To be frank, I don’t really know where to begin with this …
Maybe here: On 30th August botObjects announced they had a big announcement coming — 11 days later on 10th September, they had their twitter followers primed once again for the ‘biggest announcement to date’. It came yesterday. You have to wonder how a company that can’t stick to its own marketing deadlines will ever meet any hardware production deadlines. Or is that just me?
botObjects is the company (or, the firm[!], as they prefer to call themselves) behind the ProDesk3D printer, which is hailed by them and many across the tech press as “the world’s first full colour desktop 3D printer.” Now, while there is plenty of marketing bluff and some video fluff, there is absolutely no evidence to back up the claim of “full colour” or that “The Future is Here.” This is a prettily encased desktop FFF printer that can print pretty things, pretty well. There’s been some Twitter chat, as you can imagine. RichRap commented, apart from the pretty packaging — “that future was here five years ago!” The “firm” is not up for sharing its videos, but you can check them out here. You may notice that no more than four colours are ever printed on a single print, pointed out by @Rhysoj, and the video breaks every time there is a change in colour, highlighted by @alistardean.
The “firm’s” press release announcing the video of the full working prototype, is a mixture of bad grammar and extreme hype, it says this:
“The world’s first full color 3D desktop printer unearths their ground-breaking video — satisfying market validation, redefining professional grade printing — while taking a huge leap to mass-market adoption.”
Other news from the press release is equally bewildering. Announcing distribution channels in the UK, Austria and Korea (EBM 3D Limited, 3D-Fabrik and Alien Technology Asia respectively), the firm goes on to say that the ProDesk3D will be officially launched in Japan at Tokyo Designers week running 26th October to 4th November. I can’t quite wrap my head around this – I mean, you announce UK and Austrian distributors, just before the biggest UK and German shows on the 3D printing calendar (TCT & Euromold) , and then launch on the opposite side of the world??
I just don’t get this ‘firm’, and I am struggling to believe anything they say. I know others are feeling the same way. So while there is no concrete evidence to prove or disprove what they are saying my advice would be extreme caution.
