Prusa Research, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of desktop 3D printers, has announced the price of its Original Prusa Pro Automated Farm System. Exactly one year after the concept was introduced at the Dubai World Expo, the company best known for its popular desktop printers is now expanding into the industrial segment.
It also revealed the names of the first customers of its industrial 3D printing solution, in addition to the price.
Automated Farm System by Prusa Research
Prusa Research’s Automated Farm System is a complex industrial-level 3D printing solution. The scalable print farm includes sophisticated print management tools as well as automatic print collection. The concept was first introduced at the Dubai World Expo last year. During the exhibition’s six-month run, the print farm in the Czech pavilion proved itself in a demanding continuous operation.
The prototype of the first production unit, comprised of eight 3D printers developed specifically for the AFS, was on display last week at the Formnext exhibition in Frankfurt. Prusa Research has also revealed its pricing, which will begin at 45.000 EUR / 50.000 USD (VAT excl.). Training courses and maintenance plans, including on-site support and printer replacement, are available. The AFS also comes with Prusa Connect software for task planning and print management.
The Original Prusa AFS will be shipped to the first customers chosen by Prusa Research next year.
“The demand greatly exceeds our production capabilities, therefore, for the first phase, we have chosen companies that are geographically close to us and represent the application of 3D printing in various lines of business.”
– Josef Prusa, CEO, Prusa Research
MOTOISM (custom-made motorcycle parts, Germany), SCHLEIF-TEC (prototyping, Austria), Ruhr-Universität Bochum (education, Germany), and Oratek are among the first companies (innovative technological solutions, Switzerland).
Josef Prusa expressed, “We are grateful that we were able to establish collaboration with such an interesting group of partners who will fully utilise the AFS’s capabilities. We anticipate close collaboration and a large amount of feedback, allowing us to improve our solution even further.”
Prusa also introduced other new products at Formnext, such as the SL1S Medical, a printer designed for dental labs, and industrial, delta-technology 3D printers made by Trilab, a company in which Prusa Research owns an 80% stake.
Josef Prusa added, “We still want to focus primarily on individual customers, small businesses, and hobbyists. However, we also see increased demand from larger business customers that are becoming fed up with overpriced 3D printing solutions. It makes sense to cater to this demand, too.”
Prusa Research is also introducing new Prusament printing materials, including flexible and bio-based 3D printing resins, as well as the Prusament Refill, an environmentally friendly option for refilling existing 3D printing filament spools. More information can be found on the Prusa Research online blog.
