We are feeling very proud because our design for a new kind of tape measure has won the Charles Godfrey top product award at professional builder.  We had lots of previous experience designing tape measures, so it was an easy decision for Gatortape to engage with Cube3 to design their innovative new tape measure.  The brief was clear.  We want the most accurate, easiest to use, robust and reliable tape measure for internal measurement on the market.  Cube3 carried out all aspects of the design from concepts to test rigs, liaising with manufacturing partners and ultimately delivering a class winnng product.

The Gatortape is now the most accurate product on the market and is perfect for measuring up for blinds, windows, curtains, shelving in alcoves etc.It also works perfectly well as a normal tape measure, perfect for DIYers or professionals alike.

If you have an idea for a product that you want to develop, get in touch on our contact page or call the number above.

https://probuildermag.co.uk/features/top-product-awards-2022 

How useful is an Ultimaker S5 with material station?

Well, pretty damn good!  It allows us to print in different materials with different support material if required with little or no set up.  We run two glass build plates so as soon as one print finishes, we remove the model and build plate, replace with a clean one and it's ready for someone else to use right away.  We even use it remotely from home by connecting remotely with our office computers and sending prints direct to the printer.

3D printing is not perfect and there are always issues.  For a larger more complex print we always ensure someone is on hand to check that all is well for the first hour or so just in case there is a problem.  We had to replace the print head once after a catastrophic disaster where a large complex build lost adhesion to the build plate quite early on and ended up turning the print head into a giant ball of plastic!  Lesson learnt!

Some materials are not possible to run through the material station.  We have failed to reliably print in TPU as the route from spool to print head is too torturous for the soft material and it gets stuck!  Polyprop is currently working reliably but we have similar issues.

Ultimately, the purpose of the Ultimaker S5 was to give us an easy to use, reliable print solution in house to allow us to print development ideas as and when we need them.  We rarely use it to print customer facing prototypes unless they are for functional demonstration only.  The Ultimaker S5 has turned out to be a valuable addition to the development team and we could not continue without it.  We still have much to learn about using it and would like to explore interesting materials as well as innovative ways to use it.

Get in touch if you want more information

Well that's the end of another busy year at Cube3.  It's been an eventful 12 months working with our  clients old and new on project large and small.  We are really happy to have been involved with so many great projects and worked with so many great people this year.

We'd like to thank you all for your support and we look forward to a great 2017 working with you all again.