Selpic Star A 3D Printer
When you talk about digital printing, the first innovative company that comes to our mind here at Gizmochina is Selpic Tech. We reviewed the Selpic P1 earlier this year, their most stunning product, popular as the world’s smallest handheld printer. Following the debut of Selpic P1, the company is now launching the world’s most cost-effective 3D printer, Star A, on Kickstarter (early bird from only $99!).
Design
At first glance, the Selpic Star A surprised us and changed our perception about the size of a 3D printer. Although we knew it was going to be a compact device, in real life it turned out to be smaller than we expected. Rather than call it a machine, we would like to consider it as a functional toy for individuals. It’s the most compact and lightweight open-source 3D printer that we have seen so far. It is even smaller than most paper printers (measuring 10.2 x 9.4 x 9.8 inch & weighing 4.4 lbs). With its compact design, the Star A can be moved easily and placed on your working tables.
Easy to install & set up
Unlike other complicated 3D printers for enterprises, this printer is very easy to operate and set up.
The talk about its ease of operation has to begin with the installation. The printing body is separated into the platform module with Y-axis and another arm module with X-axis and Z-axis. Its installation can be finished in just 4 steps. What you need to do is just insert the arm module, turn screws, connect some cables, and load the filaments. And the control platform containing 4 intuitive operating buttons can help with an easy reset, printing, filament feed, and release.
The Star A supports wired-connected printing and wireless printing with TF-card expansion. And you can also create your own G-code file using some common open-source printer programs, such as Cura or Repetier-Host.
The software setup is not complicated. For example, in Cura all you need to do with printer settings is to confirm its printing 3D space (120 x 120x 120 mm). And you can open any kind of model files (e.g. slr file) through Cura and then generate a G-code file. When you start printing with a TF-card, the Star A will automatically select the latest generated G-code file and start printing. Even if you are not a professional model creator, there are a lot of model resources on the internet that you can download and transfer into a G-code file through these open-source programs.
The Star A also has excellent printing accuracy. With the X-axis and Y-Axis accuracy of 100 μm and the Z-axis accuracy of 50 μm, the Star A’s printing resolution is ±0.1mm and the layer thickness can reach 0.1-0.2 mm, which can guarantee accurate printing even for tiny gadgets. As a lightweight individual printer, the Star A adopts low-noise motors, which can have a relatively low-noise performance during printing(＜60dB).
Before printing, the Star A supports one-click to finish the process of filament load and feed in around 2 minutes. After seeing the regular silk come out of the nozzle, you can press the play button to start printing. During preparation, note that the nozzle height should be over 3 cm, which can be adjusted by pressing the play button for 3 seconds to lift up by 1cm.
A wonderful feature for improving printing efficiency and keeping printer safe is the resume-printing function. This function helps users save filament and make sure the work continues even when it needs a replacement filament. Besides, when users experience an unexpected power outage, the resume-printing function also helps users stay calm as it automatically restarts the printer and resumes the work.
The most cost-effective 3D printer
It’s worth noting that besides the basic option, Selpic offers a wonderful collection of add-ons for upgrading Star A’s parts ($129) on Kickstarter. The add-on collection includes a hotbed kit of which temperature can reach 100℃, a 2.4-inch touch screen kit, and another 1.6W Laser Engraving Head Kit. If you want to have the laser engraving on the leather, cardboard, wood, etc., this add-on collection will be a good option that we recommended.
So far we haven’t tapped into the full potential of the Star A, but we did appreciate the efforts that Selpic has done to simplify 3D printing for common users. There should be more possibilities beyond what is mentioned here. If you are interested in this budget 3D printer and start your model printing works, you can check more on Kickstarter and support them.
For more information about the Selpic Star A, click here.
