The new Bukito prints on the fly…literally

This new printer on Kickstarter won’t be completely new to you. It was created by the same company that brought us the popular Bukobot, Deezmaker. The Bukito is essentially a smaller, more portable Bukobot.

The Bukito is designed to be just as accurate and fast as a Bukobot, only in a form that can easily be carried around. It has a handle for doing just that. One of the goals of the campaign is to make a battery-operated version available. That would enable the printer to remain portable while in operation, which the creators demonstrate. The Bukito even printed an object while attached to a flying octopod. Observe:


The actual flying is around the 3:50 mark. That’s impressive, getting a 3D printer to be light and sturdy enough to be lifted by an RC octopod and still print well. The Bukito pulls it off by weighing under six pounds, using the OpenBuilds V-slot slider for function and frame, being fitted with a light, all-metal extruder, and pushing filament with a custom Tatsu drive gear. Those all cumulate to a very high-performance printer. It can manage the standard 100 micron layers, print at speeds over 150 mm/s, and its build volume is 5” x 6” x 5”.

I don’t know what this means for the current backorders of Deezmaker. I was planning to order a Bukobot 8 v2 Duo, so I called to inquire about how long it would be before I could expect to receive one. I was told 8 to 12 weeks, and that was about a week before the Bukito campaign launched. I hope they’re able to handle their ambition. If you’d like one, they’re available in kit form for $549 and fully assembled for $799.

Here’s the Bukito Kickstarter promotional video: