Hello everybody, Mike here from the New Matter team. We’re excited to offer deals on the MOD-t 3D Printer and New Matter Filament to the Woot! Community this week and I’m going to be checking in whenever I can to answer any questions you might have about the product all week long so fire away!
Any tips on how I can convince my wife we need a 3d printer?
Since most of the time folks are used to seeing filament listed in weight as opposed to length, I wanted to clarify that the filament size is 500 grams which correctly translates to 170 meters.
Convincing the wife, the toughest trick of all. Without personal knowledge of things that interest the Mrs. I’ll hit you with a link to a blog we wrote concerning the question of “why???” and maybe something in there will be a springboard to peaking her interest.
http://blog.newmatter.com/why-3d-printing/
If none of that works, try bribing with gifts of her own as a distraction. I will not confirm or deny whether or not I’ve tried to pull that off with success.
Good luck and I wish you ultimate victory.
Can you create a design for the device to print as opposed to the pre-created ones? Is software required/included to create your own designs?
Software is required to create your own designs and the MOD-t is pretty much designed to be design software agnostic. Any design program that spits out a .stl or .obj file means you can use it to design something you can then print on the MOD-t.
http://support.newmatter.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2434426-our-favorite-cad-design-programs lists our favorite design programs and they’re free so you don’t have to keep on making additional investments in other stuff to feed your growing 3D printing addiction.
Basically, you create your file, export it to your hard drive, upload it to store.newmatter.com resize and re-orient it to your desired settings, let it slice…then print away.
This article shows the steps to use the 3D Viewer to get your file ready to print and it will be your best friend unless you decide to use an external slicer. http://support.newmatter.com/customer/portal/articles/2417892
The description mentions the web interface for send the files to be printed. Does this work over the local LAN/WiFi (device and app connect directly) or do the apps and printer connect to an offsite server the company controls (internet of things style.)
It is internet of things style when using the New Matter Store. You can use the MOD-t offline as well by using a slicer like Cura and pushing gcode directly to the MOD-t via USB connection.
We are very concerned with privacy and intellectual property so anything you design and upload to the store is only visible to you. It isn’t like Thingverse where you upload for everybody. At some point you’ll have the option to share anything you want to, but it is absolutely a private library.
piquing her interest 
Although sometimes peeking piques my interest.
I have little artistic talent. Will that make CAD hard for me?
I’m a top-whatever Amazon review, but all I get are requests to review iPhone cases, GoPro knock-offs and crappy microphones. So it’s unlikely one of these babies will be offered any day soon.
I’d get one, but just spent $1,200 on a cat’s surgery so he can pee better. He can pee better.
I’m prettaaaay prettaaaay prettaaaaay sure there were prying eyes involved in the original response… (thanks for the correction lesson 10,000 why multitasking is a demon.)
Answering whether CAD will be an issue for you is a tad difficult without knowing you as an individual. I think your best bet is to download AutoCAD for free and walk through their in-depth tutorial system. It will give you the lay of the land and you’ll be able to figure out how easy/hard designing will be for you.
As far as a review unit, no dice at this time. Our review unit program is completely filled up and all of the units are out and aboot.
My wife said, “Yes!” Booyah!
Awwwww hell yeeeeah! Happy printing…and if she likes flowers print her up a 3D rose, I’ve received a WONDERFUL reaction to that act.
Real talk time, I’ve got my finger on the button here. The specs seem comparable to most other 3d printers, but honestly, with the exception of build platform, what am I “giving up” in regards to the more expensive printers? Resolution seems to be the same, and there doesn’t seem to be any similar printers that offer better than .1mm layer resolution anyway.
Honestly, we don’t think you’re giving up much. You’ll probably experience print times 20-25% slower than the more expensive printers, the build area runs slightly smaller than comparable printers, but the prints are high quality and the machine is reliable. The few kinks that might happen we have phone, chat, and e-mail support that will help you through.
If there is another limitation it is probably that you’re definitely looking at using 100% PLA filament only. We’ve run some tests with hybrids to mixed results (contact our customer support team at hello@newmatter.com and they’ll be happy to send you a detailed e-mail of what we’ve seen from some of the hybrids.)
If none of those are showstoppers for you, you’re golden. The reality is we simplified the components and were able to drive down the cost of the unit while keeping high quality.
I hope that helps. If not and you have any other questions or concerns by all means fire away.
I’d also like to note that we’re always working on improving print speed and path planning so we can get closer ever closer to the print times some of the more expensive units clock in with.
Thanks for the response, what you’ve said seems to agree with what I’ve read in reviews, and most of their complaints seem to have already been resolved with firmware/software updates.
I’m in for one and a couple of spools, looking forward to it, as I’ve wanted a 3d printer ever since I first heard about them.
Thanks for the purchase! I really think you’re going to enjoy it and like I said whenever you need anything just hit up our support team and we’ll get it sorted out for you.