The most interesting 3D printers introduced at Additive Manufacturing Europe 2016

Take from 3Ders.

By Alec

Over the past few days Amsterdam played host to Additive Manufacturing Europe 2016, which featured numerous interesting workshops, speakers and visions of what 3D printing will bring to the future of manufacturing. But of course the 3D printing community is anxiously waiting for the release of several 3D printers, and fortunately many of these upcoming models were present in Amsterdam as well. 3ders.org checked out three of the most anticipated 3D printers of the moment.

Zortrax’s M300 is even bigger in real life.

Just earlier this week, Zortrax announced the unveiling of the M300 – the successor to the very popular and successful M200 3D printer – and promised it would be bigger and better than its predecessor. Building on the M200’s success, it also relies on Zortrax’s layer plastic deposition (LPD) 3D printing technology. 3D printing at a resolution of anywhere from 90 to 300 microns for a single extruder, theZortrax M300 3D printer is capable of using 4 different types of Zortrax 3D printing filaments: the versatile Z-ULTRAT, the matte Z-HIPS, the semi-transparent Z-GLASS and Z-PETG, which is known for its resistance to just about all kinds of salts, acids and a lot more.

But it’s biggest selling point, undoubtedly, is the M300’s size. The M200’s 200x200x180 mm build space wasn’t the smallest around, but the M300 features a comfortable 300x300x300 mm build space – large enough to 3D print an entire motorcycle helmet in a single piece. As you can see above, it looked even more gargantuan in real life, stretching the concept of a desktop 3D printer to its limits. But then who wouldn’t want to sacrifice desktop space for something like this? The M300 will retail at $5000.

What’s more, the Polish innovators might take home the prize for the most impressive print of the whole event. For right at the door, they set up an amazing, full-sized 3D printed superhero model. As you can see above, it’s not quite Batman, not quite Nightwing, but it’s certainly highly impressive. Featuring over 400 separate parts, it was built in about two weeks of constant 3D printing. “It can be any hero you want it to be,” Zortrax said.

Speed is everything for Sharebot.

In contrast, the Italian innovators from Sharebot focused completely on speed, rather than build size. This was illustrated by the fact that they exhibited their Voyager DLP 3D printer next to their brand-newVoyager Warp DLP 3D printer. Though exactly the same size and only distinguishable thanks to different casings, the Voyager Warp is actually eight times faster. This remarkable speed was already reported on earlier this week, when the company revealed that they can 3D print up to 100 mm per hour, which is much faster than most other resin-based 3D printers out there.

Finish article.