Mar. 18, 2015 | By Simon

It’s not unusual to hear about a new 3D printer coming on the market these days, but when a 3D printer hits the market that radically changes what everybody thought was possible with a 3D printer - now that’s something worth paying attention to.

This week alone we already saw how desktop 3D printing can be sped up to 25-100X faster with Carbon3D’s CLIP technology, which was presented by the company’s CEO during a TED2015 conference in Vancouver.  Now, thanks to an unveiling at this week’s SXSW conference in Austing, Texas, 3D printing looks like it’s about to get a whole lot cheaper.  

The TIKO, which will be launching on Kickstarter in the coming weeks, is a $179 3D printer that is capable of producing printed objects that are similar in quality to other existing Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printers on the market. The printer uses non- proprietary filament and the filament tray fits a standard sized 1kg roll of filament. 

What the small 3D printer lacks in size it certainly makes up for in price and design. The unibody design of the delta-style 3D printer is completely enclosed and would fit neatly on most countertops that are capable of fitting a large coffee maker. Thanks to it’s delta-style design, it is capable of housing the majority of its internal components in a vertical orientation rather than taking up precious desktop or table space.  

The ultralight machine is designed to be picked up and transported easily and the unheated bed - which was designed to allow the user to utilize as large of an area that was possible - is made from a unique material that does not need to be prepped with glue, tape or other chemicals in order to get a print to stick. Once a 3D print has been completed on the TIKO, a user simply bends the bed to pop the 3D print off.  Additionally, no noisy cooling fans are needed since cooling vents were incorporated into the design.  

The software used to prepare prints on the TIKO is cloud-based and can be accessed from any browser - meaning that a user can technically prepare their print on any computer including tablets and smartphones just like they would on a desktop. Alternately, this means that the TIKO itself also runs off of the cloud and features no USB ports for connecting the files to the 3D printer.  

To present the TIKO for the first time at SXSW, CEO Matt Gajkowski was on-hand to show off just how capable the printer was - as well as talk more about the design of the printer itself. Among other details he revealed included how he built each of the components with mass manufacturing in mind to bring the cost down as low as possible to the end users. Because Gajkowski has already lined up his supply chain and has the full assembly ready to be made, he expects to start shipping the 3D printers as early as fall of 2015. For many other 3D printers that have launched on Kickstarter or other similar crowdfunding platforms, getting the final product shipped to backers has taken years in some cases.

While Gajkowski and the rest of the TIKO team - which includes Business Analyst Sharon Charitar and Supply Chain Manager Mike Zhang - hasn’t yet revealed the Kickstarter launch date, it is expected to happen shortly after the SXSW conference concludes.  Either way, if you’ve been on the fence about a 3D printer for awhile now, the TIKO’s low-price and well-considered design might be worth looking into.  

 

 

Posted in 3D Printers

 

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Emma wrote at 1/27/2016 8:08:20 PM:

I was excited. I really was, but no USB connectivity and cloud-based printing killed my excitement completely. Sorry, Tiko, but as much as I like simplicity, I also like having full control over my stuff.

Alex wrote at 6/30/2015 1:28:52 AM:

A printer that I can not use withou internet connection?. No, Thank you.

josevalls@att.net wrote at 6/22/2015 8:02:29 PM:

i need one

Mike G wrote at 5/19/2015 3:29:02 PM:

I missed the Kickstarter campaign, but I'm definitely saving up for a Tiko!

Juan wrote at 3/20/2015 3:35:14 PM:

It's sound like a good project but.. I think It's better to wait untill The end of The campaign again... Its seem to be The same story than the bucaneer.. www.3dmakers.cl

Matt from Tiko wrote at 3/19/2015 3:20:19 PM:

Hey guys! Matt here from Tiko. Glad to see there's a bit of controversy, it's the hallmark of any disruptive technology! We don't want to reveal too much before the campaign, but we certainly understand your concerns about WiFi. Many 3D printers have featured both USB and WiFi, and the latter was treated (and therefore performed) as just an add-on. With Tiko, we decided that we'd either do USB or WiFi, but not both, and that we would be 100% committed to excellence in whichever we chose. All in all, we're confident you'll be blown away by Tiko's seamless WiFi integration. Stay tuned for the campaign, where we'll dive into this and more. Plus, we'll be doing a Reddit AMA during the campaign - there we'll be more than happy to geek out!

-willy- wrote at 3/19/2015 9:24:04 AM:

Only drawback I see? You have to lift the machine everytime you want to get your print. A door would have been really nice on this to truly get my attention. Otherwise a foward facing lcd display for print management as well as a sd card slot. I sure hope they didnt puth the slot on top of the machine, all the dirt crap it will gather!

Codemite wrote at 3/19/2015 6:29:47 AM:

A crappy laptop with a mid level cpu can slice print in just a few seconds, why the need to offload that to remote servers? Ah. Subscription revenue.

Paulo Blank wrote at 3/19/2015 12:12:00 AM:

Looks as cool as the Bucaneer 3D by that time...

Pull D Udderwon wrote at 3/18/2015 11:34:00 PM:

LOL Cloud based, security nightmare. does this mean it becomes a paper weight if the cloud based app disappears ?



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