Kogan gives Officeworks a run for its money with a lower priced 3D printer

Australia’s popular e-tailer Kogan seems intent on getting every gadget in its price comparison targets, moving past phones, tablets, and TVs, and bringing a cost cutting 3D printer.

Likely to be the most budget friendly 3D printer landing this side of the harbour this year, Kogan will be bringing XYZ Printing’s Da Vinci 3D printer to Australia, a 3D printer that in America drops the price of making objects to a relatively low entry price of $499 USD.

Australia won’t get the printer at quite that price — you can probably thank parity and the difference with US taxes for that — but it won’t see a massive price hike, with Kogan setting the online retail price at $200 more, making it $699 plus whatever the delivery cost is.

The printer is a little different to the $1499 model produced by 3D Systems and put on sale by Officeworks, which was also the first 3D printer to be made commercially available to consumers in Australia.

In fact while that model utilises a similar line-by-line printing procedure, the design of these models is very different, with a reliance on wired printing over wireless only, a door to close the 3D printer, and several printing modes for different degrees of micron detail — from 100 microns (0.1mm, fine) all the way up to 400 microns (0.4mm ultra fast), with the smaller number being for more detail.

Using it should be the same — we’ll let you know when we review it — with software capable of bringing in STL files, as well as XYZ’s own format, all of these capable of producing actual objects, such as phone cases and ornaments.

Really, though, it’s the price that we expect will draw people in, and while consumables are normally a problem for any printer, Kogan’s price on consumables for this devices doesn’t appear to be bad either, coming in at $39 per plastic filament cartridge, though you can only print in one colour.

Availability for the printer will be from June 5, with the printer currently in pre-sale on Kogan’s website.