Printers / Scanners

Want to get your very own Objet 3D Printer, with six months worth of printing materials? You can, but you'll have to work for it. The folks at Instructables (an addictive site if ever there was one) are giving you the opportunity to win a host of fantastic prizes, including an Objet 30 Desktop 3D Printer (worth more than $50,000); 10 lucky winners will take home an Up! Personal Portable 3D Printer, and 20 more will get some unspecified "3D printing services." All you have to do to win is "post an Instructable that shows how to turn a virtual item into a tangible object," which can range from 3-D prints to "printed decals using an inkjet printer." Simple! Don't delay, enter today! Instructables' fine print: The contest is open only to entrants from the US, UK, Australia, and Canada. And not Quebec. Sorry everyone else.

If it's important to you to be able to scan a photo and send it immediately to the cloud without having to first connect to a computer or laptop, you're going to like the new Xerox Mobile Scanner. It comes equipped with a 4 GB Eye-Fi card that does the heavy lifting for you so you don't have to make any connections. Want to scan something and send it directly to a smartphone (sorry, not you, RIM) or tablet, but there's no Wi-Fi network handy? Still no problem. The Eye-Fi card will make its own network and shoot the scan over to your device. It's not all just fancy Wi-Fi gizmos, though; the scanner, though small, is pretty fast and does a nice job. Read more of the pros and cons of the Xerox Mobile Scanner in the Full Review.

Brother has cornered the market on consumer LED printers--most other LED manufacturers seem to be aimed either at large organizations or have not provided me with any review units. The company's newest offering is the MFC-9325CW, a color digital printer aimed at small offices and small workgroups. It's an upgraded and more expensive version of the MFC-9320CW, and its biggest advantage is that it's faster than that printer. It's got a decent monthly duty cycle (how much you can print) of up to 25,000 pages, and a maximum recommended monthly print volume (how much you should print) of up to 1,500 pages--in any case, adequate for all but the busiest small offices. At over $400 it's still at the high end of the laser / LED market, but then again it's an all-in-one and so offers lots of benefits (including wireless and an automatic document feeder, but no automatic duplexer) that make it worth some extra dough. At this point, of course, it's more than $100 more than the 9320CW, so unless a couple of extra pages per minute makes a huge difference to you, you might want to seek out the older model. Or wait a few months for the next upgrade from Brother. Check out the Full Review for more pros and cons of the MFC-9325CW.

3-D printing is commonly known as 'additive manufacturing,' since it adds layer after layer of material (often a type of plastic, but not necessarily) until the final product is achieved. iModela is a 3-D milling machine that works quite the opposite: Like a sculptor carving from a block of stone, the mill drills away at a block of material such as wood or foam until the final product is revealed. According to Roland DG, which makes the $1,000 machine, "iModela makes it easy to create a physical model from an artist's 3D rendering, using powerful 3D modeling technology to sculpt shapes, drill holes, create reliefs, smooth surfaces and engrave designs." The machine comes with 3-D design software as well.

Two well-argued article in MIT's Technology Review look at the promise of additive manufacturing  and other forms of 3-D printing from different perspectives. The first, Why 3-D Printing Will Go the Way of Virtual Reality, by Christopher Mims, argues that thinking of 3-D printing as a technology that will, on "any reasonable time scale become a "mature" technology that can reproduce all the goods on which we rely is to engage in a complete denial of the complexities of modern manufacturing, and, more to the point, the challenges of working with matter." Mims notes that plastics are the most commonly used materials in 3-D printing, and these are simply unsuited for many real-life applications. (It's worth noting, as many comments do, that Shapeways can print using many different materials, including glass.) While the potential applications are thrilling, he cautions that the hype around 3-D printing could lead to backlash and consignment to the "too-deep trough of the Gartner hype cycle."

In his counterpoint argument, Why 3-D Printing Isn't Like Virtual Reality, Tim Maly notes that the materials problem is being vigorously addressed--but that it's also likely that some materials "will fall out of favor because they are hard to make rapidly. Think of how most documents are 8.5×11 (or A4) these days. It's just not worth the hassle of wrangling dozens of paper formats." Maly offers a historical example of how printing fonts moved from expensive foundry creations to freely and widely available tools found in every computer. Both arguments are fascinating looks at how 3-D printing is maturing and becoming mainstream. Neither writer believes the transition to "consumerized" 3-D printing will happen, or disappear, overnight. Take a read through both articles and let us know what you think about the future of 3-D printing.

