Robox 3D Printer Creator CEL Partners with colorFabb and RS Components

Bristol-based creator of the Robox 3D printer, CEL, has announced two major partnerships with Dutch filament manufacturer colorFabb and global distributor RS Components.

The collaboration with ColorFabb brings its range of new filament colours to CEL customers on Robox SmartReels, while the relationship with RS makes the Robox 3D printer available to its global customer base.

Chris Elsworthy, CEO of CEL, commented: “The addition of ColorFabb’s range of co-polyester materials is fantastic news for Robox users, offering them the ability to print in even more new and interesting ways. We’re also excited to be working with RS to offer Robox to industry specific customers, giving them access to a versatile and easy-to-use prototyping tool that creates professional quality prints. In both ColorFabb and RS we have found partners that are as dedicated as we are to delivering great experiences to the growing number of people using 3D printers around the world.”

Robox offers new printing materials from ColorFabb
The partnership means Robox customers can print with a rainbow of colours in ColorFabb’s co-polyester filament ‘colorFabb_XT’ (made from Eastman Chemical Company’s Amphora™ 3D Polymer). The colorFabb_XT filament is available from 30th September in the full range of colours, including Red, Orange, Yellow, Light Green, Dark Green, Light Blue, Purple, Pink, Black, White and Clear.

Ruud Rouleaux, CEO at ColorFabb said: “I first saw the Robox printer in action in 2014 and was immediately taken by the ease of use that Robox offers consumers. So when we began looking for a 3D printer to partner with we naturally reached out to Robox to see how we could work together to make 3D printing in a range of different materials more accessible to everyone. In Robox we have found a partner that we can work together with to achieve our goal of allowing people to create functional and aesthetically beautiful prints.”

ColorFabb_XT is made from Amphora™ 3D Polymer, a product of the Eastman Chemical Company, and has a number of advantages over both PLA and ABS materials. For example it is less brittle than PLA, and because of its extremely low shrink rate it is dimensionally more accurate than other materials and has good bed adhesion, with strong inter-layer bonding.

ColorFabb extrudes its blend of Amphora™ 3D Polymer in the Netherlands on its high quality manufacturing suite, which is specially designed to maintain high dimensional accuracy.

CEL Robox is the first 3D printing manufacturer to have this world famous filament spooled directly onto their SmartReels.

Chris Elsworthy, CEO of CEL, commented: “The CEL Robox project is to build an eco-system around an extremely user friendly piece of hardware and to do this we want to bring together industry leaders to benefit 3D printer users. In this case we have the first resin ever developed for 3D printing from Eastman, ColorFabb’s high quality blending and extrusion and Robox’s user friendly SmartReel system. colorFabb_XT is another high quality material that we bring to our users to ensure their 3D printing experience is the best it can be. We are particularly interested in using this material in education applications as we feel it improves the reliability of printing and the strength of the end results.”

Robox now available through RS Components
The new relationship with RS will make CEL’s Robox 3D printer available to its customers from early October. This allows 3D printing fans, makers, people in the education field and engineers – whether electronics, mechanical or product – to benefit from the rapid prototyping capabilities Robox has to offer.

Ben Lawton, Global Head of Tools and Consumables at RS, adds: “We’re excited to be able to offer such a highly versatile 3D printer like Robox to our customers, enabling them to create professional quality prints for rapid prototyping for a range of disciplines. The printer’s ease-of-use, competitive price and future-proof upgradable design potentially makes it the complete micro-manufacturing solution – whether you’re a maker at home, creator at school or professional engineer.”

RS brings great 3D design software, DesignSpark Mechanical, with a huge library of off-the-shelf components to users, which enables engineers to seamlessly design parts and order hardware to finish their projects.

Chris Elsworthy of CEL Robox continues: “We are particularly excited to be partnering with RS, as not only do they allow us to present Robox to customers who have a keen interest in making and design, but they also have a large active community of engineers who are now developing the next generation of products.”