New 3-D printer can use multiple materials, such as plastic or paste

It all started with the need of an architecture student and the interest of an engineer who, seeing the high cost of manufacturing molds, decided to develop a "3D Modular" printer, which uses polymers (plastic) to generate models of low cost functional prosthesis.

To develop this project, stakeholders from different disciplines and educational institutions created their own company, Maker Mex, which was incubated at the Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM), in the Technological Park of León, Guanajuato in the center of México.

So far, the company has developed two Mex Maker prototypes of the 3D printer called Prusa i3 and i3XL, from designs that are available on-line and were modified according to their needs.

The entrepreneurs acknowledge that worldwide there are several designs of 3D printers, but the difference of the "3D Modular" is that it prints different designs from different materials with a single computer.

This Modular equipment has implemented several options for printing, with interchangeable modules. For example, if the requirement implies printing on paste, then on plastics and other materials only a module is changed, no longer needing to have multiple printers.

Among its projects, the company plans to have a Mex Maker module to print in concrete and metal. At the moment everything is focused on architectural and plastic models.