PLA is made through ring-opening melt polymerization. Using chemical processing techniques, lactic acid is converted efficiently to lactide, a ring-form dimer of lactic acid. CD buys the sugar and uses it to ferment lactic acid. Agriprocessing like corn wet-milling convert the starches to simple sugars. More from CD: “Carbon dioxide is fixed in crops to make starches. “The raw material for PLA manufacturing is any fermentable sugar,” manufacturer Cargill Dow (CD) explains in a paper. But PLA is made from renewable materials and can be decomposed safely in the right facility.

Naturally, the printer is really small-the entire roughly cubic unibody is about 9 inches on each side, and the maximum printable size is about 9 centimeters per side.ģDFORT can also only use low-temperature polygalactic acid (PLA) plastic, which is a downside for some kinds of users. “Quite a bit more at $300, but well worth the cost,” one Redditor says of the Ender 3, a product at the very bottom end of Creality’s line of printers.įor some groups, 3DFORT is the only affordable option there’s ever been, with a limited use case that scales with the price. Since the 3DFORT fundraiser went live last month, curious people on Reddit and social media have wondered: How can this thing be legitimate? But even with the skepticism, it’s clear there’s a huge market for a 3D printer that’s truly affordable to a much larger swath of people.Īcross all discussions of this printer, commenters tend to say interested folks are better off buying a low-end traditional 3D printer.

The printer uses renewable PLA plastic, primarily to make small toys and figures.Ī project promising a working 3D printer for just $60 (plus $30 shipping) has raised almost $200,000 on Kickstarter.

With that price tag, some enthusiasts are skeptical.

A tiny 3D printer that began at $59 has earned almost 2,000 preorders on Kickstarter.

3d printers kickstarter