The Carbon M3 and M3 Max are Carbon's next generation of 3D printing workhorses. The printers are available on subscription-based packages and offer a number of improvements over the previous- generation printers.
One of the highlights of the new range is a simplified printer experience with better control over the print process. The design space of the printers allows users to create parts that previous generations of printers couldn't. Better heat management means that the printers can print faster, and the greater resolution results in smoother parts and higher precision for 3D-printed surface finishes. Each part can be printed with less variability because the printers are able to print with higher repeatability.
The M3 Max printer has double the build area of the M3 and is better suited for larger parts, because it has the same density and size as the M3.
The company is playing the enterprise game of trying to charge its customers as much as the market will sustain, so it is tight-lipped about its pricing for the new printers.
Carbon makes industrial-class printers with the M1 starting at about $2,100 per month, billed annually, with a 36-month commitment. As the systems get larger and more capable, the price per part goes down.
If you're playing along with a calculator at home, you're talking about a $75,000 price tag over three years for an older-generation printer. This isn't the printer you have in a cupboard to print out the odd figurine for your cousins from time to time, but a serious industrial workhorse.
Philip DeSimone, chief product officer and chief business development officer at Carbon, says that while prices go down, there is still a market for it. When it comes to plastic forks and spoons and K cups, we will never compete on price with injection molded plastic.
In environments where manufacturing needs to happen quickly, where small changes need to be possible on an ongoing basis, or for products where customization is a big deal, the printers are helpful. The $450 Specialized bike saddles that are tailored to fit your rear-parts are one of the examples of a custom product.
Traditional manufacturing technologies are often the problem in manufacturing. If I have to get an injection-molded tool that will cost half a million dollars and take six to eight months to make, I will not be able to use my hand. We can help them get to the production tool quicker. We have achieved our company goal of helping you get to market faster with your game-changing products.
Printer utilization is the main driver for using Carbon's tech in manufacturing spaces.
I visit a lot of 3D facilities where you can see printers that are not being used. That is not a good thing for us. We want to make sure the printers are being used. We have an industry-leading 40+ print hours per week per machine across our entire install base.
The M-series of printers have been around for a while. The shiny new M3 adds a bunch of additional bells and whistles that makes it a better fit for certain prototyping and production requirements.
The M3 has a better user experience. Some of the user-friendliness you would expect from a consumer product is added by the touchscreen. The company claims that the M3 Max is the first 3D printer to leverage a 4K light engine, which almost doubles the build envelope over its previous machines, while keeping the same resolution, without sacrificing print speed.
As you get bigger build areas, your accuracy, print speed and consistency decline. This is the first time that you will be able to get to a larger build area, while maintaining all those things that you know and love. A lot of engineering went into that.
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The Carbon team is proud of the fact that print speed is one area that they are particularly proud of, and the M3 series is showing some marked improvement there.
The printers are faster for two reasons. One technology is called force feedback. We used to use manual script to maximize our printers. People would have the ability to change how fast they wanted the part to be printed based on how they were trying to maximize production. It was a dark art of the printing process and we wanted to remove it. In real time, the force feedback does all of that. It has a highly sensitive sensor on the build platform as it pulls up in that direction. It has a closed-loop feedback system that allows you to print at the fastest possible rate.
The second major feature is a completely redesign of the window technology. The thermals determine how materials print. If you want to pull the heat out, some materials do better than others. DeSimone says that heating and cooling adds another aspect of controllability to the print process. Adding heat as needed helps. Both of those innovations are allowing us to drive the speed improvements.
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