While the hype bubble seems to have burst since the dramatic CES shows of 2014 and 2015, the industry continues to thrive, with companies like Aleph Objects standing strong on the showroom floors of Las Vegas. And they seem to know it, too, with their latest press release reading, “The market showed a dramatic flight to quality in 2015, embracing reliable and trusted 3D printing solutions.” Reflecting the company’s “record-breaking tripling in year-over-year revenue up to US$15 million”, Aleph Objects has brought with them to CES 2016 the complete LulzBot portfolio of desktop 3D printing hardware, software, and materials, as well as their important partners and news of expansion.
In Las Vegas, the company has on display upgraded toolheads for its LulzBot TAZ 3D printers, including the Dual Extruder Tool Head v2, now available for purchase, and the FlexyDually Tool Head v2, which will be available for purchase in Q1 of this year. Both allow for 3D printing 3mm filaments at temperatures as high as 300 degrees Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit), making them ideal for industrial and exotic materials. This past year has seen LulzBot team with a number of filament manufacturers to demonstrate these abilities and, at CES, they’ve brought these partners along.
At the LulzBot booth, attendees will get to see colorFabb‘s nGen material made with Eastman Amphora AM 3300. Of the material, colorFabb Managing Director Ruud Rouleaux says, “The use of nGen runs the gamut of 3D-printed applications, ranging from prototyping to experimenting, and from designing to making serious money. Aleph Objects’ well-known and renowned brand of LulzBot 3D printers and colorFabb’s new special filament are a perfect match.”
They’ll also Proto-pasta‘s unique engineering-grade PLA, which ProtoPlant Co-Founder Alex Dick says is a great match for the LulzBot brand: “Proto-pasta Aromatic Coffee High Temp PLA is the perfect pair for LulzBot 3D printers. Proto-pasta’s High Temp PLA offers the ease and environmental friendliness of PLA printing, with engineering performance in excess of ABS and PET when heat treated (annealed).”
Chroma Strand Labs is also debuting its INOVA-1800 filament, a co-polyester made with Eastman Amphora AM 1800, at the booth. And, to show off the practical applications of the technology, OpenBCI will be performing live demos of their 3D printed Ultracortex Mark 3, which converts brain, muscle, and heart signals into useful data. More about this project can be read here. Aleph Objects has also found a powerful partner in open source pioneers Red Hat, Inc., who will be conducting live demos of Fedora, their Free/Open Source desktop GNU/Linux software distribution, using the latest version of Cura LulzBot Edition. This latest edition now allows for print pausing for mid-print filament changes and has six new material profiles.
Vice President of Marketing for Aleph Objects, Harris Kenny, says of their CES display, “In 2015, we validated for the public the Free Software, Libre Innovation, and Open Source Hardware business model. Our announcements at CES 2016 show that Aleph Objects’ collaborative approach respects user freedom, creates better products, and fuels rapid growth.” Further proving the validity of the open source approach, Aleph Objects will be opening a new fulfillment center in Australia in Q1 of this year, which will broaden its operations internationally.
