Full Colour, Multi Material Professional 3D Printer Revealed

One of the worlds largest 3D printer manufacturers, Stratasys, has revealed their latest model, one that blows just about everything else available on the market out of the water with a range of cool new features that could push 3D printing into a whole new era.

The Objet500 Connex3 may not have the snappiest name we’ve ever heard, but given that it is capable of printing in both full colour and in multiple materials means that it is incredibly flexible, so much so that it could be used to create more final products, rather than just simple prototypes. The printer is aimed at the professional market, mostly due to its non consumer friendly price tag of £330,000! So it really is more targeted at the prototyping / small-batch manufacturing market rather than individuals, unless of course you’re well funded enough to invest in one of these for your home office.

The printer takes a similar approach to that of modern 2D inkjet printing, using a blend of cyan, magenta and yellow to print in a wide range of colours and it plays off the industry experience Startasys have in multi-material printing, given that they already have products which can print in flexible, transparent and rigid materials.

As you can see from the demo pictures, it can make some beautifully colourful and complex objects and it will be interesting to see how quickly this new technology works its way down to a more consumer friendly product over the next few years. 3D printing is developing quickly and we can’t wait to have one sitting in our house to replace all those missing Lego pieces we need.

Thank you Gigaom for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of Gigaom.