In January of 2012 at CES, 3D Systems made the big announcement that they were entering into the direct consumer market with the Cube line of 3D printers. Now, nearly 4 years later, the experiment is over. 3DS has announced the end of Cube and Cubify.
First off, if you are an owner of a Cube or Cube Pro machine, don’t panic. This isn’t the end for your machine. While the consumer-focused Cube 3 will be discontinued, 3D systems will continue to sell the higher end Cube-Pro, as well as materials and supplies for both machines, via their 3DSystems.com site.
Beyond being a portal for Cube owners to manage their print libraries, order supplies, and find downloads for their machines, Cubify.com also served as a model repository and retail print portal for 3D Systems. While machine support will be moved to 3DSystems.com, all retail and model libraries will be shut down as of January 31st 2016.
Through the years, there have been 3 editions of the Cube, and while many will bemoan 3D Systems for their usage of proprietary software and adding ID chips to their filament (locking buyers into their supply chain), they also pushed a lot of innovative features to consumer-friendly machines. The Cube was one of the first printers with built in WiFi printing, a feature that may sound frivolous, but becomes very easy to get used to and miss from other 3D printers. 3D Systems took a serious look at safety with the Cube printers, adding features like magnetically-attached tempered glass build plates so prints could be removed away from the hot end, and nozzles surrounded by silicone buffers to prevent accidental touching by stray fingers.
The Cube 3 brought a feature that I found extremely progressive, with nozzles integrated into their filament cartridges. Most critics concentrated on the “evil” nature of chipped cartridges, and missed this handy add-on. If a nozzle became jammed (a less likely occurrence in a sealed cartridge), the whole thing could be quickly, and without use of tools, swapped out for a new cartridge with a new un-jammed nozzle. This could be a huge advantage for a teacher trying to print an object for a room full of anxious youngsters (or even a demo for impatient Makers).
While most Makers won’t be mourning the loss of this entry in the market, I worry about the other projects from 3D Systems that we know were coming down the pipeline. The Chefjet and Cocojet alone would be sad losses if never shown the light of day.
4 thoughts on “Bye Bye Cubify, 3D Systems Discontinues Consumer Division”
Comments are closed.
ADVERTISEMENT
Join Make: Community Today
Any word on future of their software? I happily use the Cubify Design program with my non-Cube printer. I guess I have a purchased license and won’t lose that but I wonder about future versions.
I own a 2nd Gen Cube 3D and while a WiFi capable 3D printer sounds like a great idea, it never worked. Due to a bug in the firmware, the printer would only connect to WiFi the first time it was switched on. Every successive attempt would fail and to connect to WiFi again, you would need to completely reset the printer causing it to loose all its settings in the process. According to 3D Systems, a final firmware update would solve this problem but that update never came.
The proprietary software also has serious flaws. The software is incapable of creating solid objects (even though the software has a “solid” option) making any printed object brittle and fragile. Most parts I’ve printed (like joints for my telescope) spontaneously broke off after a few weeks.
The filament is also cause for headaches. After printing, it will spontaneously snap off while loaded in the printer after about a day or so. So you always need to reload the cartridge next time you print. It also causes you to loose about 5″ of filament. That doesn’t seem like much but with the cost of these proprietary cartridges, you don’t want to loose any filament at all.
That’s not to say it’s a bad printer. It’s truly plug and play. If I need to print something, I can start printing within minutes (if I don’t have to reload the cartridge first). For simple prototyping, it’s a great printer (although better printers with higher resolution can be had for a much lower price nowadays). For making parts that actually need to be used, not so much.
Start
earning residual money every week… This is a great part time work opportunity
for anyone… Best thing about it ,work from comfort of your home and get paid
from 100 to 2000 bucks at the end of every week … Apply now and receive your
first paycheck at the end of this week…please goto LINK to site in my
`Prrofile` for more `info` if you interested
)hj.
A few days ago new McLaren F1 subsequent after earning 18,512$,,,this was my previous month’s paycheck ,and-a little over, 17k$ Last month ..3-5 h/r of work a day with extra open doors & weekly paychecks. it’s realy the easiest work I have ever Do. I Joined This 7 months ago and now making over 87$, p/h.Learn More right Here
nd……..
➤➤
➤➤➤ http://GlobalSuperEmploymentVacanciesReportsJobs/GetPaid/98$hourly…❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦.❦