Lix The Smallest and Smartest Portable 3D Pen

LIX is the most recent competitor in the handheld 3D-printing field. The super compact design is the smallest and smartest than any other pen in the market and it can even be electrically power-driven from a USB port. After turning it on the LIX takes less than a minute to heat up and it is ready to start creating vertical illustrations.

How It Works

LIX 3D printing pen has the similar function as 3D printers. The tip of the pen melts plastic filament, which forms a rigid wire as it exits the pen and cools down. The trick to creating wire sculptures lies in moving the pen in the air at a steady speed. Lix has a hot-end nozzle that is power supplied from USB 3.0 port. The plastic filament ABS/PLA is introduced in the upper extremity of Lix Pen. The filament goes through a patented mechanism while moving through the pen to finally reach the hot-end nozzle which melts and cools it down. An interesting fact about this light-weight, engineered pen is that these structures can be formed in any imaginable shape.

The Lix pen looks like a technical drawing instrument, instead of looking like a cartoon bullet, as the 3Doodler does,— with a slender (14mm thick at its widest point), aluminum form that its makers claim allow for the freestyle mid-air extrusions to be more precisely sketched. Two buttons are there, just before the tip of the Lix for controlling the speed of the plastic extrusions.

Lix was developed by I. Baran and A. Suvorov in Belgium, and D. Wood in London.