3D Printing and the IOT

I recently received the MOD-t 3D printer made by a company called New Matter. I was incredibly lucky, as I was able to get this printer for free. A family friend had purchased it a while ago and was upgrading to a MakerBot. Even if I didn't get this machine for free, it would still be very economical. The MOD-t only costs $300 (from New Matter website). If you've heard anything about 3D printing, you probably get the sense that the printers are very expensive and not worth the money. However, this printer could change this, making the barrier to entry much smaller than it was before. There have been past printers below the $400 mark like various models from Printrbot, but those printers usually needed a little bit of fiddling and calibrating. Printrbot printers can be bot in kit form or pre-assembled. The pre-assembled versions are calibrated and have been fiddled with already, but I feel that the MOD-t is truly ready out of the box. In fact, I owned a Printrbot Simple kit about three and half years ago. I was able to assemble the kit pretty easily, but there was one major flaw in the design: zip ties. Zip ties, zip ties, zip ties. One of the most important parts of the printer was held together with zip ties... This important part was the Y-axis assembly. The printer housing was made of CNC'd wood that press fit into other pieces. However, the bearings that held the Y-axis rods in place where secured to the wood pieces with zip ties. The design required the zip ties to be extremely tight for the printer to be accurate. If the ties were slightly loose, the entire Y-axis assembly with the extruder at the end would sag. Of course, that would create inaccurate prints. After many months of fiddling with the Printrbot, I gave up. The $349 that I spent on this printer was not actually wasted. Looking back on it, I learned a lot about 3D printers while struggling with this printer. How the motors controlled each of the axis, how the extruder worked, and the process that these magical machines used to formulate objects out of thin air. My next printer was the DaVinci Junior 1.0 made by XYZ Printing. I purchased it in the summer of 2015. This printer was the same cost of the Printrbot, but was ready to print straight out of the box. It did require a slight bit of calibration regarding the Z-axis offset, but nothing near the Printrbot. My first print was excellent for the price, and from then on, I was mostly satisfied with it. My only problem with the DaVinci Junior was the proprietary element. You could only use XYZ's filament and only use their slicing program. Going back to the Printrbot, it was actually the opposite. The Printrbot was open-source, ran on an Arduino board, accepted any filament, and worked with any open-source slicing programs. That's what I liked about it. But I was willing to take the limiting filament and software options over lots of calibration and inaccuracy. Now fast forward to today. I powered on the MOD-t, set up the software utility on my computer, loaded a filament in, unlinked that account from the previous owner, and loaded a model onto it. It printed nearly perfect. However, I didn't tell you that I printed the model remotely from a website on my phone. A connected printer. That puts this printer over a lot of others in the price range for me. There may be other printers that cost slightly more or less that have marginally better print quality and speed, but this feature pushes the MOD-t to the top of sub $500 printers for me. The MOD-t isn't perfect, but it's user experience is amazing, and is a good buy. Also, you can use any filament you want. The software is proprietary, but I've read that you can you Cura with it. The software is a very simple program that only asks for a gcode file to start printing. You can use a program like Cura to slice an .stl file with your preferred settings. There is another part to the software that is online as well. You can print directly from your phone, but only from New Matter's Design Store, which is a little bit limiting, but cool nevertheless. If you start a print from the desktop client, you can monitor the print from any internet-connected device by logging onto the New Matter website. The printer is wifi equipped and connects to your home network. The design of the printer is really interesting, one I've never seen before. Instead of using belts or rods for the X and Y axis, the MOD-t uses rods that have grooves in them that fit into the bottom of the build plate. Similar to a gear meshing. There are two rods, one for the X and Y axis. One rod is on top of the other, and the building plate is elevated on two sides on the bottom to fit the rods. When the horizontal rods rotates, it causes the build plate to move up and down in the Y axis direction. When the vertical rotates, it causes the build plate to move side to side in the X axis direction. The Z axis moves like any other printer, with a screw and two rods. The reason this design is cost saving is because the printer doesn't require stepper motors. To rotate the X and Y rods, DC motors and encoders are used, which are cheaper than stepper motors. The design of this printer makes it something you could put in your living room. It doesn't look like it costs $300 and feels like a quality machine. I feel like my progression from the Printrbot to the MOD-t represents the evolution of the 3D printer. In the beginning, companies were using open-source hardware, CNC'd parts, and Arduino boards. Every machine felt like a prototype of a product that would come in the future. In the case of the DaVinci Junior, this was the product that people in the past dreamed of. It was mostly ready out of the box, and companies started the whole proprietary trend (which I hate). Now, printers are becoming more than just machines. With the MOD-t, your printer is connected to the freakin' internet. As we progress, more and more things are getting connected to the Internet. The Internet of Things. A future when your fridge talks to your car which talks to your 3D printer which talks with your lawnmower.