At the 3D Printer World Expo this past weekend, I was introduced to a RepRap-style 3D printer that I haven’t come across in person before, the RigidBot from invent-A-part. The RigidBot exploded with its Kickstarter campaign back in May of last year, making over $1 million — more than $960,000 past its humble goal. The reason for this Kickstarter killing was the machine’s simple design and extremely low price.
invent-A-part has kept its design so simple that it gives users the opportunity to easily expand the machine to increase its build volume at a very reasonable cost. The 10”x10”x10” version currently costs $500 as a kit or $700 fully assembled. Such a price for such a build volume is almost unheard of. The cost of the 12″x16″x10″ version is $749 for the kit or $959 assembled. This is much larger than the Lulzbot Taz 3 and the Replicator 3 and at a much lower price. The machine comes with a spool of PLA and a heated bed and you have the option of upgrading to include an LCD screen with a flash drive reader. If I were to purchase the RigidBot, I might go for the kit; if you watch the Kickstarter video below, it looks relatively easy to assemble:
While the company offers rapid prototyping services with Objet and Fortus machiens, it looks like they’re putting a lot of focus on the RigidBot. The focus is pretty understandable, based on the results of the Kickstarter campaign. To me, the RigidBot seems to be a great entry-level machine for someone who wants to mess around with FFF technology, but doesn’t want to shell out a lot of money.
Source: invent-A-part
