And yet another printer with a marginal new feature

[JohnStack]

Modular head design, snap on/off.

https://www.facebook.com/CEL.robox/info

First naysayer thoughts: Nice box, not going to be enough....

[geneb]

wake me up when they have a real website and not a failbook link.

g.

[foshon]

They have one http://www.cel-robox.com/, it appears to be fairly broken.

[Robox]

Hey guys,
Just to let you know our webpage is now up and running - and be assured, it's more than a pretty box!

We'd love to hear your comments.

[dpmacri]

Looks interesting. The item that intrigues me the most is the Nozzle Valve described on the technical page. Looking at the pics of the nozzles, they look quite "ordinary". Where is the valve actually? Is it close to the extrusion point? Also, the heads appear to be at an angle relative to the build surface (maybe that's just an artifact of the way the pictures were taken). If true, doesn't that lead to parts having slightly different appearance based on orientation on the build platform?

[Robox]

Hi dpmacri,
The valve is inside the casing, and cannot be seen on the outside of the nozzle - they are needle valves which close off the nozzle at the point of extrusion, a dead stop every time. The heads are at an angle because the whole head (inside the casing) articulates 3° each way to select each nozzle. This offset is calibrated at the beginning of each print using the automatic bed levelling system.

[bvandiepenbos]

Looks interesting.
When will it be released for sale and where?

[Eaglezsoar]

And it has an automatic bed leveling system. Now that is a hoot!

[cope413]

Robox - I'd recommend spelling "leveling" correctly. Also, I'd highly recommend changing that impossible-to-read font that's on your otherwise nice looking site.

Grammar and diction aside, though, because you list nylon and PC, am I correct in assuming it's an all metal hotend?

Also, it looks like dual nozzle, but not dual extruders, correct?

Arduino board?

[astroboy907]

Ok, as a non-printer guy (I so severely want a printer...), I have just a couple issues with the website in particular.

1. Get a different (off-white), semi textured background, or make the font darker/bolder/larger
2. The "spin" effect on the start page? Could you please make that only happen on a mouseover/hover? It's a little bit dizzying when it goes constantly back and forth like that.
3. Bold out the font on the subscribe now button on the bottom. I suspect you are going for the clean lines look, but on smaller screens it just looks pixelated.

Otherwise nice site and interesting product!

[626Pilot]

Interesting ideas. I'd love to see how this needle valve design works. You might find that you do a substantial side business just selling that and other extruder components. SeeMeCNC makes their EZStruder for the Rostock MAX, but it's designed to work with both Bowden and J-head hot ends (which the Rostock doesn't even ship with) and they sell to people who have other printers.

I will agree with the other guy. Eyes and visual cortices rely mostly on differences in contrast to identify the boundaries of objects, but the lines on that font are so thin my brain has to work harder to figure it out. If I was ten years older I probably wouldn't even try. Help me be lazy. Get a thicker font.

I like some of the design innovations (like the needle valve) but I have to admit, seeing the 477th iteration of the original RepRap Cartesian printer from 2006 or whatever is getting boring. Part of the reason I bought a delta printer is that it's a newer design, and to be perfectly honest, it just looks cooler. Cartesian, delta, and other 3D printing technologies each have advantages and drawbacks, but for me solving the same problem hundreds of other engineers have already solved is too boring. I crave novelty.

[mikefazz]

Needle valve idea... yeah that was 5 years ago...

http://blog.reprap.org/2008/08/extruder-valve.html

They do seemed to have refined it quite a bit (or at least made it smaller).

[Robox]

Hey Guys,
Sorry for the delay in replying - it's been somewhat hectic around here... We launched last week on Kickstarter, and so far funding is going pretty good....

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rob ... acturing-p

I notice a lot of you are having issues with the font on our website - I'm guessing you use Chrome... There's a bug with the rendering of anti-aliasing on webfonts, we're trying to get it sorted as soon as we can - in the meantime hopefully you'll find it looks great in IE/Safari/Firefox.

Eaglezsoar: I'm not sure what you mean by 'that's a hoot'... Our nozzle probes the bed at three locations, and our Z axis motors are individually controlled, allowing us to ensure the bed is parallel to the X gantry before the start of every print.

cope413: 'leveling' is the American English spelling - 'levelling' is British English. You're correct to assume that the hot end is indeed all-metal and will be able to cope with temperatures up to 300°C. The dual nozzle in the first generation of the printer will be 'single material - dual nozzle' i.e. the same material out of two different size nozzles. Shortly after the release of the printer, we will be producing a dual material - dual nozzle head which will snap onto the carriage, and this will be fed by two extruders (a simple upgrade which requires connecting one ZIF cable and a bowden tube). The electronics are fully custom, driven by a Atmel SAM3U ARM processor and Allegro A4982 motor drivers.

626Pilot: Hopefully you'll get some more idea as to how the needle system works from the Kickstarter page I think you'll find many novel features on Robox... It's actually the first time we've seen the RepRap attempt at needle valves, it took us many iterations to arrive at the current design and you'll be pleased to hear it actually works! Selling the head and extruders as individual components will be quite a tricky proposition due to the connection requirements and firmware required to operate the new hardware.

Hope that answers some of your questions, do let us know if there's anything else you'd like more information on...

Robox Team

[626Pilot]

Selling the head and extruders as individual components will be quite a tricky proposition due to the connection requirements and firmware required to operate the new hardware.

The connection won't be an issue as we're already accustomed to making our own wiring harnesses. Electrically it shouldn't be a problem as we have an extra axis connector and extra heat/fan connectors, so whether it's a solenoid or a linear stepper we can drive it. Firmware would probably involve logic to open or close the valve whenever the filament direction changes. Probably wouldn't need to mess with the slicer. This would be a popular mod for printers that use Bowden extruders, as currently there's no way to print thick layers at any kind of reasonable speed without blobbing. I would definitely buy one of these to see if I could rig it up, and I'd publish the Rostock MAX mount on Thingiverse as I have for other upgrades. Let us figure out the details and it could be a decent side business for you.