{"id":12587,"date":"2016-05-03T17:27:25","date_gmt":"2016-05-03T21:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=12587"},"modified":"2016-05-03T17:27:25","modified_gmt":"2016-05-03T21:27:25","slug":"scitech-formbox-a-small-low-cost-vacuum-former","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=12587","title":{"rendered":"SciTech: FormBox &#8211; A small, low-cost, vacuum former"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Benjamin Redford of the startup company\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mayku.me\/\" target=\"_d\">Mayku<\/a>\u00a0points me to their <a href=\"http:\/\/mayku.me\/#FormBox\" target=\"_blank\">FormBox<\/a>, a low cost vacuum former that can quickly make multiple copies of 3D objects. Their Kickstarter has almost reached the $50k goal with 31 days left:\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/1094489804\/formbox-a-desktop-vacuum-former-that-makes-beautif\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">FormBox: A Desktop Vacuum Former That Makes Beautiful Things by Mayku Industries \u2014 Kickstarter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>FormBox. The world\u2019s first tabletop factory.<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>The smallest, most affordable and accessible vacuum former in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>LONDON MAY 3 2016<\/strong> Mayku launch the FormBox with a mission to \u201cDo for making, what the Mac did for home computing\u201d. For the first time in history anyone can become a maker and create lines of professional grade products without going to a factory.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/1094489804\/formbox-a-desktop-vacuum-former-that-makes-beautif\/widget\/video.html\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"> <\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Price $349<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The FormBox makes 3D shapes in seconds by heating up sheets of material and forming them around a template with a regular vacuum cleaner. Now anyone can make anything from customised chocolates to one hundred piece runs of professional grade products, right from their tabletop.<\/p>\n<p>The FormBox maker pack consists of a FormBox vacuum former, 30 sheets of material, a universal vacuum connector and a kit to get users started. It gives makers, designers, hobbyists and small businesses everything they need to get started making their own products.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of sending designs off to be made on the other side of the world, creators can take control of their production and start building hundreds of different things, really fast, from their homes or studios.<\/p>\n<p>The FormBox works by softening a sheet of material with heat, draping it over a 3D form and sucking all the air from around it using a regular household vacuum cleaner. As the material cools, it makes a perfect replica of the shape almost instantaneously. This can be used as a product in itself or as a mold to cast multiple products. The process can be repeated over and over until an entire run of products is \u2018microfactured\u2019, bringing production capabilities to small independent makers that they simply haven\u2019t had before.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Quick facts<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Vacuum powered &#8211; uses any vacuum cleaner as its source of suction.<\/li>\n<li>Compact &#8211; measuring just 30 x 22 x 40cm, it fits on a desktop.<\/li>\n<li>Fast &#8211; turns flat materials into 3D shapes in under 20 seconds.<\/li>\n<li>Multiply objects &#8211; cast multiple creations using vacuum-formed molds.<\/li>\n<li>Turbocharges your 3D printer &#8211; vacuum-formed 3D prints to multiply them in minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Works with a variety of materials &#8211; choose from a vast library of different substances<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The Mayku Library<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In collaboration with designers, Mayku is building an online library of step-by-step\u00a0projects to help guide people on the journey to becoming a maker. Launching in\u00a0winter 2016, the Mayku library will put the ability to make incredible things in the\u00a0hands of everyday people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Benjamin Redford of the startup company\u00a0Mayku\u00a0points me to their FormBox, a low cost vacuum former that can quickly make multiple copies of 3D objects. Their Kickstarter has almost reached the $50k goal with 31 days left:\u00a0\u00a0FormBox: A Desktop Vacuum Former That Makes Beautiful Things by Mayku Industries \u2014 Kickstarter FormBox. The world\u2019s first tabletop factory. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=12587\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">SciTech: FormBox &#8211; A small, low-cost, vacuum former<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-and-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p34aWK-3h1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6813,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=6813","url_meta":{"origin":12587,"position":0},"title":"PlanetVac &#8211; a low cost sample-return system sponsored by the Planetary Society","author":"TopSpacer","date":"March 7, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The Planetary Society\u00a0 is sponsoring development of the\u00a0PlanetVac\u00a0low cost sample-return system at\u00a0Honeybee Robotics\u00a0: PlanetVac uses pressurized gas to push regolith into a sample container (effectively acting like a planetary vacuum cleaner). \u00a0Because of the low pressures on Mars, the Moon, and asteroids, the technique is extremely efficient because the efficiency\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Activism&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Activism","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"PlanetVac system on Mars soil simulant","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/planetary.s3.amazonaws.com\/assets\/images\/society\/planetvac\/20131204_PlanetVac-3-soil-volume-confirmed-in-the-sampler_f537.