When 3D printers was first introduced, it was a marvel everyone wanted a piece of. The problem was, not everyone could afford the hefty price tag it came with. 3D printing is new and still pretty expensive, but when you leave it to great minds to pull together power of crowdsourcing and passionate people, there are alway alternative solutions.

One of the most recent trends in desktop 3D printers is to take it off the desktop and make it go portable. Examples include, in order of recency: the Lumifold, the Tobeca, and the Bukito. The most recent portable 3D printer to hit the market is the Portabee GO out of Singapore, one of the sleekest looking of the bunch by far.


The GO, when folded, measures a mere 208 x 225 x 79 mm (roughly 8 x 9 x 3 in) and, unfolded, the Z dimension becomes about 200 mm bigger, bringing the whole thing to 208 x 225 x 277 mm (roughly 8 x 9 x 11 in).  This makes for a print volume of 120 x 178 x 131 mm (about 4.7 x 7 x 5 in).  With a .4 mm nozzle, the machine can print PLA objects with a resolution of up to .1 mm and a wall thickness of .48 mm.  An aluminum frame and steel linear guides make for an altogether compact machine with a lot of potential.

$595 doesn’t seem to be a bad price for a printer so compact. Don't miss the train Portabee GO Website.