---
title: "EX3D Prints: your neighbor’s printer as a node in a global manufacturing network"
url: https://www.voxelmatters.com/ex3d-prints-your-neighbors-printer-as-a-node-in-a-global-manufacturing-network/
date: 2026-03-18
modified: 2026-03-18
lang: en
author: "Roksana Slusarczyk"
description: "History, it seems, repeats itself. On a different scale. Almost 15 years ago, a startup called 3D Hubs launched a portal to connect thousands of 3D printers sitting idle in..."
categories:
  - "Distributed Manufacturing"
  - "Makers"
  - "On-demand Manufacturing"
tags:
  - "future"
image: https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ex3d01-640x304.png
word_count: 623
---

# EX3D Prints: your neighbor’s printer as a node in a global manufacturing network

History, it seems, repeats itself. On a different scale. Almost 15 years ago, [a startup called 3D Hubs](https://www.voxelmatters.directory/company/3d-hubs-2/) launched a portal to connect thousands of 3D printers sitting idle in makers' shops. That company experienced skyrocketing growth, as did the 3D printing industry, until it was sold to Proto Labs, a large global manufacturing contractor. Now, as we were just saying, history is repeating itself with [EX3D](https://www.voxelmatters.directory/company/ex3d-prints/).

Except that today there are millions, not thousands, of 3D printers around the world that sit idle for most of the day. Charged, connected, and ready to go. Nobody just gives them anything to do. Every printer owner has faced this problem or will face it eventually. At first, everything flows easily: figurines from a favorite show, Star Wars lightsabers, or those small quality-of-life gadgets everyone prints at least once. But a few months in, the question arrives: what now? EX3D Prints found an answer to that question and built a platform that turns those dormant machines into a functioning production network.

![](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Zrzut-ekranu-2026-03-17-144535-640x304.png)

The idea is simple to describe but not trivial to execute. Designers upload their models to the platform. Customers order physical versions of those designs. The order is routed to a printer in the network, who manufactures the item locally and ships it directly to the buyer. No warehouses, no central print farms, no middlemen.

It is a model that solves three problems at once. Designers have been creating popular 3D models for years with no straightforward way to sell physical versions, because running your own production operation is a full business with all the logistics, customer support, and shipping that comes with it. Hobbyists with printers would like to earn money from their machines, but building a shop and a brand from scratch is a barrier most of them never cross. Customers, meanwhile, pay for shipping from the other side of the country or the world because nobody is producing locally.

![](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Zrzut-ekranu-2026-03-17-144738-340x338.png)

EX3D cuts through all three of those knots in one move. The designer earns a cut of every sale without touching the product. The printer gets orders for their machine without building a brand. The customer receives the item from someone nearby, faster and cheaper.

Behind the project is Jacob Labagh, an aerospace engineering student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, who has been working with 3D printing for over five years, from product prototyping to rocket engineering. He founded EX3D Prints together with Ruben Yoder and Delia Delaney in 2025. The platform has been turning heads from the start. In November 2025 it took first place at the university's Eagle Tank competition, a student version of Shark Tank, where a panel of industry experts singled out the platform's potential to democratize manufacturing.

The distributed model also has a dimension that rarely gets mentioned directly: the environmental one. Traditional logistics means a product travels halfway across a continent before it reaches the buyer. In the EX3D model, production happens where the customer is. Fewer kilometers, a smaller carbon footprint, faster delivery.

![](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Zrzut-ekranu-2026-03-17-144849-640x304.png)

The platform is young and the challenges ahead are real. The printer network needs to be large enough and reliable enough to handle a growing volume of orders. Quality control in a distributed production model is something every marketplace of this kind has to solve in its own way. And then there is trust. The customer has to believe that an item printed by a stranger in another city will be exactly what they expected.

These are questions EX3D will have to answer as it scales. But the idea itself is solid. 3D printing has been promising to democratize manufacturing for years, and for years that promise has remained mostly theoretical. EX3D Prints is trying to turn it into infrastructure.