Summary: <br> Today, we’ve got an interview that’s going to be a little bit different. It’s definitely 3D print related but it’s in a very different way. I wanted some prefaces for all our listeners saying while this isn’t absolutely the deepest 3D print subject, it’s still really cool and there are a lot of parallels with the 3D print industry and a lot to learn from it. Especially if you are involved in a 3D print startup that’s maybe making a new machine or even if you’re in the education space. I think there are a lot of great nuggets here for you.<br> We’re going to talk to Charlie Runckel of <a href="http://www.fabriczoom.com/">FabricZoom</a>. It is an affordable fabric printer that uses off-the-shelf 3D print parts to have created its initial beta run here. They are based outside of Portland, in Beaverton, Oregon. The team had been coming up and thinking about how to make an affordable fabric printer. They were looking the cost of all of the parts and all of the time it would take to develop it. What they’ve come up with is just great. They really modeled what the 3D print industry has done.<br> We’re thinking about those first 3D printers where they were $3,000 and all of that or even they started in the kit world, but they were all using these off-the-shelf parts. They were really building up from there.<br> Many of them still use off-the-shelf parts especially stepper motors and printheads and things like that. You can buy off-the-shelf parts and make your own 3D printer. Really they apply that same technology using some of the actual motors and different things that 3D printers use and are made of today to make this fabric printer. They had to go beyond that because they’re not 3D printing. It’s either so many parallels. To me, I was so excited for this interview after having gone through it because there are a lot of lessons in what they’ve done to execute their vision and their goal that I think a lot of 3D print startups should model for their business.<br> We just really wanted to bring this to you. We thought it was of interest to the general maker community as a whole, which you guys are. We thought that would be of interest to you as well. There are many of you who have makerspaces who also do costume design and other things as well, school systems and educators who do all that. We thought this would be very interesting to raise awareness of it as well. It excited both of us.<br> I hope you really enjoy this interview as much as we did. Even though it’s not 100% strictly about 3D printing, I still think you’re going to enjoy it.<br> <br> To send us a message, go to <a href="http://www.3dstartpoint.com/">3dstartpoint.com</a> or shoot us a message at info@3dstartpoint.com or on our <a href="http://facebook.com/hazzdesign">facebook </a>or <a href="http://twitter.com/hazzdesign">twitter</a>! Its absolutely free, so ask away and and don’t forget to subscribe so you can hear more on our regularly scheduled Thursday podcast episodes!<br>
