Botobjects color printer - hoax?

[solidsmack.com]

Anyone else think this is a hoax? Seems to me that some art student did a rendering of what he thought a color 3D FFF printer should look like, copied the look of the Form-1, and didn't know that the orange cover was to prevent the SLA resin from curing.

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[www.matter-replicator.com]

Looks like a fantasy to me...
Anyone remember that nice Photoshop Apple 3d printer?

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Bob Morrison
Wörth am Rhein, Germany
"Luke, use the source!"
BLOG - PHOTOS - Thingiverse

Looks genuine to me. There is nothing radically new in there, just a question of integration and fine tuning.

Of course, it's still PLA and FDM, and the color is not going to be retina display, so we should not be expecting miracles.

It will be interesting to see which Big Corp announces the first lawsuit

> There is nothing radically new in there

That is how you make a believable fake story. It has to be somewhat plausible.


Let's place our bets. I bet hoax. I am very good at identifying fake stories. Real photos of the machine and parts made from it no later than July 30th (they claim they will have a Summer release party in NY) or else it is fake. You will see - if it is not revealed as a hoax (they may call it a "joke" because that sounds less illegal), then they will have some excuse about how they have to keep it a secret longer due to the patent process.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/2013 11:54AM by rsilvers.

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[www.matter-replicator.com]

Pretty much everything they said is doable, but I doubt it. Only thing that is suspicious is the price. Sure you can print a multicolor object at 25 micron, but it will cost you lots and you'd be better off aiming for the industrial market.

I suspect they could do something like RichRap's experiments in color printing. They will probably have trouble sharply transitioning between colors. Though I guess they could just extrude until they get the right color.


Only thing that makes me suspicious is the case(where do you open it?) and the fact that it's mass produced.

rsilvers Wrote:
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> > There is nothing radically new in there
>
> That is how you make a believable fake story. It
> has to be somewhat plausible.

It's believable, therefore its a fake ?? Sounds like Catch 22

> Let's place our bets. I bet hoax. I am very good
> at identifying fake stories.

Yes, so am I. I can usually spot a scam pretty easily, I've had many years practice. It's an idle boast but I would even say I was an expert at assessing projects.

I will take the bet.

The project may well end up delayed or perform lower than expectations, but I see none of the usual signs of the scam or hoax. They are really not making any claims that are too good to be true, like claiming to print bomb-proof shelters for the Army

The odd thing I find is that a lot of people are quick to call scam on obviously genuine projects, we've had several cases here. It's good to be skeptical but some people seem to be paranoid.

I find it quite amusing that while I am running to make a good quality printer to sell, splicing cents yet keeping quality as #1 priority, those guys are asking 500$ more for a different color scheme (i.e. blue-tinted perspex instead of ...) of a printer that has yet to materialize.

Again, I wonder why there is no youtube teaser of this "awesome" technology.

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no toys here...sorry

They posted some images of the prints,

[botobjects.com]

Gerard Choinka Wrote:
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> They posted some images of the prints,
>
> [botobjects.com]


Renders, which will likely increase suspicion

they are using a lot of photoshop, the robot seams real and what they are showing is a change color by layer, you could with doable effort connect 5 bowden tubes to one hotend, retract the filament behind the connection point and print with the other
this will give you full color some how, but thigh control of the color and mixing? i don't think so

Plus they specify 25 micron printing height!
Dual head, supposedly one for support material the other for the 5 color mixing...

Still looks fake to me but if they can really build it to their specifications at the price listed they will do very well indeed.

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Bob Morrison
Wörth am Rhein, Germany
"Luke, use the source!"
BLOG - PHOTOS - Thingiverse

The robot one looks real, if only because of the gap in the box. Of course, bad fitting could be modelled... either way I wouldn't like to bet on it.

It is perhaps unfortunate that photo-realistic renderings are now so close to a professional photo that it is almost impossible to tell the difference. Although in some ways the "is it a hoax?" meme feeds quite nicely into a marketing teaser campaign. It creates buzz, which is all they are interested in until they can start shipping volume. It's the way Apple play the game, but of course Apple have a track record of delivering products.

It will be interesting to see if players like Makerbot have anything up their sleeve.

The part that screams fake to me are the dimensions. It is 365mm wide and deep, yet it some how has dual heads that reach the entire build area, a mechanical system to move the heads around and a case that only take up 90mm's giving it a 275mm build area. I can't see how a dual head machine that size could ever have a build area greater then 235mm.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/2013 03:48PM by Sublime.

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

The robot does not look real.

They are all obvious renders. Does this look real to you? I rendered it in Solidworks and entered a rendering contest with it six years and three months ago:

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[www.matter-replicator.com]

At first I thought these guys were just throwing their concept out there to gauge interest before they ponied up the cash to actually develop a working product.

But now I think it's a flat out scam. They have shown no real images of prints OR a product. All they have are 2D renders of their printer that look kind of 3D-ish, and some obviously fake pictures of "output" from their fake product.

@rsilvers: Impressive. Is the child also rendered?

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Bob Morrison
Wörth am Rhein, Germany
"Luke, use the source!"
BLOG - PHOTOS - Thingiverse

The child is a live photo. I had him hold his hands out. Then I over layed the render.

