Wow! There has been so many great 3D Printer events in Colorado recently! Recently you saw my post about the new library makerspace, and now I got to tour the Lulzbot Headquarters! If you follow Lulzbot on twitter (they are @lulzbot3D) you probably saw their tweet about their open house, and I decided to go! I had a great time, and I got to see a lot of cool new 3D Printers and ideas.
The Open House was like a self-guided tour, so you got to explore the factory on your own! They let you wander pretty much anywhere, so I got to explore many different aspects of the Lulzbot 3D Printers that I didn’t know about before. The tour started in the “assembly room” where they assemble the printers! I saw a majority of the parts that go into the Lulzbot TAZ 5, and some of the parts that go into the Mini!
I also saw a LOT of Octopus and Rocktopus 🙂
However, most of the exciting stuff happened in the next room; the experimental room! And because Lulzbot is OpenSource I can share what I saw! Easily the coolest thing in the room was the new TAZ 6 (more on this later) but there were also many other planned products! However like I said, the TAZ 6 was easily the coolest. Below is a picture of the TAZ 6, and it is printing with a redesigned dual extrusion toolhead! This new toolhead was definitely cool, but the best new feature of the TAZ 6 was the auto-bed leveling. Finally, the TAZ 6 has been equipped with auto-bed leveling sensors! This means that you no longer have to adjust the GIANT bed with tiny screws! The TAZ 6 also looks like it has been equipped with some other nice features, but I am not sure what those are (yet).
Also in the experimental room were some other new ideas! I saw a TAZ 6 with a large nozzle, (picture below) for getting super fast low quality prints! It also appeared as if they were doing some serious experimentation with dual-extrusion. I saw multiple TAZ 6’s working on dual extrusion projects (like the picture above).
It also appeared as if Lulzbot was testing even MORE exotic filament.
As you can see, Lulzbot is definitely hard at work improving their printers! The next room/area was “the upstairs” (it didn’t have a name). This is where most of the offices were located. However, the coolest part of “the upstairs” was the showcase table! Here Lulzbot was showcasing all the AWESOME prints that they made! 
Clearly, these people know what they are doing! Well you are probably wondering, “how do they make all this awesome stuff?” Well, the answer is their 3D Printing “fleet”. Lulzbot has a fleet of 3D Printers that make all their parts for more printers! They also hold the unofficial world record for most 3D Printers running at one time! (109 Printers!) 
Unfortunately, that was the end of my tour. I had a great time, and I learned a lot! Obviously Lulzbot is working hard to improve their printers, and I can’t wait to see what they come up with! Lulzbot is creating wonderful 3D Printers, that are making it so everybody can create some epic 3d stuff!
Epic 3D Stuff 