How Formlabs made its $700 3D printer

Last month, Formlabs rolled out its lowest-cost 3D printer to date . Equipped with a new print engine based on the company's proprietary Low Force Display (LFD) technology , and a range of consumer-friendly colours, the $690 Form Studio 1 is being positioned as the world’s 'most affordable resin 3D printer' offering professional quality, average print speeds of under two hours, and reliability. The development was led by a new team in Shenzhen where Formlabs opened an office last year and set itself a goal of " bridging the massive gap between cheap, unsafe, unreliable printers and the professional standard Formlabs is known for ", per comments from Kennedy Liu, Formlabs R&D Lead based in Shenzhen. Fitting, then, that the machine made its official debut at TCT Shenzhen where our ManufacturingIQ Editor Oliver Johnson caught up with Formlabs co-founder and CEO Maxim Lobovsky to learn more about how the machine came to be and the significance of its Shenzhen development. "It's a lot of hard work," Lobovsky said. "That's kind of the big challenge with Form Studio, is how to take everything we built into the Form 4, which is a professional grade system that costs around $3,000, and put it into a $700 package. We've been working hard at that for the last couple years.