Sep 30, 2014
A team of designers and engineers from Australia and China has launched their affordable desktop 3D printer Rapide Lite on Indiegogo.
"When designing Rapide Lite we looked at current 3D printers and what we found was a big gap in the market between the low-end hobbyist 3D printers and commercial quality 3D printers," says Ethan Hunt, Rapide 3D CEO. The company launched Rapide One 3D printer last year on indiegogo and raised more than $98,000USD on the crowdfunding platform.
Rapide Lite has been designed to be scalable and will come in 3 sizes, 200, 350 and 500mm3 with prices starting as low as $399 for our Indiegogo contributors.
"At Rapide 3D we have developed a unique X Wing Axis that significantly increases the precision and resolution of our 3D printers." Hunt said. The frame of Rapide Lite is built from aircraft grade 5026 aluminum, which are laser cut for accuracy and fitted with other structural CNC milled aluminum components. Rapide Lite's max. build speed is 150mm per second, and a typical printing rate is around 30mm of height per hour.
Team member George Adams said, "What makes Rapide 3D stand out in the crowd is we have built our own end to end factory in Shenzhen, China which will allow us to control the quality and cost of production. This significantly improves the production time and eliviates the issues that many producers of 3D Printers face when relying on external suppliers for production."
Rapide Lite 200 features a build volume of 200 x 200 x 200mm and a single head extruder. It will print layers as thin as 50 microns (0.002 inches).
Rapide Lite 350 has a build volume of 350 x 350 x 350mm. It will print layers as thin as 50 microns (0.002 inches) and its dual head extruder allows dual color printing or printing with support material.
Rapide Lite 500 will print layers as thin as 50 microns (0.002 inches) and a build volume of 500 x 500 x 500mm. It comes with a dual or triple head extruder.
According to the team, Rapide Lite has been fully tested with Cura, Reptier and Replicator G.
The retail price of Rapide Lite 200 with a single extruder will be US$999. However, early supporters of its Indiegogo campaign will have the opportunity to receive significant discounts with the first 100 available for $399.
Rapide Lite's indiegogo campaign started on Sep 29 and as of writing, it has raised $18,957USD, 126% of its %15,000 goal.
The first full-production shipment is set to release in November 2014 to early contributors, making Rapide Lite a good choice for this years Christmas wish list.
Posted in 3D Printers
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