The State the Art of 3D Printers

[Ralf Maximus]

The Z Corporation ZPrinter 450 represents a middle-of-the-road solution to your 3D printing needs.

http://www.zcorp.com...nters/138/spage.aspx



What is 3D printing?  Imagine working with your favorite 3D modelling software, and when you hit the "Print" button, instead of getting a piece of paper with a picture of your creation, you get an actual 3D plastic model in full color. 



It's here, today, now.  For a cool $39,999 USD you can have the 3D printer of your dreams.  Oh sure, a cheaper monochrome model exists, as well as a top-end ultra-high resolution edition, but for everyday fantasies the Z450 can't be beat.  Like I'd know -- if I had $40K to drop on a printer the damn thing better come with beer taps and print real money.

But patience is your friend.  Remember when color laser printers cost as much as a car?  Now you can have one for the same price as a week's car rental.  I expect the same thing to happen with 3D printing.

But until that day comes, you'll have to do things oldschool.

[cranioscopical]

That's the heck of a finger-nail clipper that guy's using, Ralf!

Meanwhile, where can I print my own doughnuts?

[Veign]

I used to do 3D modeling designing industrial fans.  This was all done in 3D and was such a cool job while I did it.  I got a demo of a 3D printer and was able to get a 3D color model (looks like an FEA analysis) of a turbine blade. Pretty amazing for rapid prototyping...

[Darwin]

There's a fellow at a university in the UK who's put the plans for a homemade version of a 3D printer on the net - apparently, once you build it you can use it to print off the components to build another, and so on, and so on... I heard about it on the CBC - I think the programme was Spark - so I'll go over to their website and try to come up with a name and a link.

Cool find, Ralf. $39,000? Chump change!

[Darwin]

OK found it. Here's the Spark interview with Adrian Bowyer of the University of Bath and here is the home page of the printer itself. The instructions to build your own are here.

The State the Art of 3D Printers

 

[Darwin]

OK so it won't print in colour but the price is right, right?

[Target]

then for a roll your own solution, there's this...

http://www.evilmadsc...article.php/candyfab

It this isn't quite in the same league but way ahead pricewise, and while it probably won't be suitable for your next presentation, it will do cranioscopical's donuts!!

Target

[Darwin]

Yes, the consumables (no pun intended!) are 1/8th the price 

Nice find, target!

[Target]

definitely food for thought....

(sorry, couldn't help myself...)

Target

[Darwin]

definitely food for thought....

(sorry, couldn't help myself...)

Target

-Target (December 06, 2007, 09:29 PM)

Good one

 

[f0dder]

$40k is a lot of money, but not so many years ago the price was in the million range, and doing a print would cost several thousands of dollars... and even a big company as NKT didn't have their own, but shared one with another company.

[Ralf Maximus]

Exactly!  And Darwin's link is bad-ass, demonstrating that once you have one fabricator you can use it to crank out as many as you want, which means at some point the landscape should be littered with 3D printers.  You'll have to configure them NOT to reproduce.

Target's CandyFab is brilliant, but I can't help musing...  the CandyFab uses a jet of hot air to fuse the sugar, which is great for low cost but makes the pixels freeking huge.  The results are incredibly cool looking but look like rejected props from a horror movie.

Could CandyFab be tweaked to handle a 100mw laser pointer?  These things are powerful enough to light a match, so it should be able to fuse sugar.  And the price is right: $600.

Then you'd have a low-end, high-resolution fabricator.

[Lashiec]

Moar 3D printers

[Target]

keep in mind this is a work in progress, and that cost and readily available components are key factors...

Could CandyFab be tweaked to handle a 100mw laser pointer?  These things are powerful enough to light a match, so it should be able to fuse sugar.  And the price is right: $600.

-Ralf Maximus (December 07, 2007, 07:43 AM)

could be onto something here, but why not use the laser out of an 'old' cd/dvd burner (new price for cd\dvd burner is currently under $50 Au)

Target

[goikozenner]

Looked into these a while ago too... Here are some interesting entries as well....

http://www.3dreplicators.com/

http://www.desktopfactory.com/