CreoPop: A Liquid Ink 3D Printing Pen

By on June 19th, 2014 in Hardware

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While the several existing 3D printing pen ventures appear to be successful, CreoPop hopes to shake things up with a breakthrough technology. 

The 3D printing pens weā€™ve seen so far have had two key attributes: 

  • Theyā€™re very popular, possibly due to their low price as compared to a full-on 3D printer
  • They all use plastic extrusion technology 

Itā€™s the last bit thatā€™s interesting. The existing pens pull in a plastic filament and heat it up to 200-250C and push it out the hot end. 

CreoPop is entirely different. Instead of heating up plastic, they solidify liquid resin using UV light. A tiny UV light source hits the resin as it leaves the pen. No heat. No straggly filaments tangled up in your arms. It is USB-powered, so you will have a cable to deal with. 

It will be substantially safer for children’s use, since you don’t have to worry about a six year old wielding a 250C portable weapon. 

And thereā€™s another benefit: the resins may have not only different colors, but different properties. CreoPop is working on these ā€œspecialty inksā€

  • Temperature sensitive
  • Elastic
  • Body (Weā€™re not quite certain what this might be)
  • Glittering
  • Conductive
  • Glow-in-the-Dark
  • Magnetic
  • Aromatic
  • ā€œAnd moreā€

At a starting price of only USD$89, CreoPop is an inexpensive way to enter the world of 3D making. 

Via Indiegogo

By Kerry Stevenson

Kerry Stevenson, aka "General Fabb" has written over 8,000 stories on 3D printing at Fabbaloo since he launched the venture in 2007, with an intention to promote and grow the incredible technology of 3D printing across the world. So far, it seems to be working!