Printing on the road
Traveling was one of the main reasons we started this project. Our work usually binds us to one place and with the arrival of each new product, we need to be personally present throughout the process. It can take months, or sometimes even years to perfect a product. We wanted to put our work in a slightly more independent position so that we could travel and discover new places. Traveling has always been the most important source of inspiration for our work, and besides, there are so many places worth visiting throughout this amazing world.
A few years ago, one of our friends started working on a printer suitable for traveling. At that time, I found it interesting, but didn’t see it as a game-changer. Now it’s essential equipment for us. During the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, we patiently waited for the world to reopen, and in the last few months we have changed homes several times. Our beloved portable printer now goes with us wherever we go.
When you travel full-time and move from place to place regularly, sometimes even flying halfway around the world, it’s not easy to pack your entire household into a suitcase. But when you bring a printer and a digital catalog with you, you can easily add missing pieces to each household, and either recycle or regift whatever you have to leave behind.
We thought for a while that we would end up building our own printer, but in the end decided to purchase a Creality CR-10 V3. We sacrificed an entire piece of luggage for this printer and wanted to have as much printing space as I could reasonably fit into a suitcase. This printer possesses only the most vital parts, and thanks to that bare-bones design strategy it weighs less than its fancier friends in this category. Importantly for us, its packaging dimensions also correspond to the parameters for aircraft luggage. But if you prefer packaging that’s a bit fancier and wheeled, then a small modification to the box will also allow it to fit into a large rectangular travel suitcase.
This printer doesn’t break down into its individual components, however – if it did completely disassemble, it would certainly take up much less space and would not need as much space for protection packaging. But completely disassembling and reassembling it would certainly take far longer than the mere ten minutes like it typically takes to assemble.
The Creality CR-10 V3 packaging is really well designed, so we didn’t want to modify it much. We only had to cut off 2 cm of foam on the longer sides and reduce the whole box by the same amount. The missing centimeters were safely replaced by suitcase protection, so this printer has safely survived journeys by car, subway, and most importantly by plane. That was the main goal, because I used to work at the airport. I was also in charge of throwing luggage for a while, so I know how that goes.
