Introducing GigamaX 3D Printing Technology

Gigamax 3D Printing Technology

Hi there! In this short article, I want to introduce you to GigamaX3D, a fresh 3d print company from Hungary dedicated to affordable and open-source 3d printing solutions for home and educational use.

© photo by GigamaX3D © photo by GigamaX3D

GigamaX 3D Printing Technology offers Fused Deposition Modeling 3D printers for personal and professional use. We are official distributors of Velleman 3d printers and Esun 3d printer filaments, and also official distributors of Leapfrog, RepRapPro and Flashforge 3D printers. We believe in open-source technology and we’ve preferred always these kind of 3d printers. From entry level 3d printer kits to robust pro-sumer machines and premium quality 3d printer filaments, we try to support the 3d community as much as we can.

© photo by GigamaX3D © photo by GigamaX3D

2014, we’ve started in a small shop selling consumer 3d printers and supplies for the Hungarian market. After selling a huge amount of 3d printers…

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Open-source 3d printing workshop by GigamaX3D at Budapest 3D Printing Days

Gallery

This gallery contains 16 photos.

Originally posted on Gigamax 3D Printing Technology:
Design Terminal, the Hungarian startup center organizes the Budapest 3D Printing Days between 5-7 June for the second time. The 3-day-long event provides a talks, workshops, roundtable discussions by industry experts, a pitch…

3d printing competition at Budapest 3D Printing Days 2014

Affordable 3D printing and domestic FDM machines are having a huge effect on the DIY community. While there will always be room for making stuff by hand, it’s so helpful to just 3d print out a part you need. In honor of this awesome tech Design Terminal has teamed up with Varinex Inc. and Freedee Printing Inc.  to launch their call within the Budapest 3D Printing Days 2014 for a design competition especially for 3d printing with entry-level and industrial-grade 3d printers.

photo by Design Terminal

photo by Design Terminal

If you haven’t already been following, 3D printing is predicted to be absolutely huge – not just the next cool thing in tech, but hopefully something that will transform and change the way we manufacture our things and live in the future. From construction to toys and even food, 3D printing has really the potential to dramatically alter many of the things we do, and, in the design world, it is one reason why sharp borderlines between designer and user may blurred.

photo from last year's event © Design Terminal

photo from last year’s event © Design Terminal

The contest calls upon Hungarian designers/innovators/makers to create a product by using 3D printers. The goal is to demonstrate the potential of 3D printing technology. The call is available unfortunately only for Hungarians. You can apply by submitting this form.
The organizers will present the event with two different categories of submission. The two categories reflect important characteristics of the additive manufacturing processes while simultaneously looking for creative innovation through interpretation of different themes from 3d printed architectural models, industrial prototypes, decoration, 3d printed sculptures, toys, 3d printed jewelry, 3d printed lampshades etc.

designer 3d printed easter egg by parametric | art

designer 3d printed easter egg by parametric | art

The first category is for the designs which all can be made on an affordable desktop 3d printer using FDM technology. That means, a lot of design rules and technical boundaries of these plastic extrusion printers have to be looked before sending your design files, a minimum wall thickness of 2 mm is one of the conditions of a successful submission. Make sure your model doesn’t include too many overhangs, because there isn’t statement about soluble support material or dual extruder 3d printers. The height of the objects is maximized in 10 cm, so small sculptures, plain, minimalistic 3d printed jewelry pieces and simple, geometrical figures might fit the rules. The whole model has to fit in a 10 x 10 x 10 cm cube. By the way, there is an option to send physical 3d printed models as well, so what if I can make my design in triple scale with .8 mm wall thickness on a DIY open-source 3d printer using water-soluble PVA filament as support material in the secondary extruder?

generative 3d printed lampshade in dual color by parametric | art

generative 3d printed lampshade in dual color by parametric | art

Anyway, the more complex 3d printed models should go to the second category, which is separated for detailed geometries, which only can be manufactured on a professional, industrial grade 3d printer using SLS or DLP technology. These models are allowed to include some overhangs or fine details, but they ll should fit into a 20 x 20 x 20 cm cube, or they will be scaled before the production. Minimum wall thickness – just like in the first category – is about 2 mm, make sure your model doesn’t contain thinner structures.

