The Chinese 3DP company MakeX has finally brought its desktop DLP 3D printer to Kickstarter, and for early adopters, at almost half the price of the Form1+ stereolithography 3D printer. Could this be the 3D printer that finally brings resin platforms into the home?
There has been a lot of buzz around the M-One since Mike wrote about it a few weeks ago, and it seems that we’re finally going to see how it stacks up against other DLP printers. The M-One is an open source DLP 3D printer and the manufacturers of the M-One aren’t just okay with makers cracking open their machines and trying to make them work better, they’re practically encouraging it. Here is their project video:
Early bird packages on Kickstarter will get you an M-One, a bottle of resin and a finish kit for only $1700.00, while the regular packages will go up to $2000.00. There isn’t any word on final price once it hits the market, but we all know how this works by now. The market price will most likely be considerably higher, so this is a very good deal — assuming production goes according to plan. And if you’re in the market for an inexpensive DLP machine then you better go snap one up quick because those Early Bird Packages will likely go fast if history is anything to go by.
The basic packages will get you the standard silver M-One, and MakeX will also be offering a special edition black M-One. There will also be some very limited edition M-One’s available in a rainbow of bright colours.
The M-One will also come with very robust software options according to the company. The Hollow Function will easily hollow your model to a specified thickness in order to reduce the amount of resin used. You can also use the Support Generator, which will automatically generate the best support structures to ensure the highest detailed prints.
Purchasers of this system will also be able to use any third party resins on the market, so you won’t be locked into over-priced proprietary resins without voiding any warranties or service contracts. In addition to the printer hardware being open source, the control system will also be completely open source, which means that experienced users can modify every single function of the M-One. Additionally, the company claims that any resin not used when curing your model can be recycled for future prints, and considering how expensive liquid resin can be, that could potentially save you a bundle. However, light-sensitive resins can deteriorate fast and need to be treated with care.
The print bed is a respectable 150 x 110 x 160 mm (5.9” x 4.3” x 6.3”) and will print in layers of 20 microns in thickness with a print resolution of 150 microns. The print detail looks to be just as good as any of the other desktop 3D printers that use photoreactive resins.
Head over to the MakeX website and check out the specs for the M-One yourself. Then head on over to the Kickstarter page and buy yourself an early Christmas present.
