The Indian 3D printing market is still largely unexplored. On 3DPI we have seen quite a few major news stories come out of the southern Asian peninsula but they are not likely to depict a full picture of everything that is going on with 3D printing in a country of over one billion people. Many larger companies have established a presence there and the personal FFF community is also rapidly growing, the latest company looking to rise to international recognition, however, is Global 3D Labs.
The company is based in Manipal, a small university town on the western coast of India. Founded by Gopal Krishna, Global 3D Labs is on a mission to bridge the gap between ideation and manufacturing while also wanting to ensure that the most advanced personal 3D printing technologies are accessible to as many people as possible. Global 3D Labs is pursuing this vision by launching the Paramaan 3D printer, one of the most complete on the desktop FFF 3D printer market in its price range.
Krishna built a 3D printer as his final year engineering degree project and then began manufacturing 3D printers full-time. Paramaan is a hindi word that sounds similar to “praman”, meaning evidence and proof in Hindi. The actual meaning of the word, Krishna explains, is actually much more directly linked to 3D printing: it means “prototype”.
Priced at 75,000 rupees (just a little more than $1,200) the Pramaan 3D printer has a 22.5×24.5×22 cm build volume with 100 micron layer resolution. It is optimized for PLA and weighs just under 10 Kg. It is compatible with open source slicing software and its firmware and LCD screen are built to support 11 different languages.
When zooming out from the company’s location on an interactive online map, one gets the full scope of India’s size. Manipal looks like a tiny speck in a never-ending landmass. But in the new world of digital manufacturing, it does not matter: Global 3D Labs is just as much at the centre of the world as anywhere else.
