Say you’re driving past your favorite office supply store, suddenly realize you’re out of extra large paper clips, slam on the brakes and hightail it across five lanes of traffic to enter the door, where you see… a mound of boxed 3D printers reaching the heights of the ceiling with gangly-looking, red-shirted staff singing a resonating chorus of angelic song. That will be happening by the end of June with a number of Staples office supply stores across the U.S. stocking The Cube® 3D printer from 3D Systems. It’s already available online, making Staples the first big box U.S. retailer to stock and ship 3D printers.
3D Printers, aisle five
You recall Staples teaming up with MCor Technologies for in-house 3D printing. Now, they partner with 3D Systems to bring the 2nd generation Cube 3D Printer to consumers. The printer is available in all of its five fashionable colors–silver, blue, white, magenta and green–at Staples.com with a list price of $1299 USD each. You can, of course, pick up the PLA or ABS print cartridges for $49.99 a pop. It’s no discount off the regular price of the printer at cubify.com and they don’t sell the discounted cartridge packs (yet), but it’s handy if you’re already getting your office supplies, coffee and paper delivered from the store.
Mom, did 3D printers just go mainstream?
I’m pretty sure there are a bunch of moms having breakfast, discussing the ramifications of 3D printer availability at Staples. They like the 16 different color options of the Cube, but wish the build area wasn’t limited to objects 5.5″ cubed. Trading design files becomes a realization and the kids what a different colored bowl each morning to eat their soggy choco-oats out of. The first thing those moms are doing though, is printing out this filament spool adapter and saving a load of cash on plastic. But the proprietary file formats and print quality? Well, what do you think about those?
Source: Staples
