It feels like there’s a story about 3D printing in the news every day lately. The once science-fiction concept of creating complex solid objects out of raw materials on demand has the potential to disrupt just about every form of industry in the world. One of the biggest blockades has been acceptability. While some universities have been dealing with that issue by making the technology available to students, the office supply giant Staples has a more capitalist solution.
Available in multiple colors. Just because.
You can now get a Cube3D printer from Staples.com and at select stores for $1300. While hardly cheap, this is a good price for a 3D printer. Be aware though that the price doesn’t include raw materials. Staples also sells those, but at $49 per cartridge. If you want more than one color, you need multiple cartidges, which means shelling a lot out. Kind of puts the price of inkjet refills into perspective.
As we’ve stated numerous times before, the possibilities of personal 3D printing are almost limitless. Want to design some furniture? Make masks? Build a personal smartphone case? Make your own action figures? I don’t want to say the possibilities are endless though.Sure, you can’t print a synthetic ear, but what you can do with a personal 3D printer remains impressive.
It’s cool these are going to be available off the shelf at a large retailer, but smart buyers would buy practically ANY model other than this one. The Cube will cost about 2x as much to print with as any of the competitors who don’t mark up the supplies cost this high. The photos Cube includes of completed 3D print jobs are also misleading, as the fine print tells you they come from a much more expensive, higher-end product they sell. This is just a stepping stone model they hope people will find inadequate when they start using it a while, and will spend the money to upgrade to one of their more costly “pro” models.