There's been many a headline announcing this or that revolutionary new 3D printer in the last few months. Several companies have aimed to make such devices affordable to the masses while others aimed at specialised 3D printing capabilities like printing with foodstuffs, metals or even carbon fibre. Now we see these projects joined by one from a firm with a good track record of designing and supplying equipment to the PC maker community - Arduino.
Writing on the Arduino Blog, Zoe Romano announced the Arduino Materia 101 3D Printer. This printer is said to be both "completely open source and affordable," akin to other popular products made by the company. The brains behind this printer are in a built-in Arduino Mega board and we are told that the company worked with Sharebot in order to create the Materia 101. With the collaborating firms' experiences in the target markets the new Materia 101 3D printer is said to be "ideal for beginners, makers and education".
Arduino Materia 101 3D Printer specifications
- Printing technology: Fused Filament Fabrication
- Printing area: 140 x 100 x 100 mm +/- 5mm
- X and Y theorical resolution position: 0,06 mm
- Z resolution: 0.0025 mm
- Extrusion diameter: 0.35 mm
- Filament diameter: 1.75 mm
- Optimal temperatures with PLA: 200-230°
- Tested and supported filaments: PLA
- Unsupported but tested filaments: Cristal Flex, PLA Thermosense, Thermoplastic Polyuretane
- (TPU), PET, PLA Sand, PLA Flex
- External dimensions: 310 x 330 x 350 mm
- Weight: 10 kg
- Usage: 65 watt
- Electronical board: Official Arduino Mega 2560 with Open Source Marlin Firmware
- LCD display 20 x 4 with encoder menu
- Preloaded with PLA printing presets
- Extruder block with filament pressure regulation
As you can see in the specs above, the print bed is 140 x 100 x 100mm, about the size of a large tea mug. Also it looks like this 3D printer will be flexible with materials and of course great for tinkerers thanks to its open source software.
The general public will be able to clasp their eyes on a real-life Arduino Materia 101 at the Maker Faire Rome from 3rd-5th October 2014. We are told that the printer will be sold in kit form for 600 EUR/800 USD with a pre-assembled version for 700 EUR/1000 USD. These printers will be distributed exclusively from the Arduino Store. At the time of writing we don't have an availability date and the printer isn't currently listed in the Arduino 3D Print store section, even for pre-order purposes.