Epson America has released three new business-class wide-format printers, aimed at business professionals who need to print in sizes up to 13"x19" and a scan bed that can accommodate paper as large as 11"x17". The WorkForce WF-7520 and WF-7510 are both all-in-one printers that offer fast print speeds (up to 15 pages per minute black and eight pages per minute color, per Epson), wired and wireless networking, built-in duplex printing, and a 2.5-inch color LCD screen. The 7520 has two 250-sheet paper trays and a 30-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF); the 7510 has one paper tray for 250 sheets as well as the ADF. The third addition to the WorkForce line, the WF-7010, is a single-function color inkjet printer that can also handle the same large formats as the other units. It doesn't include some of the pricier features of the other printers, such as wireless networking. The WorkForce WF-7010 will retail for $199.99; the WorkForce WF-7510 for $249.99; and the WorkForce WF-7520 for $299.99. All the printers should be available in box stores and online in early February.

Lexmark is offering two new inkjet printers "built for heavy-duty printing," according to the company, which cites a report from an independent test lab that ran 20,000 pages without a jam. Offices that do a lot of printing will appreciate that aspect of the OfficeEdge Pro5500 and the Pro4000, as well as the cartridges that yield as many as 2,500 black and 1,600 color pages--and what Lexmark claims is "a 50% lower printing cost on laser-quality documents" when compared to sub-$500 color laser all-in-one printers. Need speed? Lexmark says it's got you covered there as well, with print speeds as fast as 21 pages per minute black and 14 pages per minute in color. The OfficeEdge Pro5500 offers an optional second paper tray so you can get 850 pages printed without adding new paper. Printing from mobile devices will be simple using the Lexmark Mobile Printing App, and workflow solutions are easy to implement with downloadable SmartSolutions, productivity apps that streamline daily tasks. The Pro5500 will retail for about $399 when it hits the streets later this year. The Pro4000 doesn't have the Pro5500's handy 4.3-inch color touch screen but it will retail for $150 less. Check back soon for a full review of the Lexmark Office Edge Pro5500.

If you pony up enough money for a 3-D printer at home (and that's not as much money as it used to be, as the newly released MakerBot Replicator proves), can you print whatever you like? The answer is that you can't--at least, not without some risk of infringing someone's copyright, as one 3-D printing fan found out last year when he created a CAD file that would allow a prop from the movie Super 8 to be printed via Shapeways. The shutdown of Megaupload underscores how sharp-toothed the argument about piracy has become, and 3-D printing is poised to be the next industry that gets intense oversight from corporate lawyers. The folks at Pirate Bay, home to countless torrents of every kind of media imaginable, intend to be at the cutting edge of that piracy discussion. They've announced that their site will host downloadable files for 3-D printed objects, a category they've named physibles. From the Pirate Bay site: "We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare parts for your vehicles. You will download your sneakers within 20 years."

What companies like Audi and Adidas think about that idea could well shape the future of home-based 3-D printing. On the one hand, they may dive in and find it's a great way to keep and build their customer bases; or they may fob off the argument to their general counsels and government lobbyists and threaten would-be DIYers with lawsuits. Either way, it seems that 3-D printing will mean a major change for hobbyists, corporations, and attorneys. Which way do you think things will go? New business paradigms, or send it to the lawyers?

The MakerBot Replicator is small, powerful, and puts 3-D printing almost within the reach of casual users. There are single- and dual-extrusion models available (the dual-extrusion model gives you the opportunity to print in different colors or with different materials, at one time), and the MakerBot's makers have gone to great lengths to make the printer easy to use. For example, there's an SD Card slot as well as an LCD panel (no computer required to be attached) and a "video-game-style control pad." The machine's "build envelope" (the area where the printed object is printed) is about the size of a loaf of bread, so you can get some pretty big items printed. If you want to design your own printable objects, you'll need the right software and some level of graphic-design skills; but if you want something that someone else has already designed, you've got the world of Thingiverse at your disposal, with objects ranging from cat toys to walking robots. So how affordable is the MakerBot Replicator? Only $1,749 for the single-extruder model, $250 more for the double extruder; replacement ABS plastic (what Legos are made from, according to the MakerBot site) comes in one kilo spools that cost about $43.

Brother has slightly upgraded its HL-3070 color LED printer with the HL-3075CW, which isn't really faster or smaller, and doesn't offer any other options than the earlier (and now likely much cheaper) model. It's a single-function printer that offers wired and wireless networking and PictBridge support and not much else. That's not a complaint--single-function LED or laser printers can be office workhorses and can make life a lot easier when they're easily networkable. But it's interesting to see how some inkjet printers (such as the HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 Plus) are eating into the laser-printing space with similar speeds and final quality. For more pros and cons of Brother's HL-3075CW color LED printer, read the Full Review.