BIQU has released another highly unusual 3D printer add on, the Panda Treat.
BIQU has seemingly transformed into a company that acts like an amoeba around Bambu Lab, continually generating all kinds of modifications and add ons to enhance the Bambu Lab products. Some of these products are pretty straightforward, but others, like the Panda Treat, are a bit unusual.
What is the Panda Treat, anyway?
It is a modification applied to the toolhead of any Bambu Lab 3D printer (that includes the X, A, P and H series). It is used to selectively deposit “edible inks”.
What would an “edible ink” be? It’s food! The material could be cake icing, for example.
You would use the Panda Treat to “print” edible structures on top of existing food products. An example would be to print someone’s name in icing on top of a flat cookie.
BIQU writes:
“Print On Cookies, Cakes, Maracons, Drinks, Anything You Like!”
I’m not quite sure how the “drinks” option would work. Does the Panda Treat drop the ink into a drink? I suppose that might work if you were looking for a way to sweeten your coffee with cake icing.
BIQU said the edible inks are “prepared according to FDA regulations”, and that they also carry Halal and Kosher certifications. However, it is not clear where these inks are sold. There is no mention of them on BIQU’s site.
One question I considered was whether this setup is food safe. Normal 3D printers are not considered food safe because the filament passes through a series of components whose materials may not be food safe. For example, there might be lead in the nozzle.
Here, however, it appears that the Panda Treat fully isolates the edible material from the rest of the 3D printer. If the material holder and deposition mechanism are made from injection molded food safe materials, then it’s probably ok.
Installation is apparently easy, as the Panda Treat simply clips onto the existing toolhead with a 3D printed adapter. It’s likely they have 3D models of these adapters for each type of Bambu Lab 3D printer. There is “one wire” to the Panda Treat for control. Presumably this opens the hatch to allow edible ink to drop out of the bottom — no heat is required on this system.
BIQU provides a website for preparing files to send to the 3D printer, as the Panda Treat will require a different set of GCODEs to activate its mechanism.
On BIQU’s web store the Panda Treat is listed as “sold out”, and the price is set to zero. This means it isn’t currently available, and they may publish a price when (and if) it returns to their store.
I am a bit skeptical of the potential for success of this product. While I’m sure it actually works, my doubts are whether people would really want to print food on their Bambu Lab 3D printer. It seems like a lot of trouble (and unknown cost) to squirt some icing on a cookie — that’s something you can easily do on your own with common kitchen tools.
Nevertheless, the Panda Treat shows the extraordinary breadth of product exploration that BIQU is willing to undertake. I’m eagerly waiting to see their next product.
Via BIQU
