I am currently in New York and heading to Israel next week. As 3D printing seems to work in mysterious ways, this coincides with the decision by Something3D, Israel’s first manufacturer of desktop 3D printers, to begin its expansion process beyond their local market. There could not be a better time to pay them a visit.
While I wait for their response to my proposal to stop by sometime next week, here is the lowdown on Something3D’s 3D printer line up which, in fact, is quite impressive. The company says it is among the first to offer a quadruple extrusion system and, as far as I know, apart, perhaps, from homemade RepRap mods, this is the first commercial quadruple extruder I have heard about and it looks pretty solid.
So, in fact, do Something3D’s 3D printers: the 100x100x100 mm print size Tyrian, the 200x200x200 mm HAN and the 300x300x300 mm Royal. They stand out primarily for their purple color, which is generally associated with individuality and originality. This is in line with Something3D’s motto that a 3D printer serves to explore the boundaries of creativity, setting ideas free from the mind and emerging into the real, physical world.
“With a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail,” is the phrase used to express the company’s philosophy. Likewise, with a 3D printer in hand, any idea looks like it can become real. Currently, though, only the larger Royal model offers the possibility to upgrade to the four head extruder, while the other smaller systems are confined to one single extrusion head.
Something3D has not released prices but the company’s CEO, Itzik Molcho, pointed out to the Start-Up Israel section of the Times of Israel website that their systems are significantly less expensive than any comparable MakerBot 3D printers. The company’s co-founders, which include Molcho, a former CEO of a multibillion dollar manufacturer of steel pipes, and his partner Dotan Koskas as the system’s designer, are confindent their 3D printer features (size, quadruple extruder and resolution up to 50 micron) will make their 3D printer rapidly take hold in markets outside of Israel as well. They are not to be underestimated: the last companies that came out of Israel into the 3D printing and 3D scanning worlds are doing pretty well.
