Makex, an international company with bases in both China and America, are launching a new Kickstarter project today to fund a printer specially designed for making jewelry, and dentistry models. As a Digital Light Processing printer, using vat-polymerisation as opposed to the layering used in FDM (Fused Deposition modeling), the M-Jewelry is ideal for detailed projects. The printer promises ultra-high precision of either 32 or 50 microns XY resolution, and 1 to 100 micron thickness – compared to the 60 and 75 microns XY resolution and 15 to 150 micron thickness in Makex’s standard model: The M-One desktop DLP printer which was also funded via Kickstarter back in July 2014.
A focus on design precision
Amongst the portfolio of designs showing the capabilities of the M-Jewelry printer, Makex a ring with detail consistent to the width of a hair:
Along with added attention to detail, the M-Jewelry offers wireless printing and touch screen capabilities that ought to be the custom when it comes to desktop printing, and My Jewelry app support providing a database of designs for inspiration/download with tailor-made support for users to create their designs.
How about reliability?
Makex are also assuring that the technology won’t let you down in the next 5-6 years, as the UV-LED light source offers a 50,000+ hour lifespan. Being funded in this way means that the printer will come in at 50-25% of the usual price for a printer with the same specifications. For comparison, a Formlabs Form 2 high-resolution printer would set you back $3499, whereas the M-Jewelry is expected to come in at around $2000.
If you’re interested, you better move fast
In a breakdown of their other Kickstarter two years ago, Makex’s M-One printer impressed 3DPI with how it stacked up against other DLP resin printers of its kind, and perhaps more astoundingly, the project reached its $100,000 goal within just one day of launching, finally surpassing this total with another $80,481.
We will update this article with perks and progress as the Kickstarter goes live today, Monday 17th October 2016 at 8am PDT. Clickthrough for Makex’s page on Kickstarter.
Featured image: the Makex M-Jewelry printer on Kickstarter. Photo via: Makex.com
Update 08:30am American PDT: 30 minutes after going live, the M-Jewelry printed has already received $14,743 of its $50,000 goal.
After the standard ‘Thank you’, perks range from a Makex merchandise pack of t-shirt & USB flash drive and pin badge to a ‘Multi-function package’ including both available M-Jewelry models, resin & extra build kit.
Update 08:00 American PDT: M-Jewelry launches adding a detailed Q&A of its capabilities, and adding to its proposal for application to dentistry.
