Shanghai - November 11 - Walking through the booths at Asia Electronics Expo Shanghai 2009 (AEES 2009), you can see that while there is a steady stream of visitors in the Korea Pavilion, only a few of the booths draw a constant crowd. One of them is the Carima booth, the 3D printer people. It was difficult to get some time to interview them, because the visitors never let up.
"Lots of people are shocked about this because there is nothing like this in China," explained a spokeswoman. "There is one US company, one Israeli company, but nothing like this here." Carima was displaying its unassuming-looking, boxlike Master 2015 3D printer. The self-contained unit simply takes a substance, some electric power, and a 3D model of what needs to be created and makes it in an entirely automated process. From simple things like hard plastic gears, to complex toys, flowers, and even 3D puzzle-like objects, the machine can make it all. The previous night at dinner, this reporter spoke with B.K. Lee, CEO of Carina. Lee showed a small plastic ball, made with tiny holes all through it like a lattice. Inside this ball was a second plastic ball, also made like a lattice. Inside the second ball was a third ball, which was difficult to see. The entire thing had been made with the Master system.
"There have been a lot of buyers. They regret that we don't have a branch office in Shanghai yet," explained the excited spokeswoman. She said that the whole day was very promising. The company didn't have big expectations for the event; they just wanted to introduce their product to the Chinese market. "Everybody needs to know about this," said CEO Lee. They wanted to meet some buyers, and if possible wanted to hook up with someone who can help them set up a branch office in Shanghai. After just one day they are confident that they can accomplish all of this and maybe more. There are a lot of buyers scheduled to stop by tomorrow, according to booth staff, and the company is very much looking forward to meeting them. They expect many good things.
