or justification to present your case for securing a rapid prototyping system, grab a cup of coffee and spend a few minutes with a few of Stratasys’ webinars from 2011. We'd love to hear what other webinars you might like to see -- leave your comments below.

7 Ways to...

In a news release today, Stratasys said it would begin offering complete 3D printing packages, called “3D Print Packs,” that include new special-edition uPrint machines.This is new. No one else offers a complete, all-in-one package that makes it this simple to get up and modeling.

And in the U.S., the 3D Print Packs are available for a monthly lease price of $290, another first. At $290 a month, buying may be less expensive than outsourcing a single model. Think of the money you’d save...

When your corporate philosophy is to strive for 100% confidence in product functionality, lead time and expenses could prove astronomical if the right technology systems are not in place. Akaishi, of Shizuoka, Japan, develops several lines of correctional footwear as well as massage devices for the face. The company found that by bringing prototyping in-house via a Dimension 3D printer, they could verify functionality as much as they wanted, as the cost per prototype was 73% lower and lead...

A cost reduction of 86%, coupled with 41% faster turn-around time are just two of the reasons Tape Wrangler, a Michigan-based company, is more than pleased with their in-house Dimension 3D printer.

As a producer of specialty hardware products, including the popular Tape Wrangler™ heavy-duty tape dispenser, the company was unsatisfied with using various design bureaus to create 3D prototypes for product development.  “Outsourcing proved to be too costly, time-consuming and inefficient,” said Wendy...

We are definitely seeng an exciting trend towards the use of Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) technology for end-use production parts.

• 25% of RedEye customers order parts for end-use applications
• 42% of Fortus 3D Production System owners use their system for manufacturing parts (in some frequency)
• Even Dimension 3D Printers are sometimes used for manufacturing

As 15 plus year veteran of this industry, I find it interesting that I rarely use or even here the term "Rapid Prototyping" anymore. The buzz...

I visited the Architectural department at Columbia University and was able to see how they are using their Dimension 3D Printers. In the graduate department they have two uPrint 3D printers and they are using them to print all the student work. The students load their models in the printer and pay per cubic inch. They pay just for the cost of the plastic. The set up is much like Kinko's is today, they send their files and then are notified when their prototypes/models are ready. 

When I was...