14 DAY TRIAL // The Polyes Q1 3D printing pen may not have been posted on Kickstarter quite as quickly as we expected, late last year, but it made it there eventually. In fact, the campaign is just about to close after a very successful run.
That is why we are taking the liberty of writing about it one more time: you have one more day left to place an order for one of the early bird bids.
In total, there is only one bid left for the $59 / €52 offer, out of fifty. If you snag it, you'll get the Polyes 3D printing pen this very month (February 2015).
Also, there are two $69 / €61 bids out of 80 still available, but those will only be delivered in March. The price only goes up from there, and the ETA gets farther and farther. If you miss on the chance now, you're unlikely to get another chance before April. Also, the retail price will exceed $100 / €70-€100.
The Polyes Q1 3D printing pen
This particular pen uses Rapid Light-curing Technology. The stereolithography principle is applied in a manner similar to fused deposition modeling, you could say.
It is not the thinnest pen you've ever seen, but it is no thicker than the 3Doodler, and has quite a few advantages over it.
Whereas 3Doodler melts plastic into place, the Polyes Q1 performs its job by hardening photosensitive ink by exposing it to a blue LED light.
The LED will turn off automatically if you lift the pen tip too high, which makes sure it will never shine into peoples' eyes and damage them. An especially good precaution for children.
Thus, anything from a bi-dimensional drawing to a three-dimensional fort can be drawn by hand, all the while producing no fumes and no smells.
Inks come in a variety of colors (you get three standard cartridges with the offers listed above) but there are some that really stand out: glow-in-the-dark, aromatic, transparent, and temperature-changing.
Yes, you can actually make your project completely transparent if you use the right ink, or you can go for an eco-friendly cartridge if you're just designing temporary ornaments for an outdoor picnic. Just in case you leave it lying around in the forest.
The campaign
The Polyes Q1 has exceeded its funding goal by nearly a factor of three, so we're quite confident that the team behind the pen will be able to develop new inks, make them longer-lasting (cartridges last for 6 months at present) and customize the batteries in small quantities.
