The Revolution has Begun

[electrosteam]

Hi all,
Discovered a 3D Printing shop in western Sydney, adjacent to the railway station at Parramatta.
About 8 representative machines arranged around the walls with two staff.
They will do the job while you wait, or accept orders by email with the item mailed back to you.

I just love technology,
John.

[Poloris]

I have been looking for such a service.
Please post the email address or web site.

Cheers Mark

[Auskart]

Any idea on pricing :C good, bad or indifferent.

[electrosteam]

Hi,
My post was just meant to note the availability of a service shop doing 3D printing, and the location of the latest store.
This to me is just the 'WOW' factor of discovering a service shop, rather than an equipment supply shop.

I did a Google search and the following link is the group/store that I visited:
http://www.3dprintingstudio.com.au/

Happy 3D printing
John

[Jekyll and Hyde]

I have been looking for such a service.
Please post the email address or web site.

Cheers Mark

There's one on Swanston st in Melbourne too that I saw the other day - think this is their website:
http://www.3dneoveo.com.au/pages/3d-printing-service
(http://www.3dneoveo.com.au/pages/3d-printing-service)
Has an online quote form of some description, don't know if they have machines for viewing as I didn't go in...

Shows an 'agent' in WA too, although that lot only seem to do the 5 inch tall figurines of you - $170, obviously a fair bit of that is scanning, since extra prints are $60.

[LordBug]

Last December I was amazed when on holiday in Japan to discover that they were selling 3D printers in department stores.
I was even more amazed when a few months later it was revealed to me that Officeworks over here is selling 3D printers!


You'd want to be making a small part if you were willing to wait for it, going by my ex-housemate's printer. Definitely not a speedy process.

[neksmerj]

It is exciting technology, although the finished article is a little pixelated.

Members, there is a 3D Printing Showcase, free, at the Melbourne Uni this Friday and Saturday the 12th and 13th of September, 8:30 to 4 pm. Eastern Resource Centre building 171.

It is sponsored by Eventbrite. You need tickets, available online.

http://www.3dprintingtoday.com.au/blog/2014/09/08/3d-printing-showcase-2014-university-of-melbourne/

I went last year, it is fascinating especially the good looking chicks and the sausage sizzle outside. An event not to miss.

See you there this Saturday,

Map is here http://maps.unimelb.edu.au/parkville/building/171/ERC#.VBF-DPmSx8E

Ken

[Pete F]

I'm most interested in using this process to bypass wooden patterns for castings. I know it's only a matter of time before I have one here. I'm also trying to convince my wife that it would be good for the kits to model and then make physical objects at the end of the process.

[bollie7]

Its funny that this thread was started yesterday.
We (work) took delivery of an UP 2PLus 3d Printer yesterday.
http://3dprintingsystems.com/products/3d-printers/up-plus-2-3d-printer/?gclid=CO63zP-O2sACFVgmvQodHycAzg

I spent yesterday afternoon playing with it. Nice little thing though the ABS gets a little bit fumey whilst its printing

The price has recently come down to $1396 + GST and delivery.
All up it cost $1723.70 that was with an extra two spools of filament, delivery and GST.

There are others around that could be better value like the Mankati

http://dnksystems.com.au/store/?gclid=CJzHw6SQ2sACFUMsvQodAJIAsw#!/~/product/category=8689404&id=33759106
which has a larger build area and comes with two print heads so you can run two colours at once, but we decided on the UP because it is quite quick to get up and running with it. We bought it so our engineering and CAD drafting students can get a bit of exposure to 3D printing and so they can start to think about how they do their 3D models with a view to printing them etc. They dont have a lot of time to muck about setting the printer up.
That fact that the price came down the week before we decided to buy just made it a bit more attractive.
One thing I discovered whilst doing the research was that some brands will only run their own proprietary filament and that can get a bit exxy.

regards
bollie7

[Michael G]

These things are interesting although apart from pattern making I still can't see a home use for them but that should change in time. Until they can make parts of close to real density and strength (in a range of materials) how useful the parts will be is debatable. I've seen the ones in Officeworks but wonder how many sets of fluorescent hippo jaws one household needs.:no:

I worked at a place once with lots of industrial designers and whenever they modelled something they would send a file off for 3D printing (laser sintering). They racked up a lot of cost that way because of course they would get a model back, decide a radius was wrong and send another file off for printing. I think in the end all the process did was make them lazy - rather than thinking about what they were doing and imagining the end product they turned their brains off and printed. This was to the annoyance of the production engineering people, as because the designs could be 3D printed they forgot about the need for draw angles or positioning slides in tools or wall thickness rules or...
End result was that we had boxes full of prototypes with lots of nice curves that depicted products that could not be mass produced and then had to be redesigned so they could be moulded (and by that time the budget had been shot so the rest of us got to print in 2D on paper.)

