www.3ders.org

Mar 3, 2016 | By Tess

Loveland, Colorado based 3D printer company Aleph Objects, Inc. has announced that it has just additively manufactured its one millionth part, 3D printed by one of their well-regarded LulzBot 3D printers. The part, a large herringbone gear (licensed under the GNU GPLv3), will be kept on display at Aleph Objects headquarters as a symbol of the company’s growth and development.

As some of our readers may have guessed, the one millionth part 3D printed by Aleph Objects’ Lulzbot was in fact a part being made to create more Lulzbot 3D printers as the acclaimed machines are in fact made up of over thirty 3D printed parts each. The part was also notably manufactured by Aleph Object’s Cluster system of 140 LulzBot 3D printers that work day in and day out (about 100 hours per week to be exact) to produce an array of parts for their LulzBot Mini and LulzBot Taz 5.

As Stan Middlekauff, Aleph Objects’ Cluster production supervisor explains, “We 3D print a myriad of different parts for use in between the two main projects of TAZ and Mini, and tool heads (Dual Extruder, Flexystruder, Dual Flexystruder, and single tool heads)...The alternative to having Cluster producing those parts would be injection molding everything, but the injection molding cost for a die could be thousands of dollars and upward. With the Cluster now in place, the up-front cost has been paid for us to make any type of part. Plus, if at any moment in time we need to change a part, we can change it quickly.”

LulzBot Cluster

Aleph Objects, which has dedicated itself to advancing free software, libre innovation, and open source hardware in the 3D printing industry, explains that it took them two and a half years to print their first 500,000 parts but since developing their Cluster system, they have upped their production rate to about 500,000 parts per year, meaning it won’t be too long before we hear about their 2 millionth part! The efficiency brought about by the Cluster of LulzBot 3D printers working to create parts for more LulzBot 3D printers has also helped the company to adjust and upgrade their models, and to expand their operating hours, upping their productivity.

“LulzBot desktop 3D printers are workhorse machines that we, and our customers in over 85 countries around the world, rely on every day,” said Harris Kenny, Aleph Objects, Inc. Vice President of Marketing. “We are proud to see the growing number of universities, laboratories, facilities, and businesses investing in clusters of LulzBot 3D printers to scale up educating, training, prototyping, and manufacturing.”

If you happen to be a maker dedicated to the LulzBot 3D printer, the company has made the digital file for their one millionth part available for download in either BLEND format or as an .STL file.

 

 

Posted in 3D Printer Company

 

 

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D Ambrose wrote at 4/1/2016 4:18:35 PM:

200,000 went onto the machines and 800,000 were replacement parts for when they broke I bet.

D Ambrose wrote at 4/1/2016 4:13:53 PM:

200,000 went onto the machines and 800,000 were replacement parts for when they broke I bet.

Tom R wrote at 3/3/2016 10:44:46 PM:

Way to go guys!!! I love my Lulzbot Mini!!!

HK wrote at 3/3/2016 6:16:17 PM:

Who cares...meaningless statistic.

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