Discov3ry is a paste extruder upgrade for standard filament based 3D printers. If you’ve been following along with the growth and expansion of the home 3D printer community, you’ve probably seen a paste extruder or two over the past few years. These are systems that squeeze pastes such as icing, chocolate, silicone, ceramic, and even concrete through a nozzle. Not very many of these have come to market.
Discov3ry is taking a slightly different approach. They’re selling just the paste extruding attachment as an upgrade to existing 3D printers. You pull off your existing extruder, disconnect the electronics, replace it with the tip of the Discov3ry, and connect the Discov3ry’s electronics. That’s it.
While many people immediately see the benefit of being able to print edible things like fancy cupcake toppings, the idea of having a paste extruder extends pretty far beyond that. They provide a few examples such as drywall, wood filler, silicone, ceramics, nutella, and icing. You could potentially shove anything through there if you got it to be the right consistency.
They’ve got an already successful crowdfunding campaign underway which, at the time of this article, has nearly tripled its goal of $30,000.
We talked to them a little bit with Charles Mire, one of the creators.
How did this project start?
Andrew and I are both materials engineers and tinkerers, and we both came to the realization that one of the biggest limitations to 3D printing is the material capabilities. We met at a local makerspace, Kwartzlab, where we are both contributing members to the 3D printers users group. From there, we realized we had developed a solution to expand the material selection and the integration knowledge to create a system that would compliment the 3D printing market, rather than compete with it. John joined to head up business development
What was your experience like showing at the Maker Faire?
We knew MFBA was going to be a big event for us. Impressions are one thing, but the experience itself vastly exceeded our expectations. The crowds were intense, very engaging, and very interested in our Discov3ry extruder. We were showing and telling non-stop both days, and making everyone aware of our upcoming Kickstarter campaign . We’ve told other hardware startups in Waterloo, Canada to be prepared for high audience engagement, lots of hands-on activities, and total exhaustion.
What kind of response have you been hearing from people so far?
The Discov3ry extruder has generated a tremendous amount of positive feedback for us, from 3D printing enthusiasts of all levels. Some people really like the ability to print food, while others are more focused on materials such as silicone. We have been working from the beginning to foster a community and knowledge base around paste printing. We’ve opened a forum on our website where we will be providing tips, recipes, printer settings, and other guidelines for fans of paste printing. We also invite contributions from users
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