 

my generative easter egg designs printed on a Perfactory machine

my generative easter egg designs printed on a Perfactory machine

Competitors can submit several entries. By entering this competition, everybody has to warrant that the work is their original work. 
 The designers have to claim that their work – to the best of their knowledge – is not, and has not been in production or otherwise previously published or exhibited. 
Neither the work nor its use infringes the intellectual property rights (whether a patent, utility model, functional design right, aesthetic design right, trade mark, copyright or any other intellectual property right) of any other person. So keep it simple and fair, don’t steal others design or download something, create some unique stuff on your own!

The best designs (10 of them) will be 3d printed and exhibited to show the visitors how you can create stunning art with a free or open-source 3d modelling tool like Meshlab, Grasshopper or Blender and an affordable desktop 3d printer. And maybe a whole lot of talent, but honestly, I’m not sure where you can buy that:)

unique 3d printed jewellery by parametric | art

unique 3d printed jewellery by parametric | art

You have almost a week for submitting you designs, the deadline is on 20th May, so let’s get busy and send you best designs to win a tablet and get your design 3d printed and exhibited on the Budapest 3D Printing Days 2014!

my 3d printed generative lampshade design with dual extrusion

my 3d printed generative lampshade design with dual extrusion

I also want to submit some of my designs, although I had to realise that most of them won’t fit the contest criteria. They are too big, include too thin structures, and I guess they couldn’t be 3d printed on a conventional cheap FDM printer with factory preset default setting. Although I’ve printed ’em on my Leapfrog Creatr pretty awesome, I have no idea what kind of 3D printer they want to use to print the projects of the competitors.

Until then, maybe you could help me to decide which designs of mine should be nominated, you can see some of them on the attached photos, please vote for your favourites in the comment section to let me know which forms and 3d models are the most popular. I usually try to explore the geometric laws behind natural forms to recreate them as parametric digital models, which all have been fabricated using affordable FDM 3D printers.

designer 3d printed easter egg by parametric | art

designer 3d printed easter egg by parametric | art

It’s a pleasure that I can get access to the 3D printer farm of GigamaX3D. They want to offer the best 3D printers that will be fast to assemble and will print high quality parts. They offer a wide range of 3D printers – from entry-level open-source machines to industrial-grade professional workstations – that would be useful to many people, helping them realize their dreams whether they be engineers, artists, students, entrepreneurs, architects or other maker. Their Leapfrog Creatr 3D printer is versatile and powerful, and I’m really excited to give a try to the Creatr XL, which can 3d print giant objects up to 60 cm height.

posing with the Leapfrog Creatr XL

posing with the Leapfrog Creatr XL

Tell me, what would you 3d print if you would have such an amazing 3d printer giant like the Leapfrog Creatr XL 3d printer with dual extrusion features? There is no need to split your designs into several parts and assemble them, you can print life-scale objects in one piece using the newest prosumer 3d printer of the dutch company.

If you are around, take a visit to the brand new HQ of Leapfrog in the Netherlands or come and visit GigamaX3D’s new showroom and studio in Budapest to get some personal experiences with these amazing 3d printers. And of course, see you at the Budapest 3D Printing Days in June! peace;)

The most prominent 3d printing event in Eastern Europe is coming!

Additive manufacturing and 3d printing is an amazing technology with unrivaled capabilities. There is no need to provide anything less than the unvarnished truth. When additive manufacturing’s advantages are wanted and needed, the facts will not dissuade potential users. Yes, it may lead to specific technologies being eliminated from consideration, but that is for the best for everyone involved. If you are interested in 3D printing, come and join the Budapest 3D Printing Days 2014 to get some really close experiences about this fascinating technology.

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Whether you just want to see a real 3D printer in action for the first time or share your success with an advanced application, the best way to experience this technology is in person. In the company of engineers, designers and 3D printing experts around the globe, you’ll find out how to make the most of additive manufacturing in your scene.

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When starting with this article, I was wondering about the 3D printing bubble – the theory surrounding the exponential rise in popularity the technology has seen in recent years, in particular the saturation of the desktop 3d printer market – is becoming a victim of its own success. Because the realm of 3d printing is no longer consigned to the underground-hacker-maker RepRap 3D printer community and/or industrial powers of this world, and because everybody from Barack Obama, Jay Leno to that chap from Made In Chelsea seem to have one, is 3d printing loosing it’s ‘coolness’?

