Aug 11, 2015 | By Simon
Although we’ve been seeing tons of new filaments and additive manufacturing technologies released over the past few years, chocolate-based 3D printers are still yet to take off in the mainstream. However, a Chinese company wants to change that - and they’re starting with a 3D printed chocolate Eiffel Tower.
The company, 3DCloud (of BEcoda), recently unveiled their latest product, the QiaoKe Food 3D Printer at the 2015 Beijing Urban Science Festival. Unsurprisingly, the printers attracted a lot of interested (and hungry) onlookers.
It took only 4 hours to print out this chocolate Eiffel Tower!
The printer, which can print in resolutions up to 0.4mm, features a build envelope of 120 x 120 x 150 mm and includes TEC controllers for variable temperature control, among other features. But aside from the typical features seen with most other 3D printers, what makes the QiaoKe 3D printer most unique is its solid feeding system - a first for a Chinese 3D printer manufacturer.
The printer’s solid feed system - which requires no preheating - allows users to add solid chocolate chips into the feeding hopper rather than a traditional syringe. Additionally, the printer has a non-stop extrude feature for ensuring that prints are completed with no gaps in a model’s structure.
While the solid feed system is definitely an improvement compared to other food-based 3D printer systems that we’ve seen, the QiaoKe 3D Cloud platform also enables artwork to be quickly converted into printable 3D models. At the event, this was demonstrated by converting children’s artwork that was done on-site into edible chocolate figurines within 15 minutes.
“My child brought home 3D printed chocolate after visiting the festival with his class yesterday,” said Ms. Lee, an enthusiastic fan of the QiaoKe.
“So today, I came with him to see it for myself. I didn’t know that 3D printed chocolate could be so beautiful!”
Although the 3D printing food market has been sluggish towards picking up in the mainstream, the company is very optimistic about its near future.
"The QiaoKe 3D Food Printer is not only a beautiful device, but it is a very advanced piece of equipment for creating high resolution, edible chocolate models,” said Hu Yi, Marketing Director of 3D Cloud, who also added that the company has already created an extensive 3D model library for users ranging from families to businesses.
“Similar chocolate 3D printers can cost upwards of $5,000-$7,000,” he said. “But ours is only half that price.”
The company is currently looking towards supplying businesses with the printer including cafes, restaurants, clubs, bakeries, dessert chefs, wedding caterers and personalized services.
In an effort to make the user experience as easy as possible for these users, the company has included a 7” full-color touch screen into the design of the printer and has even included a smart device connectivity option for users to control the printer over a WiFi network.
As for 3D model creation, the company has also produced a piece of custom 3D scanning software that can generate a 3D model from a real-life model or photos that show multiple views of a single object.
According to the company, the QiaoKe 3D food printer will be launched in September, and further details about the printer and its included software and technologies will be announced on the company site around that time, too.
Posted in 3D Printers
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hi need to know in details for this machine, i m Yogesh Panchal from INDIA, kindly email me details on pratibhaprinters@gmail.com whatsapp: +919322827291
Sa mo wrote at 7/19/2017 2:31:10 PM:
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