Double the price of a Makerbot and perhaps half the functionality, is it justified by its form factor?

This is called a CNC machine, nothing new. They have been out a long time.

\"Double the price of a Makerbot\"? Guess you haven\'t looked at Makerbot\'s prices lately. The original Cupcake kit is no longer available. The $1100 Thing-O-Matic unassembled kit is only available \"while supplies last\", and the new Replicator is $1750.
So - at *half* the price of a Makerbot, this doesn\'t seem too bad a deal for a hobby CNC. But I\'m rather appalled at how laborious it seems to use. It\'s agonizingly slow, considering it seems to be just cutting foam in the demo, and apparently you have to set up the data by hand in three separate steps: cutting, roughing, and finishing. This is definitely *not* a \"load the model and push a button\" kind of machine!
And yes, it looks well designed and glossy, and the fact that the whole thing folds out at the end is very cute. But they couldn\'t be bothered to install a switch to cut off the power when the case is opened?

DonFG: By that logic, there\'s nothing new about any new product in a pre-existing category, say, phones, cars or computers...

Kudos to them for illustrating the realities of their software. They\'ve failled to mention that you need a Windows 3.1 or 95 PC to run it, with a DB9 or DB25 serial port though.
They\'ve also skipped the tool changes - this box is just a mini version of an \"MDX\" (I\'ve got one), same software and everything. Tools are just plain voodoo. They go through all this neat roughing through to finishing stuff, but there\'s no automatic or calibrated tool-height system (the printer is entirely 100% \"dumb\" - no brain, no sensors) - you have to manually guess that stuff with buttons, so it\'s going to take you 3+ attempts to get it right (if you\'re lucky) on any \"production\" run. Oh yeah - and it takes all night to do one \"print\", and is ultra-noisy, and the mess it makes is pure insanity (looks neat in their demo, because they didn\'t show you the guy with the paintbrush clearring the cuttings from the model for the 10 hours it would have taken to make that blob).

There\'s things CNC are better at than Printrbots - for instance, if you want something machined out of metal. But this one doesn\'t seem to do metal.

This will be ok in time, just not this time. Needs to incorporate a 3D scanner to to get images and demensions of of the original into software, then this gadget needs to be like 100 times faster with auto tool change between stages. Ok, what are you waiting for? get to it already....

Gizmag - \"the iModela iM-01 3D Modeling Machine carves its creations down from a larger block of material,\" Since when is, what looks to be about, 100mm x 50mm x 50mm \"Large\"? Ok it is a tidy looking, small CNC. But honestly, I have seen faster DIY units on youtube, that have been built for half that price.
Nothing special.

Agree with all the others. Just another mini CNC. Roland has been milking this technology for too long. Time for them to move in a new direction.

We invented the \"Creator\" in 1990 as a Desk Top Machine Shop overcoming the two main problems of low cost \"3D Printing\" otherwise known as CNC machining. The goal was to come in under $8,000.00 for 300 mm (1 foot) cube max dimension objects made from anything up to and including tool steels, resolution .025 mm or .001 inch, repeatability +/-.005 mm.
The purpose was to make parts for all manner of machines (Auto\'s to Zero\'s) rather then stock and ship them and of course create new WORKING designs. Something no present 3D machines seem to attempt in the range below $8k (except making gaskets and foam parts).
The problems we overcame? Low cost high performance ball screws, linear scales and tools, tool change.
There was no market, no interest, no body who even understood what we were about. In 1995 we went on and used some of the ideas at the nanoscale to nanomachine semiconductor related things these machines which helped make microprocessors, sold like hot cakes for thousands of times more money.
Go figure.