© Design Terminal

If you want to get a bigger view from the exponentially growing scene, you should visit us at Budapest 3D Printing Days in June (check out the program), where you can see all the applications and innovations of this mysterious brand new domestic home manufacturing system. The organizers have developed a special program for professionals who want to learn and/or want to start with 3D printing, but don’t know where to start,  as the applications for this technology are so broad. The event will showcase the countless possibilities of 3D printing technology and gives a preview of where it is headed in the near future.

fotó 3-3

3D printing technology has advanced greatly in the past couple of years — it’s now used to create body parts, robots, jewelry, and houses. In June at the Budapest 3D Printing Days, vendors will showcase their creations, ranging from art and human body part reproductions, to life-size industrial prototypes, wearable art and fashion at the Design Terminal in Budapest.

3d printed generative bracelet by parametric | art

3d printed generative bracelet by parametric | art

GigamaX3D and parametric | art will be partnering with Design Terminal’s Budapest 3D Printing Days (the most prominent 3D printing event in Eastern-Europe) with a short-but-sweet conference session that continues our mission to inspire people to design and make – with a little help from generative 3d design and open-source affordable 3d printing.

© Design Terminal

The event will see presentations from many different users in the form of: Varinex’s György Falk, György Simó from Freedee, David Lakatos from Formlabs, David Pap from Fablab Budapest and Peter Varo from the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest and Peter Szabo (me) from parametric | art and GigamaX 3D Printing Technology.

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In addition to the presentations and workshops, visitors to this year’s Budapest 3D Printing Days will be able to experience the various applications of the 3D Printing technologies, from industrial to commercial and domestic use, while showcasing fresh innovations from the region.

GigamaX 3D Printing http://gigamax3d.com

GigamaX 3D Printing
http://gigamax3d.com

GigmaX3D are specialists in desktop 3D printing with a wide range of open-source affordable 3D printers, FDM machines for the consumer and prosumer user community, including custom built FDM 3d printers for special applications. They also carry premium quality 3d printer filaments in a wide range of thermoplastics, including special materials like conductive ABS or luminous glow-in-the-dark plastics. In action at the show will be RepRap 3d printers, Flashforge machines, colorful 3d filaments, 3d scanning and showcasing 3d printed design objects. New to the line-up is the professional 3d printer line of Leapfrog, which are dual-head, multi-material desktop 3d printers with the largest build volume on the market that is capable of printing in PLA and ABS but also Laywood, Laybrick, HIPS or Nylon – and can use dissolvable PVA 3d printer support material© GigamaX3D

The small design studio, parametric | art will showcase some of its most unique designs including generative 3d printed jewelry, organic 3d printed lampshades, parametric geometrical 3d printed objects all made with affordable (and sometimes modded or hacked) desktop 3d printers using special materials like wood or sandstone. At heir booth at the Budapest 3D Printing Days they will wowing visitors with live demonstrations of their latest projects including generative 3d modeling with free and open-source tools like Grasshopper and Meshlab, and showcasing the 3d printing capabilities of custom built affordable desktop 3d printers. p4

The workshops and seminars are free with a registration and open to show visitors how 3D printing works, with a live demonstration so exhibition visitors can experience it first-hand. Technicians from parametric | art and GigamaX3D will produce various objects and projects for visitors to pick up and assemble. The parametric | art booth will also have a gallery space where products made during the exhibition will be displayed. gigaprint2

There are also opportunities to find out how the boundaries between designer, manufacturer and consumer are disappearing, with a growing movement of ‘hacktivists’, who share and download digital designs online so they can be customized for new uses.

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Several workshops and seminars will give you a broad insight in the 3D printing market. You can attend one, but you can attend them all as well. GigamaX3D will do a seminar about open-source 3d printing solutions, you know, the movement which started with Adrian Bowyer’s RepRap 3d printer machine and is the first successful open-source and open-hardware project on the globe. If you want to create your own digital 3d designs for 3d printing, you should attend at the workshop by parametric | art, where you can learn basic 3d modeling tips and tricks and get an insight of generative and parametric 3d modeling techniques.

