Looking to prototype some of your designs for the Hackaday Prize? Miss the Shapeways Gift Card Giveaway we did? Well if you happen to live in NYC, [John Tirelli] just wrote in to tell us about a FREE 3D printing lab!
That’s right — free. They don’t even charge for materials.
And we aren’t talking about a bunch of community rickety RepRaps falling apart in someone’s college dorm, nope, this place has CAD workstations with SolidWorks licenses, industrial Stratasys printers (Fortus 250mic, SST 1200 es, and a uPrint SE Plus) — not to mention a Roland LPX-1200 DS 3D laser scanner! Oh, and they’re getting a Fortus 400 and Connex 3 Objet soon!
It’s all thanks to a grant for Haverstraw Rockland Community College, which allowed them to open up this Smart Lab.
RCC’s 3D Printing Smart Lab offers manufacturers a proof-of-concept center where they can evaluate, customize, and expedite prototypes in a sandbox environment. The Smart Lab’s services are available to New York companies free of charge. Assistance is provided by RCC staff and CAD (Computer Assisted Design) students.
How awesome is that? Sounds like you do have to be a New York Company… but you filed that LLC paperwork, right?
The hope is to develop a stronger technological manufacturing base in New York — hooray for STEM grants! If you have stories of your own regarding grants or other initiatives the hacker community should applaud please send us a tip!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdSVVNZpNfo
[Thanks for the tip John!]
The college gets free R&D grants, while the students working in those labs get $40k in student loan debt. Niiiice!
It’s a 2 year community college with a tuition of under 2,200 a semester. As a student who goes to SUNY Rockland and gets paid to work in this lab, I’m pretty happy with how it works ;)
Honestly though.. the experience I’ve been getting working with people coming in to use solidworks has made me more versatile and is much more valuable to me.
Who actually ultimately funds this? The community? The college? The manufacturers provide machines as a tax write off? A grant?
If you bothered to click the link you would find your answer. I’ll leave it to you to google the alphabet soup:
RCC
SUNY 20:20
TAACCT II
CGAM – Center for Global Advanced Manufacturing
That doesn’t really answer who funds those, though.
Note: This is NY businesses, not just NYC businesses. Let the LLC applications begin! (I’m calling this week to schedule something)
It’s true this opportunity is for all of NY state. The lab even ships at your expense within NY. A DBA would suffice AFAIK. Basically just registering a business name and using your ssn (give to the county clerk not the lab) as your federal tax id. Costs about 35 dollars in my county.
I didn’t read their NY company requirements, but it is likely they are targeting corporations, not just people claiming they are businesses (as in a DBA). But these days, in many states a DBA filing and a registered LLC aren’t too far apart. In Florida for example establishing an LlC is on-demand and automated online. From memory all you need a Florida address and a couple hundreds bucks (or so). You do need to file an annual report, but that too is a fairly simple online process. However, knowing the Socialist State of New York though, the process there is likely much more painful.
Sorry if I didn’t make this clear, I’m one of the students that work in this lab. I’ve worked here since January and I first heard about and got interested in 3d printing from reading about it on Hackaday. That being said, This is how it works.
We are open to all NY state businesses and startups. At some point our regulations may become more strict but we don’t expect the average garage tinkerer to shell out hundreds of dollars to incorporate before having a prototype to attract partners and or investors. If you are building a business or if you own a business in New York State you are eligible to have free printing done of the prototypes that you made or have had made for you.
I wrote in about this because part of this whole deal is that these machines are not owned by the college. They’re on loan from one of the granting organizations. Often (and even as we speak) they sit waiting for a part for hours or even days. That shouldn’t be, our material won’t last forever but if it gets into the hands of the right people who turn around and launch a business that hires my neighbors, well that would be pretty cool.. And by your success we in turn will hopefully be provided with more material when whoever makes the decisions see’s it’s being used and it’s having a positive effect on our local economy.
Those of you reading this, don’t swamp us with thingiverse stl s.. but If you have a real idea that you want to build a business around. Design it and send it or bring it in to us. If you don’t have access to a decent cad program and you are local, call ahead (actually it would seem our phones are down atm email instead for the next day or so) and come down and use our cad workstations. Even if you don’t know how to use solidworks, it has very comprehensive tutorials and we’ve yet to run out of computers to offer people to use (so you could pretty much spend the day at one).
So, when do the other 56 States get in on such a deal? ;-)
I’ve heard that New Braska will soon be offering it.
Sorry buddy, this was funded largely in part by state grants as one of the Governor’s initiatives to grow tech startups in New York state. However, if you like the idea, contact your local government. ;)
If it sounds too good to be true, it is.
They are probably waiting for somebody to tray and print a 3D gun, so they can go grab them in some sort of sting operation.
No, they are just going to steal your time machine idea once you send in the design to get it printed.
I rather print it on my XYZ Da Vinci… Going back in time in 3..2..1
i’m gonna assume this was a joke. these machines cost a lot of money.. no one’s gonna let you touch them, just give a file, get a print.
So, I checked the website… I don’t see anything about signing up, scheduling, etc..? Can someone from a company walk in, print and come back in a few hours when it’s done? If you have several items to print, do you have to wait there while they finish? Can you just print 20 copies of something twice a week, or are there limits?
It’s nothing so formal as scheduling, If you live close by, call ahead before stopping in. If you live further away but still in NY, send us an email for more info with your part. You could send us a part and ask us to UPS it back to you and never see our handsome faces (you pay for shipping). You don’t have to wait for your prints, and while there are no hard and fast limits, stratasys material retails for 5 dollars a cubic inch (so don’t use up all of our stock trying to print crap from thingiverse), so if you have a new tweak on your design or you make a new prototype you need printed use us as often as you need.. But we are not a manufacturing plant. so “20 copies of something twice a week” is not what we’re here for.
It’s not free. Where did the grant money come from? My guess is that ultimately it’s the taxpayer.
Hi, I am a incoming student for the Fall 2015 year and me and my older brother want to know if this is for businesses only? We have been interested in 3-D Printing and live in NYC.
This is NO MORE. They ran out of the grant money and now run as a business. They say “the use of the machines is free” so you pay for the material (Stratasys) but the material cost is huge. I sent them a file sized 8″x3″x3.5″, the quote was $460 appx. The gravy boat sailed