3D Printing

With $820K, Printr to Launch 3D Printing Ecosystem

Dutch startup Printr has provided consistent updates about Formide, their all-in-one 3D printing ecosystem, and, while their Kickstarter campaign was not able to pull in the funds they’d hoped for to bring a 3D printer OS and wireless device to printers everywhere, a new funding round of €750,000 (about $820,000 USD).  With the funds, the company will launch their Formide OS this December, giving 3D printing users the ability to leverage all that Formide has to offer.

element dongle for plug-n-play 3D printing

Complementing the Element, Printr’s 3D printed dongle meant to equip 3D printers with wi-fi capabilities via USB connection, Formide is a complete 3D printer operating system. With it, users are able to not only configure and print 3D models, but also find models using integration with 3DShap.es, a search engine for 3D printable content.  The idea underlying the platform is that Formide simplifies the process behind finding models and printing them for the end user.

formide 3D printing interface

Douwe Bart Mulder, founder and CEO of Print,r says of the development, “Printing 3D models is still quite challenging. This is partially because of the complex settings of the printers. Sometimes there can be as many as 60 individual parameters that have to be set per model. With our new platform, Formide, we remove those barriers and make 3D printing accessible to everyone.”

formide 3D printing repair

As Printr preps for its December launch, it should be noted that Formide is not the only such operating system for 3D printing.  While companies like AstroPrint attempt to bring similar wi-fi and printer management tools to 3D printers, 3DPrinterOS also bills itself as a universal operating system that implements a number of integrated tools similar to Formide, such as access to multiple 3D printables libraries and model prep software.  We’ll have to see in what ways users prefer their 3D printer operating systems, as they weigh out the advantages and disadvantages of each.