The Vertigo Mk1 3D printer is currently on Kickstarter, and what makes it different from other 3D printers is it comes with baked-in auto-eject and bed-clearing features, allowing you to print multiple parts without further human intervention. This project just broke past its funding goal, so now appears to be on solid ground.
The team behind the project, Automated Layers, has priced the device at $2,250 for the Hardware Kit on Kickstarter. The kit requires you to print some of your own parts. If you want all the parts available and ready to assemble, you can get the Vertigo Mk1 Standard Kit for $2,500 if you manage to be among the first five to pledge that amount; its regular price is $2,625. But if you don’t have the time for that and need to hit the ground running with the 3D printer, you can shell out $5,000 for a fully assembled and configured device, and it should work right out of the box.
Its auto-eject feature works by turning the bed 90 degrees towards the ground, and then it pulls it up towards the Dynamic Scrapers. These ensure that your prints are removed at the plastic edge, preventing accidental damage to the base of your print. In case your print gets stuck, the Anti-Crash Force Triggers will stop the ejection process and notify you that the 3D printer needs assistance.
Aside from auto eject, the Vertigo Mk1 also comes with several other attractive features. This includes automatic bed leveling and bed mesh, ensuring a perfect first layer for your print, plus a Rapid Thermal Bed that has four 60mm fans and a silicone heater. This allows you to work quickly, with the bed getting up to a temperature of 100 degrees Celsius in less than two minutes, while it only takes seven minutes to cool it from that temperature to 30 degrees Celsius at an ambient temperature of 22 degrees.
The 3D printer also sports an Active Chamber Heat Soak that keeps it at around 50 degrees Celsius, making it ideal for using ABS and ASA filaments. It achieves this by using the four fans in the thermal bed, allowing hot air to continuously circulate around the chamber and reduce warping. Aside from automation and temperature control, the Vertigo Mk1 uses a Hitchcock Toolhead compatible with multi-color printing and uses a reciprocating filament cutter to prevent your filament from getting stuck.
All this automation is meant to make printing quicker and require less oversight, making the Vertigo Mk1 3D printer a worthwhile investment for those working with a ton of small prints. The Automated Layers team claims that its current non-stop printing record is 200 hours, using up around 5kg of filament in a single run. Because of its focus on premium materials and reliability, the Vertigo Mk1 is pretty pricey for a 3D printer of this size.
Aside from keeping your print within the boundaries of the thermal bed, you might also run into some issues when printing taller objects, especially as its top could hit one of the support frames when the bed tilts down for the auto ejection process. Fragile builds are also at risk as it literally drops the finished print on the desk (or the ground), so you better prepare a padded bed to catch its output.
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The Vertigo Mk1 3D printer may seem pricey, and it’s not really targeting the first-time 3D printer owner. But if you’re looking for a 3D printing solution to your mass production problem, it will definitely save you a lot of time and effort. If you’re interested in this 3D printer, you can now reserve yours on Kickstarter. However, you should know that projects on crowdfunding platforms aren’t a guaranteed purchase — instead, you’re paying in advance to help the project reach the market. While Kickstarter does its best to ensure that you get what you’ve been promised, you still bear a part of the risk of bringing a new product to the market. If don’t have the appetite for that risk, you can just wait for shipments to start, expected from around May 2025.
Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