 

© photo by: Federico Gaudino

© photo by: Federico Gaudino

The event is divided into three thematic days. The lectures and conferences will cover the past, present, and future of 3D printing presented in text, image, and video. The best way to understand 3D printing is to see it in action. If you want to meet us, create something unique with the help of our designers and technician, or simply just want to buy an affordable desktop 3d printer or some special plastic filaments for you 3d printing machine, visit us at Design Terminal during the Budapest 3D Printing Days from 5-7 June! Peace;)

Budapest 3D Printing Days 2014

Gigamax 3D Printing Technology

I wouldn’t picture myself that it has been already a year ago, when I attended with a presentation and an exhibition on the first 3d printing event in Hungary organized by the team of Design Terminal. Since then, my little start-up has been growing (both parametric | art and GigamaX3D), and it all started with the appearance on last year’s Budapest 3D Printing Days.

© Design Terminal © Design Terminal

The gorgeous event will be organized this year as well, the goal of the Design Terminal team looks like to create a growing series which connects all the members of the 3D printing scene (enterpreneurs, hackers, makers, engineers, designers, tinkerers, etc.) during the 3 days of the show.

Bp3DPrintingDays_ENG1

After the unexpected success of last year’s event, the organizers decided to go further: this years, they are inviting 3d printing related start-ups and small businesses from the V4 countries (Hungary, Poland…

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3D printed generative jewellery with affordable desktop FDM printers

I remember that it wasn’t a long time ago that 3D printing was a little-known term of the high-tech industry. And now, today it is a household name and an accepted technology entering its next major development phase. Right now, we can see 3D printing and all the hybrid additive manufacturing solutions for production taking off and we believe will fundamentally change the world of manufacturing.

In the last couple of years, the global media has given 3d printers a fair amount of attention and the industry now has great expectations placed on it. Perhaps the greatest asset of 3D printing is that it is an enabler . for both corporations and individuals. In fact, 3D printers is being used in three types of manufacturing and fabrication processes: personal manufacturing, augmented manufacturing and alternative manufacturing.

The oversimplification of 3D printing in the media and in conversations does the job of grabbing attention and drawing focus to the highlights of this fabrication process’ capabilities. That big picture has involved more and more people and attracted more interest in 3D printing than ever before. But of course, for an average customer, the details are missing. Without them, you can make poor decisions and you may conclude that 3D printing isn’t quite right for you. But you might know that the devils is in the details, and as the idiom indicates, getting to them may be a challenge for you.

The jewelry industry already understood the importance of harnessing the power of 3D technologies and additive manufacturing for the benefit of the industry in general – and training the next generation of jewelry designers. Parametric design processes like computational algorithms and data based design are the new tools for young designers, and the digital design combined with fully digital fabrication allows them to create some really amazing pieces using a CAD software or only coding.

generative lampshade designed by parametric | art 3d printed by GigamaX3D on a Leapfrog Creatr Dual extruder 3D printer

generative lampshade designed by parametric | art 3d printed by GigamaX3D on a Leapfrog Creatr Dual extruder 3D printer

There are some breathtaking projects around, you have to check out Nervous Systems Kinematics Home app to create custom generative jewellery pieces which can be downloaded and 3d printed on your personal 3d printer at home. Of course, you’ll need a desktop 3D printer with a resolution of 50-100 micron to be able to make high quality prints, nobody wants to wear something barbed. Post processing might be necessary, ABS prints can be smoothed in acetone vapour to get a shiny finish (fine details and contours often disappear during the smoothing process).

When it comes to getting the best out of 3D software and a desktop 3D printer, we can keep in mind that this technology is still a complementary tool, it supports and enhances traditional techniques (like lost-wax casting for example), not replacing them.  It’s a technology that gives the jeweler a new set of tools (both for design and fabrication), but it’s not a replacement for traditional skills. When we are talking to a designer and they want to design a conventional wedding ring, they would not need to take advantage of the things 3D printing offers because on many cases, traditional manufacturing techniques are better placed to do so. According to this, we can say that a 3D printer won’t put a traditional jeweler out of his job. The whole new process of 3D printing only saves designers from having to model the initial part of the design from scratch.

