Create it REAL, to me, is a fascinating company. We previously covered the company’s software that prohibits a given 3D printer from printing a gun design. What I discovered in looking into them further while writing about that topic was that they sell white-label 3D printers. They have a preset printer that can be modified for your company’s demands and, then, you get to slap your brand all over it. Create it REAL has since come out with a new product meant to be universally applied to the 3D printer market: the first real-time processor for 3D printing.
As many 3D printer manufacturers and users know, 3D printers can be painfully slow. This new chip, developed over two years of arduous research, will give 3D printers the ability to print at 450mm per second, the company claims. This is more than double the top speed of the Replicator 2X (about 200mm/s) and almost double the top speed of the Ultimaker 2 (about 300mm/s). The processor, the 3D RTP v450, can be installed as a chip onto a standard dimm socket or it can be manufactured as part of an entire motherboard so that 3D printer manufacturers can increase the speed of their machines. Create it REAL also offers printing software meant to make full use of the RTP’s complete capabilities.
At the moment, the 3D RTP v450 is tailored to fused filament fabricators, but the company plans to modify it to eventually work with stereolithography and selective laser sintering machines in the near future. The chip comes in three varieties to meet the needs of desktop 3D printers all the way up to high end machines. The 3D RTP v450 supports 3 motors, up to 2 extruders, 1 heat bed, 2 fans and 6 limit switches and boasts smoother movement, due to the simultaneous control of the X, Y, and X axes, according to the company. The RTP integrated motherboard also features a semi-automatic calibration system for quick 3D printer setup.
All of these characteristics combined are meant to support a variety of 3D printing systems, as Create it REAL CEO, Jeremie Pierre Gay, explains in typical PR style: “Our objective is to support all the 3D printer players, from small start-ups up to large OEMs, and to offer them easy to integrate, state-of-the-art technologies so they can spend their time and resources on their most important assets: their customers.”
I may not be mechanically savvy enough to know if such a processor can deliver what the company promises, so I welcome any comments on the subject below. What’s interesting to me about Create it REAL’s business strategy is that it seems to be coming through the side door of 3D printing, filling niches that I wouldn’t necessarily think existed like white-label 3D printer manufacturing. They’re not only a product delivery company, but a research firm. If their real time processor does in fact perform well, they’ll most likely release even faster processors in the future. And, if they’re capable of that, they might accomplish their other stated research goals, such as the NanoMaster for 3D printing graphene and the Organ Printing project they’re working on with Aalborg University, Netcomposites, and Gent University.
