As one of the first manufacturers of hybrid fabrication machines for the desktop, ZMorph has impressively developed eleven different toolheads (and one 3D scanner) for its flagship machine. Uniquely, this gives the ZMorph personal fabricator the ability to, not only 3D print objects from plastic, but chocolate, as well as capabilities for CNC engraving, laser cutting, 3D scanning, and more. Today, at World Maker Faire in New York, the Polish company upgraded their ZMorph 2.0S with three new toolheads.
At World Maker Faire, ZMorph is currently showing off a new CNC milling toolhead, a multi-material mixing extruder, and a new paste extruder. Though the ZMorph 2.0S was previously able to engrave items, using a CNC toolhead, the new Dremel spindle brings full milling capabilities to the device. And, while the previous liquid paste extrusion head could handle chocolate and cake pastes, the upgraded paste extruder can handle any type of thick paste, including food and ceramics.
What may be the most exciting development from ZMorph this weekend is the new multi-material mixing extruder. With this toolhead, the company claims that two different filaments can be blended together and extruded through a single nozzle. They even suggest that more than one material type can be blended, saying, “Print models that blend flexible and non-flexible plastics, transparent and non-transparent, conductive and non-conductive, color and black or white.” Other companies have boasted similar capabilities, including botObjects and RepRap.me, but I don’t believe any have created anything that they suggest can combine any variety of materials in this way. I know that different material types have different melting temperatures and bonding properties, so I imagine that learning exactly how to mix them would be complicated.
What ties all of these toolheads together is ZMorph’s Voxelizer software, set up to manage any one of the, now, 15 extensions hooked into the device. It’d be interesting to see exactly how the software handles the multi-material mixing extruder and what type of control users have over the process. Fortunately for those at Maker Faire, like 3DPI’s Ryan George, they can stop by the ZMorph booth, booth number CG19.1, in the Startup Zone. And, “Who knows,” writes ZMorph, “maybe you will even get a 3D printed cookie…”
You also have the opportunity to win the complete set of new toolheads just by emailing the company at [email protected] with your idea of how you would use them in a creative way. Otherwise, you can preorder the bundle here (price yet to be disclosed).
