Scrappy Portugal-based DIY 3D printer designer Rat Rig had its first event booth ever at this past Formnext 2024. It felt abuzz with traffic the whole time, highlighted by bright green hats the company had peppered out bobbing all around the conference center on day one. At its booth, the company’s familiar punkish green-accented cubes sat beside sleek, silver boxes from the company’s new industrial sub-brand: Disrupt Engineering.
These silver boxes were prototypes of Disrupt Engineering’s upcoming V0 – the Rat Rig V-Core 4 wrapped in an industrial suit. The machines have been made under the new sub-brand name because “disrupt engineering” is just what the pre-assembled system is aimed to do, said company founder Sonat Duyar, by way of compelling price points for turnkey hardware with improved components.
We spent some time around the busy display as Duyar explained the subtle differences between the two visually distinct machines. Aside from an insulated chamber (the work of that shiny suit) and some top-shelf component replacements (from the motion system to the electronics), the Disrupt Engineering V0 is a functional copy of the Rat Rig V-Core 4.
The key difference is that the V0 comes pre-assembled (an option not available for the enthusiast-focused Rat Rig machine), in the Hybrid configuration by default, and at a compelling (some might say “disruptive”) price for industrial users. The company is targeting €4,500 for the 500 x 500 x 500 mm build volume version with a single extruder, and €5,750 for the same system in IDEX.
Other sizes will likely be available in the future. Disrupt Engineering’s website currently says the sub-brand is “specialized in build areas ranging from 400 x 400 mm to 600 x 600 mm”, but it’s not clear whether sizes other than the one on display at Formnext will be immediately available. “The Disrupt platform was designed specifically for large format printing, so sizes like 600 x 600 x 600 [mm] are likely to come in the future, and maybe even bigger,” Duyar told All3DP when asked about the larger build volume.
Duyar says Rat Rig made the decision to move into the industrial space after the company realized that some industrial users have opted to purchase its DIY kits despite the upfront labor investment of assembly and lack of professional-grade servicing – usually the justification for industrial machines’ significantly larger price tags. It’s an odd thing for the space, sinking that sort of labor cost into building a machine and learning to use it without training or support; that sort of observation makes it clear there’s a demand.
“The reception was overwhelmingly positive,” Duyar said of the experience at Formnext 2024. “We captured a lot of interest from both resellers and potential customers, and had a busy booth for the entire event. We heard the same message from many people: our build size, price point and feature set (particularly, IDEX) deliver a value proposition that the market was really missing at this point in time.”
Duyar and Rat Rig have emphasized that the key value proposition of Disrupt Engineering is being a turnkey solution designed for constant industrial output and said that specific differences between the V-Core 4 and V0 will be more clear once the final version is ready.
For now, visit Disrupt Engineering’s website to be notified of the development progress, or check out the DIY Rat Rig V-Core 4.
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License: The text of "Rat Rig’s Upcoming Disrupt Engineering V0 is a Tuned-Up V-Core 4" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.