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2539,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=2539","url_meta":{"origin":12587,"position":1},"title":"Kickstarter to launch the comic book &#8220;FloatBall&#8221; about a space sport","author":"TopSpacer","date":"May 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Former NFL Pro Bowl linebacker Ken Harvey and aerospace engineer Allen Herbert have sought ways to excite young people's interest in technology and spaceflight and one of the concepts they have developed is a team sport that would be played in microgravity. Called FloatBall, it combines elements of football, basketball\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Living in Space&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Living in Space","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=17"},"img":{"alt_text":"Preproduction sketches of FloatBall players by the FutureDude team.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/s3.amazonaws.com\/ksr\/assets\/000\/618\/272\/587e1490b115b66ee79168f1fbeaaf71_large.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9649,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=9649","url_meta":{"origin":12587,"position":2},"title":"Kickstarter: &#8220;Fight for Space&#8221; documentary","author":"TopSpacer","date":"January 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Fight For Space\u00a0is a documentary about human space exploration and space policy and the\u00a0looking for money to complete the film and release it for distribution\u00a0: \u00a0Fight for Space: NASA & Human Spaceflight (Finishing Funds) by Paul Hildebrandt \u2014 Kickstarter In August of 2012, we raised $100k here on Kickstarter. With\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Space films and videos&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Space films and videos","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=39"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5782,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=5782","url_meta":{"origin":12587,"position":3},"title":"Successful Kickstarter for Cubesat deep space propulsion system project","author":"TopSpacer","date":"December 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A reader points me to a very successful Kickstarter campaign that raised $96,799, far beyond the goal of $50,000,\u00a0\u00a0to fund \u00a0development of a low cost propulsion system capable of sending nanosats on deep space missions:\u00a0CAT: Launch a Water-Propelled Satellite into Deep Space by Benjamin Longmier, Ph.D. \u2014 Kickstarter Our vision\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Amateur\/Student Satellite&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Amateur\/Student Satellite","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14372,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=14372","url_meta":{"origin":12587,"position":4},"title":"&#8220;Fight for Space&#8221; documentary film to be released on May 19th","author":"TopSpacer","date":"May 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"A documentary\u00a0will be released on May 19th to theaters and on demand about the decades long hiatus in human spaceflight beyond low earth orbit\u00a0:\u00a0Fight For Space \u2013 Where is your space program? \u00a0 \u201cFIGHT FOR SPACE\u201d is a documentary film that asks, why haven\u2019t we gone back to the Moon,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Activism&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Activism","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/FFSPoster600px1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13565,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=13565","url_meta":{"origin":12587,"position":5},"title":"ESO: Hints of first signs of a weird quantum property of empty space","author":"TopSpacer","date":"November 30, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The latest report from\u00a0ESO\u00a0(European Southern Observatory: First Signs of Weird Quantum Property of Empty Space? VLT observations of neutron star may confirm 80-year-old prediction about the vacuum By studying the light emitted from an extraordinarily dense and strongly magnetised neutron star using ESO\u2019s Very Large Telescope, astronomers may have found\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Astronomy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"This artist\u2019s view shows how the light coming from the surface of a strongly magnetic neutron star (left) becomes linearly polarised as it travels through the vacuum of space close to the star on its way to the observer on Earth (right). The polarisation of the observed light in the extremely strong magnetic field suggests that the empty space around the neutron star is subject to a quantum effect known as vacuum birefringence, a prediction of quantum electrodynamics (QED). This effect was predicted in the 1930s but has not been observed before. The magnetic and electric field directions of the light rays are shown by the red and blue lines. Model simulations by\u00a0Roberto Taverna (University of Padua, Italy) and Denis Gonzalez Caniulef (UCL\/MSSL, UK) show how these align along a preferred direction as the light passes through the region around the neutron star. As they become aligned the light becomes polarised, and this polarisation can be detected by sensitive instruments on Earth.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/eso1641a1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12588,"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12587\/revisions\/12588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}