Hey guys look you know one of the things I love about my job is I'm always
learning and finding out about new equipment and to my surprise today my
predecessor in this job had ordered some equipment and I got to play with this a
new 3d printer
So guys this is the flashforge innovator - it's actually a really neat little
printer you can see definitely by the way it's actually laid
out it is very similar to Makerbot mini which is a really
interesting printer in its own right this thing is actually made out of
plastic its an all plastic case actually has a top here and has twin rails
which is really helpful and you can see here this is very similar to the
MakerBot system it's all enclosed you can't really get into the extruder but
the other thing this taking cues from Makerbot is that
you've got your material all internal pretty is really really easy there's a
little button here it should turn on the power you can see it lights up on the
inside and everything here is a digital screen this again is really kind of
intuitive I like this a lot compared to the MakerBot apart from the actual
design problems with the extruder this machine seems to be really really aimed at
the beginner. this flash point is little audio tone
everything comes up it's really really simple to operate I've been playing with
this now for the last couple of hours let me see if I'm getting around here
without the glare and it's as simple as hitting a preheat button it's you've got
your set for the extruder and it's really intuitive this is really aimed at
the market for beginners which is exactly what we want to do with the
library here the other thing that's really cool about this
i'm actually gonna to abort this and go back is actually in the tools this level
set up this is something that I would not have expected from flashforge it is
building on a lot of the reprap technology and if I hit the level here
and open the door to show you guys what's going on
this will actually end up raising the table
place the camera down here and you can see that it is raising the table to the
extruder what it actually asks you to do up here is to actually unwind the three
knots so I'm going to do that as well and you can see here that these are
actually the screwed nuts which is really easy to operate if you just
wanted them all the way back it's one as well
and there's a third one right at the back here you guys can see that
and then what actually happens is that it actually comes out with a little
turbo arm so coming back to the screen here we'll just tap you okay that's - if
you can't tighten them anymore I say yes and
the actual hip moves and that little arm is a silver one with a little switch of
the body and what you'll see is that they've already worked out exactly where
the hikes mostly for these route will come up and measure and it will actually
come back up here and say the distance is too big so I'm screwed the car spun
enough and if she showed you how to do it so let's do it and then the idea is
that we actually do it until there's a sound is a beep keep going as the B
it'll say tap to verify let's tap that
it actually says to me here that I still have a little bit of a area to go so
let's do that again now that it's done it just to check again and it tells me
the distance is still too big so it'll keep asking me that one of the things
that I found with this is because it is a physical switch sometimes it's good to
just give it a little bit more of a turn just so that it'll actually click it and
once it's done that it's still verifying it on the screen see what happens
they go sister Gretchen Congrats not curriculums but congrats okay
it's happen you'll see it'll move to the next point I really like how that little
so just flicks up and now
still to distance it's really simple the screen will actually show you yeah what
to do which is really nice so you can't really do anything too wrong I know that
in my early days I used to write notes to myself which was which it's what
we're doing now is we're doing the last part in here now that's a three screw
systems
yep that's it it's all complaining now it's going to rest up so that's actually
the leveling system on this printer it's very quick it's about five minutes the
tops if you've got to go back and forth but we are all verified and completed
and ready to print so the other thing that this printer actually hands which I
really like is it has an internal memory so if we come up to the extended USB
stick there's a slot on the side otherwise you have an internal memory
system in here so so we're going to walk through right now loading up a sto into
the internal memory we use a program called flash print so to actually use
this piece of software it's really simple
you just grab a USB and plug it into the side of the machine so what we have here
is we have my desktop and I'm actually running a flash print and all you need
to do is actually have what I was going to print out already organized but
basically it's the standard print software so you can move it around you
can move your STL around as well and as you go into different borders you
actually have the problem that you won't be able to print as those areas come up
I'm actually going to use the default and Center that on
the actual grid you can rotate it you can scale it up and down
and you can also cut which is really nice on this so you if we've got
something that's really big you can actually take a slice and be able to
separate a larger STL into two different areas which I really like they simply
get based off the regular software that I've had experience with you hit print
you enable or disable supports when are they using supports right now I'm also
turning the raft off and all you need to do is hit OK and now that will actually
save but and also send it to the printer itself when you in print so it asks you
to connect mode some models actually have Wi-Fi but we're gonna use USB we
connect with it it is now running it straight to the machine that is now in
the memory of the machine if we come up here and actually abort that print but
go back to internal memory is my logo right there so I'm gonna get that it
comes to the screen eats here will display there Oh around about what that
is still looks like it's simply build and in 49 minutes and also these three
temperature so again you can see very very easy and this machine sits nicely
on a disk what are you it's not so big there's my
left in my Apple air next to it so this is something that could actually sit on
the table easily let's take a look at that this
door actually has a magnet in it so with its open it will actually see here it'll
say the doors open please close the door but hit OK it will go back and it
actually stopped me close it and try that for okay
it stopped not because of the door but it stopped because the extruder still
isn't the temperature really late nice little machine I'm gonna keep the door
open so we actually can look inside door open and again with almost air
temperature I like this in training you know it's small it's for someone who's
beginning to get into 3d printing really especially with the hood that goes on on
the top it's actually very quiet that's the other thing that I really am
impressed with this machine as opposed to the makeup up mini the megawatt mini
sides are just one big kind of acoustic drum you can really hear what's going on
and if you can see here is it's laying down some material it is quiet easy and
I've actually been running this machine all day next to my workstation and it
has bother me once it is a very neat little machine
which from on top can't really see too much because of the automatic system you
can see that's just really a box with the extruder and the arm within it but
again it's a nice little little piece of equipment we know what you think
I actually am quite impressed with its maturity this machine is going to go
into the cops inspect library and I'm gonna set it up so that the librarians
can use it easily and the public will be able to get a chance to visit as well so
let me know what you think this is the flashforge inventor - this machine
turned up today and I have been playing with it and I thought I'd just take the
opportunity to share it with you guys I will show you the logo at the end but if
you I'm not going to sit through 49 minutes it is popping yeah okay talk
soon so that's a bit pretty done you can actually see here that's my logo it's
actually the first time I printed this before actually really like what we how
it came out
I really like this infinity if you're interested in getting into 3d printing
and definitely want to do some work without the technical aspects you don't
have a kit you don't have have to put something together and tweak it all the
time I think this printer is definitely a
good choice I'm really excited about seeing this printer people put it out
into the public and let people play with it this printer is available from
flashforge I believe it's just around $1000 mark as I come across new
equipment I own new share of the eyes so I'll speak