Tag Archives: Hong Kong

$200 MakiBox 3D Printer Competes at the Low End Market

MakiBox 3D Printer

$200 MakiBox 3D Printer is the Cheapest on the Market

The MakiBox 3D printer is the creation of 37-year-old Jon Buford, founder of Hong Kong-based startup Makible. Buford launched the company with $50,000 in seed funding and a round of pre-orders from a crowdfunding campaign. Makible’s 2013 goal is to hit $2 to $3 million in revenue.

Targeting Cost over Scale

MakiBox is attacking the low end of the market. While leading desktop 3D printers from MakerBot and 3D Systems range from $1,700 to $2,200, there has been a price war at the low end among dozens of Kickstarter projects and RepRap innovations. Makible is possibly the lowest priced 3D printer in the market.

To reduce the cost, the MakiBox is a smaller 3D printer. But it can still print objects as large as 14 iPhone 5s stacked in two columns.

A Visit to Makible in Hong Kong

Our friends at Hack Things are traveling in China this week, and paid a visit to the team building the MakiBox, a $200 3D printer.

Yesterday we dropped in on Elliot and Jon of Makible at their lab in Kwai Hing, Hong Kong, where a team is hard at work making what will likely be the world’s most affordable 3D Printer, the MakiBox. It will launch later this year for just $200 (as a kit).

Why does price matter? To get an idea of cost, at the moment Shapeways charges roughly $3 per cubic centimeter when the plastic itself costs less than $0.05. It wouldn’t take much printing before the Makibox pays itself off. However when you factor in shipping and turnaround time, you see the real advantage of having a desktop printer nearby. Not only that, but low cost itself enables new applications and markets such as in education and makes small batch production more affordable (e.g. it’s more practical to run a farm of 3D printers if the fixed costs are low.)

The video below shows a profile of Buford and Makible.

 

CC Image by cloneofsnake

3D Printed Phone Cases: UCreate3D Seeks Crowdfunding to Best Nokia

UCreate3D iPhone 4s Case 3D Printing

3D Printed Phone Cases: UCreate3D Takes On Nokia?

Two Dutch entrepreneurs who call themselves “pleasantly insane, incredibly ambitious” are crowdfunding to build a multilingual global platform they call UCreate3D to offer 3D Printed customizable phone cases.

Koen is running the offices in Hong Kong and is responsible for production. Vincent moved to San Francisco to focus on sales and e-commerce! It all started when Koen couldn’t find a nice case for his HTC Sensation. Only one year later they launched this IndieGoGo campaign!

We got a chance to interview these two Dutch 3D printing enthusiasts. Here’s a transcript of our interview.

On 3D Printing: It seems like your inspiration to use 3D printing is about personalization. Can you elaborate?

It is about availability and personalization. How cool is it that you can give your two year old Galaxy SII with a customized case to your parents when you are buying an SIV? Instead of buying a one-fits-all sleeve you can create something they like, they can relate to and make it a personal gift instead of just a phone. And the cool thing is, if they don’t like the design you’ve made, they can create a new switchable panel!

On 3D Printing: Nokia announced a 3D Printing Kit for its Lumia series phone. How are you going beyond what they’re doing?

We’re really happy that a big brand like Nokia understands the importance of 3D Printing and starts experimenting early. What Nokia is doing is for 3D Printing experts, engineers or developers, in other words people who know what they are doing. Designing a case and getting a perfect fit isn’t easy, even for educated industrial designers. It takes a couple of test runs to get a good case. 99.9% of the (mass) market is not interested in doing this. We want to make it simple! People can design their own case or choose one of the pre-selected designs, choose one of the seven colors we’re offering and can expect a perfect case with high quality on their doorstep a couple of days later. This isn’t only for Nokia users, but all smartphone and tablet owners!

3D Printed Phone Cases Indiegogo

On 3D Printing: Who created the design software? What was that experience like?

We´re working with an amazing team of software developers. One of the reasons we are doing crowdfunding is the webshop. We’ve are investing a large part of the $20,000, we’re raising, in the webshop. Vincent has over 7 years experience with E-Commerce and start ups and developed more than 20 webshops in multiple languages. The plan that we have for our webshop is ambitious, but realistic. Realistic if you work with the right people. Our webshop will be very simple, easy to use and our customer service will be amazing. This is the combination for a successful E-Commerce company.

On 3D Printing: Where will you 3D print the actual cases? Will you use an existing 3D printing service or your own production?

Co-Founder Koen Munneke runs our office in Hong Kong and is responsible for production. If you want to be better, you have to think outside of the box. Koen is a 3D Printing expert and knows everyone in the field in Asia. Vincent´s expertise lies in consumer products, so we have combined the best of two worlds. The 3D Printing technique (this needs a verb, not sure what you want to say here) with painting and coating from different markets. Our coating originates from the automobile industry. We’re working with several 3D Printing, paint and coating experts to get the best quality for our products. The 3D Printer that we’re using costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, so we partnered with a manufacturer.

On 3D Printing: How do you plan to market your service?

IndieGoGo is the start. We have been featured on several blogs and websites, so we’re off to a good start. Our first market will be the US & Canada and China. We want to make 3D printing simple and available to everyone. So don’t be surprised to find our services in Korean, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese and Russian in the coming years!

 

Want to fund their campaign? Go to Indiegogo and contribute!