Netherlands based start-up company Leapfrog is a fast moving new entrant into the 3D printer manufacturing space. They position themselves as an entry level plug and play provider with heavy emphasis on attractive consumer products with great looks and ease of use.
Their entry-level 3D printer Creatr is priced at $1500 and it comes fully assembled in a metal casing with single extruder and with the option to upgrade to two extruders if desired. The slightly bigger brother of the Creatr is Xeed, which comes with two extruders as standard and a build chamber slightly larger at 370 x 340 x 290 mm together with a 10” tablet interface. The Xeed is priced at $6700, which is, interestingly, considerably less than the Mojo 3D printers at $10,000 from Stratasys; although they might not be for the same markets.
Both Creatr and Xeed consume 1.75mm ABS and PLA. The company has just recently added to its material range as well as announcing that a specially engineered water soluble PVA support material will be available for both 3D printer models around mid-November. In addition Leapfrog has been busy building an online forum for users on its website.
The competition in this segment of the market is tightening up with the recent releases of the Replicator 2 and Form 1 high quality, low cost 3D printers. Leapfrog has got a good backing from AV Flexologic bv, which is an established 45 year old manufacturing company making professional 2D printing products. This could prove to be vital in the long run when most of the competition is based on fairly inexperienced start-up teams.