Michael

[Oldneweng]

I read an article some time ago about NASA doing development work on 3D printers so they could get them to the stage where working components could be produced in space. Much easier to carry a printer and supplies rather than heaps of replacement parts. The robot needs longer arms? Print some.

Dean

[Ueee]

I heard the same about NASA but with food. Insert different powders here, water here and it prints you a hamburger.....
They can now also print titanium, I think it was csiro working on it. Imagine replacement joints custom printed to suit the patient.

Ew

[GSRocket]

I worked at a place once with lots of industrial designers and whenever they modelled something they would send a file off for 3D printing (laser sintering). They racked up a lot of cost that way because of course they would get a model back, decide a radius was wrong and send another file off for printing. I think in the end all the process did was make them lazy - rather than thinking about what they were doing and imagining the end product they turned their brains off and printed.

I noticed something similar when mobile phones became freely available. People stopped listening. We would drive off and the driver would say "What's the street the job's in?" "Didn't he tell?" "Yeh, but I wasn't listening. Oh well, I'll ring him when I get there."
Or "I don't know what to do here.", so instead of thinking it through, he rings somebody than proceeds to do it one handed as he's getting instructions.
Oh the beauty of technology :U

[Michael G]

I read an article some time ago about NASA doing development work on 3D printers so they could get them to the stage where working components could be produced in space. Much easier to carry a printer and supplies rather than heaps of replacement parts. The robot needs longer arms? Print some.

I guess the difference here is that the part that is printed out is designed for the job with the "as printed" strengths etc known. Imagine though printing new bushes for your car. The OEM has assumed one set of properties, you have printed off parts with another set of properties. 3D printing is a relatively expensive way of making things - good for one off's (especially in NASA's case) but woeful if you are making thousands. I heard a guy on the radio suggesting that you could print out shoes rather than buy them at the shop - but would you really spend 6 hours printing a pair of $10 thongs?


They can now also print titanium, I think it was csiro working on it. Imagine replacement joints custom printed to suit the patient.

It's a bit like sintered materials, in that to print metals you need to get them to fuse/ bond together. While they may be able to get titanium to print it is probably not the same density or strength as something machined from solid. It would probably call for a pretty high powered laser to get titanium to fuse to itself. They may be be using the 3D printing as the green compact for the sintering process which would give rise for all sorts of weird shapes and possibilities.
I think joints are already customised to suit the patient but machined.

Michael

[neksmerj]

I attended the 3D printing Showcase this Saturday at the Melb Uni, and was disappointed.

The venue was much smaller than last year's, with much fewer working machines, and to top it off, the sausage sizzle vendors packed up early, so I missed out.

You didn't miss anything.

Ken

[bwal74]

Hi,

We have a 3D printer at work. One of the blokes made a plasticine model and then had it scanned and sent the file to the 3D printer to produce his skunk. I think it was about 18 hours of printing and 2 kg of media for a batch of 4 or 5. The cartridges have a short life span so they have to be used or you may as well throw them out.

We can use different colours, hardness etc. I'll finish painting this one and leave him on the desk top.

Ben

[Pete F]

Ben was that 18 hours printing for the entire batch?

I take it the printer you have uses proprietary cartridges? By limited lifespan, is that because you're using PLA?

Do you, or anyone else, have any idea of what the media cost would be, say for a one off, of that model? The printers I've seen running have been using spools, and the prices aren't too bad, but I guess that depends on how far they go in reality. They seem to be feeding through reasonably quickly, but I've never stayed around long enough to watch a model being printed from start to finish and how much media it actually takes.

[bollie7]

Whilst I can't answer for Ben, the Up PLus2 we have at work takes a 700g spool of either PLA or ABS. We only got ABS. At the moment a spool of ABS filament in a plain colour is around $59 + post. The software will tell you how much filament it will use for each print in the "Print Preview" mode. It depends on how much fill you specify for the print.
Whilst I was researching 3d printers I came across a site that had filament pretty cheap. Of course it would be an unknown quality.
bollie7

[bwal74]

Hi,

I'm no expert but from what they tell me at work, the cartridges that are used in the 3D printer are expensive. Like two big ones each. I'll try and find out more but the bloke who does the printing is away at the moment.

Ben

[Michael G]

Ewan was close -

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-21/rare-cancer-sufferer-receives-3d-printed-heel/5830432

Michael