Prusa Research unveils official brand profiles on Printables.com

Prusa Research, a 3D printer manufacturer has announced the first brand members to join Printables.com. They also shared official 3D printable designs for their customers, friends, and community.

These brands include Adafruit and Bohemia Interactive, Cooler Master Computer, Framework Computer, Noctua and Raspberry Pi, Warhorse Studios World of Warships and Prusa. Printables.com offers 3D models for free. Anyone can download them and print them at their own pace. Some parts can be printed locally and on-demand to save shipping and inventory costs. This makes it easier for brands to support the right-to repair initiative. 

Companies can create accessories and mods for their products, in addition to the replacement parts. Customers can personalize their products and increase their uniqueness. Brands can also create fan models, such a figures, costumes, or props, for fans of popular movies and games.

“We’d like to thank all our partners for releasing their models on Printables and helping us start a shift in the industry. We hope that in a few years, it will be the norm to release 3D printable models to accompany the brand’s products. Customers will appreciate the availability of all these models, which will add value to the product. And we expect a community of makers growing around each of the brands with a presence on Printables, with user-made improvements or add-ons,” said Josef Průša, CEO and Founder at Prusa Research.

Printables.com features

Users can create detailed models of the USS St. Louis. World of Warships, Wargaming’s free-to-play naval warfare multiplayer game, will share a detailed model of the World War I cruiser St. Luis. The ship’s components can all be printed without any assistance using an Original Prusa MINI+-sized printer. Most parts can be assembled without glue. Vlado Turek, Prusa Research’s designer, designed this model to show the limits of FDM printing. Although the ship is more than 80 cm long, the model can be printed with just two 1kg spools. All guns, anchors and cranes can be moved. There are more than 70 moving parts.

Cooler Master is a manufacturer of computer hardware that allows users to browse replacement parts as well as case mods. Cooler Master will release 3D printed replacement parts and accessories to enhance case customization. The company says this “move comes as no surprise”, provided that 3D printed mods are regularly used in their annual Cooler Master Case Mod World Series. Printables.com was the primary sponsor for the Best Art Direction category of the competition this year.

Framework joins the community with its 3D-printed Mainboard Case. After upgrading their Framework notebooks, users can use the mainboard and 3D-printed case to create a single-board computer with high-performance. The only thing customers have to do is insert the memory and plug it in to a USB-C power adapter.

Bohemia Interactive, a Czech game development studio, is expected share 3 models from their games. These models included a  tank from the military sandbox Arma III, the infamous Yellow King from the post-apocalyptic survival game DayZ, and the Gryphon from the playful Ylands. Raspberry Pi, a single-board computer manufacturer, has joined the platform with cases to protect their boards, projects, and highlight of community creations.

Adafruit, an open source hardware manufacturer, is reportedly involved in printables since day one. They have published over 200 projects that include their products. Fans of Noctua can now download spacers and brackets as well as adapters. Noctua now offers 3D printable fan ducts and spacers for their products.

The developers of the popular medieval RPG game Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Warhorse Studios, have released a 3D printable figure of the game’s protagonist, Henry. RPG game fans can print and own a physical version of the game’s main character. If scaled appropriately, the figure can be printed best on an SLA printer.

Furthermore, users can find all printable parts for the Original Prusa printers, as well as parts for the accessories on the company’s official brand profile.

“Right to Repair” and production of spare parts using 3D printing

As a result of the European Parliament’s Right to Repair legislation, companies that sell consumer electronic goods in the European Union (EU) have been required to ensure that they can be repaired for up to a decade since 2021. 3D Printing Industry contacted EOS, Spare Parts 3D and Ricoh 3D to get their views on how 3D-printed spare parts could help consumer appliance manufacturers comply with legislation and prevent massive physical stockpiles of replacement parts.

Furthermore, Replique, a company founded by BASF‘s business incubator Chemovator, teamed up with German home appliance manufacturer Miele to develop and ship 3D printed accessories through its decentralized production network. Replique and Miele’s partnership announcement was timely, given the EU legislation granting consumers the “Right to Repair” on the goods they purchase.

Royal Dutch Shell used 3D printing to create prototypes and tooling before moving to additively manufacturing spare parts. The company is now 3D printing spare parts in difficult-to reach areas, including its offshore platforms using metal Powder Bed Fusion technologies (PBF).

Kimya, an additive manufacturing materials arm at technology company ARMOR, offered services for 3D printing for the railway industry. Kimya was contacted by an unidentified railway supplier to 3D print a small number of a protective covering component, which was created in 1982 using the Kimya Factory Manufacturing service. The mold used for the cover was no longer available so the spare parts had be redesigned from scratch before production. The team was able to provide the 3D printed protective covers with cost reductions and shorter lead times by employing a PEKK filament developed in-house at the company’s R&D center, Kimya Lab.

3D printing platforms

Sigma Additive Solutions, a developer and marketer of quality assurance software for 3D printing, announced recently that it has joined the EOS Developer Network (EDN), established by EOS, a top 3D printer manufacturer. Sigma can offer software and analytics apps that are built on EOS app programming interfaces (APIs). The EDN partner program streamlines tools and services, allowing Sigma expand its software offering via EOS digital thread. It includes data preparation and machine management as well as reporting.

Materialise, a global leader for 3D printing software solutions and services, announced the names of seven technology partners to its CO-AM platform. These solutions enable the automation of design, preprinting, printing and post-processing as well as traceability for 3D-printed parts. CO-AM has now integrated Materialise Magics as a workflow automation feature.

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Feature image shows the interface of Printables.com. Image via Prusa Research.