While the desktop 3D printing market continues to over-saturate, we still await the perfect low-cost printer that is both flexible and easy to use, stocked with features, but not overly complicated, and capable of printing decent-sized, functional objects, but at a reasonable price. Drotix hopes to deliver such a device in its Gala 3D printer, now on Kickstarter.
When designing the Gala, Drotix all of the aforementioned issues, saying on their campaign page:
- “It must be strong but beautiful (We hate to see cables, mechanic parts or motors)
- It must have a large build volume (8″ x 8″ x 8″ is an acceptable average size for us)
- It must print at excellent quality at high speed (11 microns or 0.0004″ precision at 50-80 mm/s)
- It must be easy to use for beginners but also powerful for professionals.
- It must work with any filament available on market (We are going to sell our certified filament but you can use any filament from market also) It must be easy to use (Just load filament, select the model and press “print”)
- It must have all the features that we love from other machines and much more (WiFi, Touchscreen, Camera, Heated bed, Bed auto leveling, fully enclosed, air carbon filter, a microcomputer inside to remove computer dependency, expansible an economic 3D scanner accessory is on the way)
- It must be social (Cloud enabled, access to online object digital libraries just from screen, publish photos and time lapse videos in YouTube, Facebook or twitter automatically)
- It must be open, everyone can maintain or improve their Gala and share it with our community.”
And, building five prototypes, the company claims to have met all of these needs, crafting the Gala to be a user-friendly, wi-fi enabled 3D printer capable of printing with a wide variety of materials.
Also, as hoped for, the Gala has a few perks that other 3D printers may not have, such as the carbon filter and extrusion failure detection. This feature causes the printer to pause upon a failed print job, home and cool the printhead, reheat the nozzle and try to extrude again. If the problem has been solved, it resumes printing where it left off. In addition to failed print detection, Drotix is in the process of developing a 3D scanner for the machine, as well.
With software written in Buenos Aires and hardware assembled in Miami, Drotix believes that it’s ready for the crowdfunding community, selling the Gala at super-early bird prices beginning at $1,300, creeping up to $1,800 for the production run models. Having all of the features one expects from this generation of desktop 3D printers, the price is not overly ambitious. Whether or not it can deliver on all of those features, however, will be made clear if the Kickstarter meets its goal of $70,000.
