In October MakerBot launched their first new 3D printer in years, since the 5th Generation 3D printer was released back in 2013. Ever since the Smart Extruder+ was released in February 2016, there has been hope that MakerBot, with the backing and resources of Stratasys, is on a path to deliver best in class products, and continue to be a leader in desktop 3D printing. Here at WTFFF!? and 3D Start Point, we were given the opportunity to work with MakerBot’s latest 3D Printer, the Replicator+, as … [Read more...]
M3D Printer Review – Battle of the Minis, Part 1
In January at CES it was clear that the trend in desktop 3D printers was all about “mini” 3D printers. It seemed that every company was either introducing a mini 3D printer as an additional product to their assortment, or was entirely built around a mini 3D printer. We reached out to all of the companies that make a mini 3D printer in an effort to review as many as possible, we are calling our series of mini 3D printer reviews the “Battle of the Minis.” We contacted all of the mini 3D printer … [Read more...]
Tinkercad 3D Print Software Review
It is Tech Tuesday and it's time to do a Tinkercad 3D print software review. We have been doing a lot more reviews lately of different things just like the Battle of the Minis with the mini 3D printer reviews, and we have been doing those mostly on Wednesday more than Tuesdays. We then decided that we need to be reviewing some popular CAD software packages because we had a lot of questions about that. Today is going to be the first in the series, as once a week we are going to address a new CAD … [Read more...]
3D Printing Manufacturing Revolution
The declining state of many factories does not lead us to think that we are on the verge of a 3D printing manufacturing revolution, as TED Talk speaker Olivier Scalabre has presented. Some aspects of the 3D print industry are seeing an evolution, while other segments are not. An area that needs the most evolution, revolution, renovation, and upheaval lies in the hands of the school system and educators to provide a better foundational understanding of how products are made if we want to be able … [Read more...]
Evolution of the 3D Print Classroom
3D print documentary film maker and previous WTFFF?! Podcast guest, Brian Federal, shares what he has found over the past year of the evolution of the 3D print classroom. He identifies the obstacles and issues that are hindering students ability to know about, to learn, and to use 3D printers and what this means for the next generation of product designers and those in engineering related fields. At time we first had him on the podcast was because he was working on documentary really about 3D … [Read more...]
XYZ daVinci Jr 3D Printer Review – Battle of the Minis, Part 2
XYZ Printing showed what appeared to be a real mini 3D printer at CES in January. We requested that new 3D printer for our Battle of the Minis 3D printer review. The new mini 3D printer is not available for review yet, so the display at CES was a very early preview of a product that is not commercially available. So XYZ sent us their daVinci Jr. 3D printer. At first glance this 3D printer does not appear to be a mini 3D printer at all. However, the build plate is definitely small, in … [Read more...]