www.3ders.org

Jan 9, 2015 | By Alec

Finding the right 3D printer for you: for some an arduous task, for others an enjoyable challenge. Whatever your perspective is, one thing is certain: it is becoming increasingly difficult to pick one. Facing just a handful of options a few years ago, picking the right 3D printer can be like finding a needle in a haystack nowadays.

And now a new 3D printer from South Korea, the Moment 3D printer, has appeared onto the scene to make things even more difficult. While this interesting new model is currently only available in the Far East - Korea, Japan, China, Australia, Brunei, Taiwan – it will also become available across North America and Europe over the course of 2015. And as this is a printer that seeks to combine quality, easy use (hence the name Moment, as it won't take hours to calibrate, assemble and so on) and a reasonable price, it could prove to be a popular device.

Let's start with some numbers and stats. In a nutshell, the 'Moment' 3D printer is a FDM gantry-style focused on plug-and-play operation. It's a machine with an exterior size of 380mm x 390mm x 350mm and a decent interior build area of 145mm x 150mm x 165mm. As the company's CEO and engineer Heewan Park explained to 3ders.org, 'We built it with an aluminum double-walled body for sound and vibration dampening, and to keep the working components of the machine clear of the build area. We felt this was important, especially for younger users and their smaller fingers.'

The Moment 3D printer features a solid metal extruder and a hotend, which makes it an excellent machine for 3D printing in PLA, ABS and other common FDM filaments. It supports either Windows or Mac OS systems, can receive orders through USB and SD, and can print with an impressive maximum resolution of 50 microns. And from what we’ve seen of it so far, its prints appear to be of a high quality. See for yourself in the following promotional video’s:

Printing a 3D Dabo Pagoda.

Installation Guide

For its operations system, the Moment team chose to play it safe and teamed up with Simplify 3D, known for their excellent software package. ‘Every Moment sold comes with a user’s license which allows our customers to download the Simplify 3D program for use on their own computers.’ Finally, the printer also comes with its very own user platform, called YourMoment. Here, customers and fans can upload, download, and share their ideas for free. While currently only available in Korean, an English website is currently in development. All in all, it’s thus looking like a very decent 3D printer, and with a current price tag of ₩1,980,000 (or somewhere below $1800) it isn’t unfairly priced either.

But perhaps most impressive is that its developers, the eponymously named South Korean company Moment, has only been in existence since August 2014. Heewan Park explained to us that they have mostly been perfecting their model since then, but have already been paving a very solid road in those few months.

Part of their stellar rise could be explained by the CEO’s own background, who has extensive corporate, engineering and 3D printing experience. ‘My early experiences in the 3D printing movement showed me the width and breadth of customer complaints and issues, and the shortcomings of the machines that were on the market at the time. Many of the machines suffered from serious quality-control issues, as well as design and engineering problems. This made operating and maintaining them beyond the skills of an average user. We wanted to change that, so we founded ‘Moment’ with the intent of creating a solid, easy to use, easy to maintain, 3D printer that would be both useful and fun.’

In those few short months, they have also been working on an excellent PR-campaign. Their first public appearance was at the Asian Games 2014 in Incheon, last September. As Park told us, ‘We were invited to participate by SK Telecom and put our printer in their promotional booth.  he SK staff used our machine to print custom items for their customers and for some of the athletes at the event. We then paired up with SK again for a 'Make Your Own Phone Case' event which was held in several of SK’s Telecom shops.’

Since then, they have also teamed up with the Green Computer Art School in Seoul, one of the biggest computer school in the country. Five Moment 3D printers are currently on trial there, while they are working towards introducing their models into every of the school’s twenty campuses. They were also present at the 2014 Smart E-Learning Exhibition held in Busan, and recently donated a printer to a middle school in Incheon as part of an education program to encourage 3D printing among young people.

This combination of an excellent printer, a decent price tag and a clever marketing campaign definitely explains why the Moment 3D printer is turning heads across the world’s 3D printing community. It will therefore also be very interesting to see how it will do in the Western consumer market, where there are numerous similarly-priced alternatives. The upcoming markets in which they will first appear are in Russia, The Philippines, India, France, England, Singapore, Malaysia and the United States, so keep an eye out for these interesting printers!

 

Posted in 3D Printers

 

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