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[www.matter-replicator.com]

rsilvers Wrote:
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> The child is a live photo. I had him hold his
> hands out. Then I over layed the render.

So your "rendered" image is actually a fake

The subject of the contest was do take a Lego model of a car and do an interesting render with it. I made that image, and lost the contest (I didn't have enough family and friends to vote for it).

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[www.matter-replicator.com]

Aw, come on - that kid would be a breeze in 3ds Max! Seriously though, I too vote for hoax. Even if it is real, a fade is a cop out. And then a bunch of different colored separate parts. Show me vids with real output in progress, shot at the hot end, with a vid in the background to prove you are not having a goof on us, and helping yourself to money from folks who think they are getting a budget Z650. If it can't print discrete colored areas on a given curvilinear plane, it just is not ready for prime time anyway.

They have posted a video of their(?) printer printing now. Basically, you can't see much besides the fully enclosed head printing a vase, so it could be anything.
I remain very skeptical as the video doesn't include sound - it might have been sped up, with the sound removed to hide the higher pitch.
Some of the shadows in the background after the last cut are also moving quite fast. Not sure if it's just someone walking past or an artifact of video editing.
The only way to convince me is to show a wider view of the printer with some (moving) background for reference.

It would be fantastic if they indeed pull off what they claim, but all this secrecy and bits of not really informative information further doubts whether they are for real.

Actually I didn't think it was ever fake, just renders of something that wasn't finished. I ultimately thought it would never see the light of day or be an extreme disappointment.

Now, it seems real, the transitions seem to be short and they seem to be going very closed source.
I'm wondering if it is actually true mixing (doubtful) or simply filament changing (does a good/average job). Time will tell, it's clearly not a scam though.

Nice resolution though.

Maybe not a scam in the sense that the product is vaporware like in so many 3D printing scams (anyone remember Japica with their V-Rev or something?). I am pretty sure that there are overblown claims involved, though, in a similar fashion like Makerbot.

If they heat up PLA more than we usually do, maybe they can pull off thinner layers with higher speeds - I rarely print with PLA, though, so I leave thorough analysis to more experienced users, but speeds this high sound a little bit suspicious when you look at e.g. Ultimaker prints taking nearly a whole day at this resolution.

RichRap has already demonstrated filament joining to create color graduations. If they calculate input filament length necessary for a certain extrusion distance, an automatic filament joiner fed by the 5 cartridges might be the solution for how they mix filament colors. For sharp transitions, purging the nozzle into a waste container might be used.

So far, they didn't disappoint by not delivering any results, but remain a little bit suspicious in the speed/resolution claim and shrouded in mystery in the filament color mixing area.

Maybe some of us including me are overly sensitized by all the scam attempts that luckily were shot down pretty quickly most of the time, but until they show off more than little snippets and bits, I remain skeptical.
(My previous post may be worded a little bit too harshly at the end; I think they are a company with a real product, but am doubtful about their claimed superiority.)

uGen Wrote:
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> If they heat up PLA more than we usually do, maybe
> they can pull off thinner layers with higher
> speeds - I rarely print with PLA, though, so I
> leave thorough analysis to more experienced users,
> but speeds this high sound a little bit suspicious
> when you look at e.g. Ultimaker prints taking
> nearly a whole day at this resolution.

The thinner you print the faster you have to go. There is a minimum flow you need to maintain to prevent the PLA from burning or heat creeping up it too far. Also note that vase is small, I would guess it is about 30mm across the base so the time it takes in the video (minus the sped up parts) in not unreal.

Also after seeing this video I am a little less sceptical as I see now that it has a single head not dual so my previous comments about size restraints do not apply the same.

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

Those guys are probably having a good time watching us people discuss the actual existence or not of their machine.

Mystery - tactical way to get some net buzz going on

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Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

I signed up for email updates and have been invited a few times to place a pre-order... so far I have declined. Possibly they are deliberately limiting demand but there is nothing I see that makes me want to queue up to purchase. They have finally got round to showing a video, but it doesn't show much.

$3000+ is a lot to throw at an unproven printer, and paying extra to get a non-ugly color is nuts. These 3d printer companies seem to be following the 2d printer model - charge ridiculous prices for filament cartridges.

look this, I think is the same "technology" of botObject......
I use only 2 motor (2 color), but you can add also how many color you want...

I want test this project in 4 color with similar Bowden extruder , but I need an eletronic that support 4 extruder stepper ..

what do you think about?

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[www.falla3d.com]
[3dita.blogspot.it]

This looks like an idea that I also shortly thought about.
I pretty much discarded the idea because I thought that the plug from the melted plastic would be a pain to push in again...
but seeing it work makes me want to try it out, too.
Really nice idea because you save costs and weight with only 1 hot end!
Extruding filament with widely different melting temperatures could be a little bit tricky, though.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/30/2013 06:25AM by uGen.

First GNU GPL public relase of FUM (fala union mono) update 11
scad file and stl file


link here

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[www.falla3d.com]
[3dita.blogspot.it]

@ifala: Can you explain me how you can say where color changes apply (at what layer heigth for example..)?

Thanks!