RobotShop announced today the launch of a new 3D printing service to complement their online products catalog. The service’s slogan is “Print the World Around you". The process is pretty simple: customers upload their file, RobotShop prints the part and then ships it to the customer wherever they may be on the planet.
With more than 5000 products specific to robotics, RobotShop already offers almost all of the parts needed to build custom robots. This new service complements the website perfectly as it will allow customers to create custom mechanical parts such as chassis and frames.
“Most of the time when you build a robot, you need custom mechanical parts. The process of building a robot using plexiglass, wood and hot glue is over.” indicated Mario Tremblay, founder and CEO of RobotShop. “Ever since we first played with a 3D printers in-house, we have seen firsthand the benefits of being able to print custom objects quickly with no delay. We want to offer this to our customers who do not have their own 3D printer yet. Customers can add their 3D printed design to their order and everything will be shipped together”.
With this new service, RobotShop’s objective is to better serve the customer by offering all the parts and services needed to help them build their custom robotic prototypes at a minimum cost. This new service can just as easily be used to replace a broken part on domestic robot, create a useful widget or any other use that can be dreamt up.
About RobotShop inc.
RobotShop is the world’s leading robot store for personal and professional robot technology. It provides personal, domestic and professional robots, development platforms, kits, and specialized robotic parts. RobotShop is also an important source for robotics education and research.
For more information on RobotShop, please visit robotshop.com
For now we are starting with PLA only - and only black. Prints are 100% solid, and parts are shipped with support attached. This helps us reduce the price considerably.
So far on all parts, from small to large, our prices are lower than that of the competition.
Pricing is largely calculated on build time, which factors in any necessary support structure, machine use etc.
If the price is higher than the competition, it’s likely a units or scale issue.
If you get a quote from another company which is less than what we quoted, we invite you to contact us and we’ll look into it. Keep in mind the material used, scale (the original .stl file and if the other company’s software automatically scaled the part).
Very simple: RobotShop does not make any claims to the parts received.
They’re your parts / designs, not ours.
We try our best to have parts ready within 48 hours, but if we receive parts which take considerably longer to make, and there is a backlog, then the delay may be a bit longer. Alternatively, some parts can be ready to be shipped the same day.
ok cool, thanks for letting me know.
Also thank you for the FAQ link.
sorry for all the questions… 25 x 15 x 15cm build area
A pretty normal build area (especially for PLA builders). Not bad, but im sure you will have plans to expand this?
Would there be anyway to improve the software to allow for more than 10MB models.
If not would one be able to send their order in smaller files but it all be dispatch at the same time as one order?
some company’s charge these as separate orders and it can be more expensive for the customer.
Also what’s your largest polygon count?
Object infill: 100%
Would you consider changing to a honeycomb infill or something to make prints cheaper?
All look pretty reasonable with a decent layer hight, but if i wanted to say make a hinge or something 'What kind of tolerance or space should one leave between parts?.
Look forward to seeing some projects come from this.
If the service becomes popular, we would envision first increasing the selection of colors and materials, then changing machines for larger build volumes.
Currently the software is not the limiting factor, and we can certainly do larger file sizes, but they need to be sent via e-mail. We’ll probably allow ZIP files directly soon enough.
Sure. We quote based on what we build - if one .stl file contains multiple parts, then we quote for that build. If instead there are multiple .stl files, we quote for each. Having all the parts on one .stl file saves time.
We treat the 3D printed parts like any normal part we have on the website.
We have yet to see Send us something and we’ll see if we can do it.
Unless the infill is brought down to ~15%, the price does not change substatially, whereas the part itself becomes far more fragile. Consider the price includes not only the material, but the overall time. If the printing nozzle is moving from location (x1, y1) to location (x2, y2) and takes 1 second while extruding plastic, vs. 55 seconds when not extruding plastic, there’s only an 8% reduction in price.
Roughly 0.1mm should be enough to allow for clearance, though we’re still testing. Keep in mind that there will be support structure to remove if you print it all together. For example if you were printing a hole into which a rod needed to be press fit, you’d print either the rod 0.1mm smaller or the hole 0.1mm larger.
Send us something and we’ll see if we can do it.