Thread: My next toy

Hi PDW,
A mate and I have been considering one of these for a while, mainly for printing in wax for lost wax casting. However if you get the twin print head version, you can set one up with plastic, and one with a low melting point wax. By printing a thin layer of wax between any moving parts that you want, you can melt out the wax in hot water and be left with complex moving parts all pre assembled.

Ewan

By reading the page in the link provided one would think the printer also created materials out of thin air.

Originally Posted by slhouetteV8

By reading the page in the link provided one would think the printer also created materials out of thin air.

Yes but as this is a metalworking forum I'd assume the readers would be aware of limitations that the article author wouldn't understand.

I can't, for example, see one of these producing something in 316L or 4140 hardened to a high Rockwell reading any time soon. I think that the best they can do with metals is some sort of sintering process but I could be wrong, I don't pay a lot of attention to the tech yet.

Fine metal powder and a high power tiny spot laser could be interesting. Wait 2 or 3 years.

PDW

How about 420 grade stainless steel?
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9VOwqtOglg"]Shapeways 3D Metal Printing - YouTube[/ame]
I think Ray and Josh were toying with the idea of making one(not like they have anything else to do )

Laser(and the vid is 4 years old)
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4odUhDjKHzo&feature=related"]MCP - Selective Laser Melting - YouTube[/ame]
Stuart

Originally Posted by Stustoys

How about 420 grade stainless steel?
Shapeways 3D Metal Printing - YouTube
I think Ray and Josh were toying with the idea of making one(not like they have anything else to do )

Laser(and the vid is 4 years old)
MCP - Selective Laser Melting - YouTube
Stuart

OK, getting there even faster than I thought. As I said I haven't been paying more than cursory attention as I figured there'd be a few years to go before they were more than a glorified toy. I'm happy to be wrong.

I can see these things becoming restricted imports and licensed so it's worth keeping an eye on things, being an early adopter as soon as the functionality & price hits your personal sweet spot.

PDW

Originally Posted by PDW

I can see these things becoming restricted imports and licensed so it's worth keeping an eye on things, being an early adopter as soon as the functionality & price hits your personal sweet spot.

PDW

Why? Too much fun to be had?

Working in engineering and watching this technology develop is somewhat concerning... I work for a laser cutter with a lot of customers who use the usual sheetmetal tools to roll, fold and weld parts.

It might be a decade or two, and there WILL be a huge amount of scrap iron going cheap! Maybe start saving your pennies and building bigger sheds now, because having your own CNC laser or waterjet, a brakepress, plate rollers etc will cost as much as a cheap shaper...

Originally Posted by Gerbilsquasher

Why? Too much fun to be had?

No, just that there are potentials there that, once the powers that be understand them, are going to give them nightmares. Good thing IMO but then I've always been somewhere between an anarchist and libertarian in outlook.

I don't plan on saying more in a public forum but think about it... copyright and licensing is a small part of the package.

PDW

Originally Posted by Gerbilsquasher

Why? Too much fun to be had?

Working in engineering and watching this technology develop is somewhat concerning... I work for a laser cutter with a lot of customers who use the usual sheetmetal tools to roll, fold and weld parts.

It might be a decade or two, and there WILL be a huge amount of scrap iron going cheap! Maybe start saving your pennies and building bigger sheds now, because having your own CNC laser or waterjet, a brakepress, plate rollers etc will cost as much as a cheap shaper...

No, too much bypassing of arms control laws. At last year's manufacturing show I was close to signing a deal on a ZPrinter 3D prototype machine, but I didn't have any confidence that potential customers wouldn't just buy their own. They can make castable patterns in a few hours...if there was still a small article foundry market here a Z Printer would be a no brainer.

Greg

Hi PDW,

I've got one of those Makerbot's Nice machine, my son Matthew used it a fair bit until he got access to a much bigger whiz bang machine that did support layering..

The machine worked fine, main problems we had were getting a stable raft, and we burn't out the extruder head, if you left the extruder head on you'd get carbonized plastic gumming it up...


If I was looking I'd put this one on the list. Solidoodle | Affordable, Easy-to-Use 3D Printers

Regards
Ray

Originally Posted by RayG

Hi PDW,

I've got one of those Makerbot's Nice machine, my son Matthew used it a fair bit until he got access to a much bigger whiz bang machine that did support layering..

The machine worked fine, main problems we had were getting a stable raft, and we burn't out the extruder head, if you left the extruder head on you'd get carbonized plastic gumming it up...


If I was looking I'd put this one on the list. Solidoodle | Affordable, Easy-to-Use 3D Printers

Regards
Ray

Thanks, Ray. Nice to know that they actually work. I think I'll hang out for another year or 2 before I bother to get one, though. ATM it'd be a machine in search of a project rather than one I needed to solve a problem.

The way technology moves, 2 years should see enormous strides in capability.

PDW