Gadgetory

hi I'm rich Brown for CNET today we're going to take a look at the 3d systems cube 3d printer so this is the second 3d printer we've reviewed here at scene it the first one was the MakerBot replicator kind of an enthusiast really hardcore hobbyist design system this though is purely aimed at consumers everything from it's designed to the way you print objects on it all the way down to the software the system is really focused at being easy to use and kind of simplified so if you're not familiar with 3d printing the way it works is that this head deposits this plastic material down here this print surface prints up layer by layer until you get a solid object at the end of it the object comes from a 3d design on your computer that you send to the printer to print out so what we like about this printer in particular is that it's really easy to use you can see here is a big drum that contains a neon green plastic that goes here into the head the drum just slides in really easily and then to load the plastic you go to this menu and it walks you through the process of feeding a plastic in there's a couple ways to actually get a design from your computer to the cube you can plug a USB key into the port here and have the design show up on the menu here or you can connect via Wi-Fi setting your plans from either your computer or your smartphone to the printer itself so once you have those plans sent to the printer you navigate through the menu tell to print and then begins the warm up process that takes about 10 minutes and it's actually pretty quick compared to the replicator and what happens is this bed and this printhead here get very hot and that heat is partially what keeps the object stable on the surface as the print progresses now it also helps objects stick is this magic cube glue and that's unique to the cube you lay that down on the surface and that along with the heat make sure the object stays put when the print is finished you lift off the plate then set it in a cup of water in order to dissolve the glue at that point you can take your print off so the cube is actually pretty unique in the landscape of consumer price 3d printers and that it is a really really consumer focused device all the other printers out there in the sub $2,000 price range at least are really designed for hobbyists that like to get into the software tweak all kinds of settings you can even customize the hardware in those models if you want to with this one it's really about getting a design to the printer and just cranking it out so when you go to use the software for the cube it's not a lot of settings you can play with sometimes it's simply used but it also means you can't correct if something goes wrong in a print the other thing is that it feels like 3d systems is trying to monetize you throughout the entire process of using the printer before you even turn it on you have to register it at the cuba 5 comm website and then when you're there 3 systems really pushes you to pay for plans on the website you have to pay extra for the glue you want to replace it these cartridges are proprietary and they cost a little bit more per volume than you get from the other 3d printers so as much as this is a Consumer Focus 3d printer they really do try to push you do consume let's head the process of printing the cube is a whole lot easier than with the replicator we never once had a print slip off from where it was supposed to be glued we did get a little bit of lifting here and there but nothing that totally damaged the output so speaking of its output we have a few objects that we've printed here on the cube some of them came out great others less so so this napkin holder and this little rook design both came with the printer and they printed out perfectly there's really no complaints about the way they look now the plans for these two objects as well as the others you'll find on Cuba fire are more or less designed to work very well with the cube that's great the problem is here it's pay form now they're planar designs out there that are free but as you can see from this chair they don't always come out as well as you want them to now this chair being messed up might be a product of the software and the way it interprets the design but because the settings are really sparse in the 3d system software there's not a lot you can do about it to try to improve it you can take the design file to an outside 3d design program and try tweak it but your results are going to be guesswork until you actually print one that works now that's certainly not the case with every free file you'll find out there in fact we printed these devil horns from MakerBot Thingiverse website you can download the plans there and that works fine so 3d printing is still in its experimental stages for consumers and while this one is certainly one of the more consumer focused devices we've seen it's also not cheap it comes in at about 1,300 bucks that's not including extra glue any extra plastic or the designs you might want to buy for it but because the free plans don't always work as well as you want them to there's still a lot of guesswork and sort of hit or miss outcomes when you actually print it's a little expensive hobby and particularly with this printer you can find yourself shelling out a lot of money in order to keep at it but overall this is probably easiest use device that we've seen so far so I'm rich Brown this is the 3d systems cube 3d printer