In a word...
WANT!http://motherboard.v...utm_source=mbtwitterThe challenge with 3D printing isn't the machine, it's the materials.
If you've used one of the current generation of desktop 3D printers, you'll have noticed there's a limit to what you can make: If you’ve always wanted a small, personalised model in cheap plastic, you're in luck, but that’s about it.
That's set to change as 3D printer makers look to expand the available materials. At CES, Makerbot announced that by the end of this year it would offer composite materials of bronze, maple wood, and iron, while a host of projects are printing in new materials such as fake wood and carbon fiber.
One company at the forefront of this push is Voxel8, with its product based on the material science work of Harvard University researcher Jennifer Lewis. The Voxel8’s Direct Write 3D printing technology pushes out “viscous paste” at room temperature using pneumatic or volumetric systems.
“It's effectively pushing paste out of syringes,” co-founder Daniel Oliver told me. “The interesting thing with Direct Write is it expands the materials pallet, so it allows you to print out a large number of different materials on a similar hardware platform and has a wider band of materials it's able to print than frankly any other 3D printing technology I'm aware of.”
Its first printer, which costs $8,999, uses thermoplastic as well as conductive silver ink, letting you print electronics—Voxel8 likes to show off a fully-functioning quadcopter that was almost entirely printed in one go (the blades need to be attached separately).
More at the link.
But printing electronics? Cripes! That is wicked cool.