It is a really nice idea for students of for those trying out the technology, to push the technical boundaries of jewelry design and manufacturing with new digital tools as a pattern language. Fashion design, industrial design, architecture and jewelry already adopted the parametric design language which allows the designer to generate a huge amount of variations and iterations for a defined situation depending on fitness values and genetic algorithms. There are some open-source tools for generative design, which makes this game much more fun!

gyroid pendant by parametric | art

gyroid pendant by parametric | art

A dear friend of mine has designed the generative 3d printed jewelry pieces shown in the pictures I’ve inserted, I think they all look really unique, and they all came out from an affordable desktop FDM 3D printer. Most of them are 3D printed on a Leapfrog Creatr Dual extrusion 3D printer, some of them have been printed on a RepRap Huxley or the Velleman K8200 3D printer. In some cases, he has made some test prints on a Makerbot Replicator2 as well. I bet you’ll like all the stuff of the parametric | art 3d printed generative jewelry collection, for some design, there are already uploaded design files (.stl) on Thingiverse, so you only have to download and scale it, and then 3D print it!

'chiselled' bracelet by parametric | art

‘chiselled’ bracelet by parametric | art

The illustrated 3d printed jewelry pieces are great examples for the quality which can be reached with a well-calibrated 3D printer and using premium quality 3D printer filaments. For the chiseled details and overhangs, you’d better print these kind of objects with high resolution (100 micron or finer) and use water-soluble PVA 3D print support material to avoid the trouble while removing supports manually.

'vorocuff' bracelet by parametric | art

‘vorocuff’ bracelet by parametric | art

If you want to design and 3d print your own generative 3d printed jewelry (for example like the voronoi bracelets on the picture above), you don’t need to buy any expensive stuff. You don’t need a professional CAD software which are really expensive, there are plenty of open-source and free tools which you can use as well. Just like I described in a former blog post about 3d modeling for 3d printing, you can use Meshlab, Grasshopper for Rhino and Meshmixer for the modeling work and Netfabb or similar software for optimizing and repairing you meshes before generating the g-code. If you want to learn this stuff, there are some really nice workshops offered by Gigamax 3D printing technology.

DIY 3D printer workshop GigamaX3D x parametric | art

DIY 3D printer workshop
GigamaX3D x parametric | art

Actually a dear friend of mine runs gigamax3d.com and GigamaX3D facebook page.
They are the official european distributors of ESUN filaments and Velleman 3D printers. They sell nice quality ABS/PLA/HIPS/PVA 3d printing filaments with 1.75 and 3 mm diameters in 1 kg spools in 16 vibrant colors, which I’ve already tested on my Replicator2 and they are all good (I’ve had some serious troubles with 3d printer filament diameter issues before).

3d printed with purple PLA filament http://goo.gl/eHuKrM

3d printed with purple PLA filament
http://goo.gl/eHuKrM

They also carry consumer and prosumer desktop 3D printers like the Leapfrog Creatr or the Tricolor Mendel RepRap model and also offer print on demand services and training/education workshops. A lot of RepRap parts and electronics are available on stock as well. Gigamax 3D printing workshops offer an impressive scope of standalone desktop 3D printing technology, the Leapfrog Creatr dual extruder model, tricolor Mendel, K8200, Reprap Huxley to name just some of the best ticket items being put to use and build by this busy little center.

GigamaX 3D Printing http://gigamax3d.com

GigamaX 3D Printing
http://gigamax3d.com

3D Print at Personalize TCT Show Birmingham

algorithmicart

The UK’s definitive and leading additive m anufacturing, 3D printing, rapid prototyping and product development technology has been an awesome experience for visitors of every level of interest from hackerspace to aerospace. The eighteenth edition of this exciting free event has been such a big deal, I had registered my ticket months ago.

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The TCT Show + Personalize took place at the NEC in Birmingham UK from 25-26 September 2013, Hall 3a. Unfortunately I was only able to make it to Day 1 on Wednesday, but I wanted to make the most if it. I bet that thousands of attendees came through the doors of the event over the few days with the quality of the visitors particularly high. A lot of exhibitors have reported that they have already reserved their space for 2014.

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The event was totally awesome, and not just for us who have been for the first time there:…

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