Astute reader Rob writes:
“LutraCAD, developers of design software for insoles posted a Youtube video, showing integration of Cura into their software, allegedly meant for printing insoles directly from their software on a Blackbelt printer or Podoprinter (Sole?) The video shows the slicing, lengthways layered at an angle, This suggests FDM printing on a belt without support material.”
PodoPrinter Players
Hold on, there’s a lot going down here. Let’s list out the pieces of this puzzle.
Helian Polymers’ colorFabb brand is (yet another) Netherlands-based company that has long produced high-quality filament materials for 3D printing, and in particular has often explored radically new approaches to 3D print materials in advance of the competition.
LutraCAD is a software company that produces specialized CAD tools specifically designed for creating insoles and shoe lasts. You guessed it, they are also based in the Netherlands.
LutraCAD PodoPrinter Video
Now that we know the pieces involved, what happened? Fabbaloo reader Rob found a video posted by Lutra3D earlier this year that is quite interesting:
The video clearly shows, in addition to insole CAD design, 3D print slicing (in Ultimaker Cura) intended for the Blackbelt 3D’s unusual belt-driven printing system.
PodoPrinter Analysis
That’s all fine, but what bothers me is that the previous image of the PodoPrinter from Rouleaux doesn’t seem to look like a Blackbelt 3D printer in the slightest.
The Blackbelt 3D system is actually quite large due to the presence of the long belt, and is very different from the upright, desktop design in the January PodoPrinter image. They can’t be the same device. Even if the belt system were somehow “inside” the January image’s system, it would make for a very large machine that probably isn’t sitting on a tabletop.
There are a couple of possibilities here.
- PodoPrinter abandoned an early tabletop design for a 3D printer and switched to the proven Blackbelt 3D device.
- Blackbelt 3D has designed a new form of their belt-driven system that resembles the January image.
Either scenario is quite interesting, as one of the above is almost certainly true, since LutraCAD has gone to the trouble of building belt-driven 3D print slicing specifically for the “Blackbelt 3D / PodoPrinter”, which ever it turns to be.
I’m going to keep watch on this to see whether we’ve got a new Blackbelt 3D device or an expanded Blackbelt 3D customer base.
Will PodoPrinter use a belt-driven 3D printer? The answer is yes, but we don’t know which one.
Via Blackbelt 3D, PodoPrinter and LutraCAD (Hat tip to Rob)