This week Polish 3D printer manufacturer Zortrax, the company that brought us the award-winning M200, has announced the release of their latest 3D printer – Inventure. As the name seems to undoubtedly suggest, this new 3D printer will lead us to journey inward and gain a greater understanding of who we are. Ha, ha. Quite an ambitious name for a compact 3D printer, let’s see if the product matches up.
Inventure’s features include soluble support materials that allow users to print movable models and complex objects without having to deal with manual post-processing. Material is removed using a special solution that dissolves the supports within hours.
The machine also features an enclosed HEPA filter for safety, a fixed printing temperature from a heated chamber and double extruder heads providing synchronous printing for basic and support materials. The ample 130x130x130mm working area allows users space to print the majority of their models without having to divide them up into parts. Finally, the built in display has a notification system that allows users to easily control the 3D printing process.
Rafał Tomasiak, Zortrax CEO and one of the printer’s designers says, “Inventure stands out thanks to its price/quality ratio and its ease of use. It’s our hope that Inventure’s plug and print ability will allow more professionals to access and regularly use 3D printing technology.”
He continues, “3D printing technology can be used wherever fast prototyping or production of a small number of copies of a given object is required. The most common users of 3D printers are engineers, designers and architects, but the list of users has been constantly expanding. We receive more and more inquiries from educational institutions as well as the medical and automotive industries.”
Zortrax wanted to make sure that the Inventure appealed to as many markets as possible, so they focused their development on the aesthetic design of the printer. They borrowed many design features from the M200 to create a printer that is not only user-friendly to all different kinds of users, but also well designed and distinctive looking. Zortrax wanted to create a machine that would suit any office or architectural studio environment just as well as it would fit in at schools or on your desk at home. The finished design has clean lines, a closed printing chamber and is nice and compact.
Zortrax’s new printing material, Z-ULTRAT has been enhanced for the Inventure. The thermoplastic filament has shown itself to be particularly resistant to common damages inflicted by industrial prototyping as well as final object printing. The models made from Z-ULTRAT hold up well for pre-production tests, with the material’s quality being similar to products made with injection-molding technology.
Inventure 3D printers are ready to begin printing right out of the box and come with an ecosystem of tools, a Z-ULTRAT cartridge, support materials as well as instructions for downloading Z-SUITE software, Zortrax’s 3D modelling design suite.
Though the Inventure has been released internationally, the 3D printer is not yet available in the United States. Zortrex hopes to release the Inventure to the US market later this year.
