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3D Printers


Diceman
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Saw this in the paper today http://blog.makerbot.com/2010/09/25/announcing-makerbots-new-3d-printer-the-thing-o-matic/

I'm sure all you CAD CAM CNC types are familiar with these things but its the first time I've ever seen one, and at this price I am seriously tempted. No real use for one but I am a sucker for gadgets and this is about as cool as they come! Do you think with some time and effort and a few good books you could teach yourself to programme something like this (I have no experience in CAD) or would you need a degree and a 5 year apprenticeship?

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Saw this on TV the other day. They were going to start selling them as kits to build yourself, I think?

Use one occaisonally at work - costs about £20k IIRC. Main difference would be the resolution ie the smallest feature that you can produce.

 

If you want really cool - link one up to a laser scanner. This is where you put an object into the box and as it rotates a laser measures it in all directions. So you can put an object in a "box" at one side of a room and a copy of it appears in another "box" at the other side of the room.

Beam me up Scotty! :yes:

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They have been appearing for a while on hackaday.com, to answer your original question yet its perfectly feasible to teach yourself CAD, you just need to get hold of a copy of Autocad or similar and play about with some tutorials - I did it recently with Autocad Inventor (a 3D version of CAD with built in physics engine - Used for designing working machines)

 

The software is a bit pricey tho - there is no way I'd pay for it ;)

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Autocad Inventor is what I use. Will be upgrading to version 11 once my new pc arrives from IT (quad processors and 12Gb RAM IIRC, not sure of spec of graphics card but is high end).

 

The other big player is Solidworks. I am not sure but I think they do (or did) a cut down version which is free for personal use. Might be worth looking into.

 

As for running costs, I think the reels of material are about £250 a time for our machine. Difficult to say exactly how long they last because it depends what your are "printing".

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've got a few years of messing around with 3d printers. Good bits of kit for prototypes, but very limited in their real world applications currently. The main problem is the materials they produce and the cost of it. When i left uni they had just got 2 more machines that i tried. The best printed in a Nylon material, this was superb, very strong and had a good resolution, so your designs were not too badly effected by the material 'grain'. The other was a paper printer. This was actually more like a 3d plotter, it just laid up and bonded pages of paper, cutting each layer as it went. Low resolution, models were strong but naturally didnt like water, so there were limited finishing options. However it cost near nothing to run. Where as the Nylon printer would cost you about £50 to print a tennis ball (something that uses about 50% support material in the process.

 

Solidworks is both a great and useless piece of software. Its not very self explanatory in my experience, however it is able to do anything you could possibly want to with loads of engineering features.

 

The cost is the biggest issue. While its getting to the point of seriously interesting, with metal sintering tech - so you can print in metal. Things as fine as chainmail, it is still early days and until the material becomes cheaper it wont be giving injection moulding or CNC machines a run for their money.

 

(BTW there are lots of dodgy versions of Solidworks floating around, have a look in the usual sort of places and you will find it)

Edited by dunganick
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  • 1 month later...

There a a few types of 3d printing...the cheapest is kinda like a 3d ink jet printer and it lays down little blobs of plastic and builds them up in layers.

 

A much more accurate method (and a lot more expensive) is SLS which is 'selective laser sintering' this is basically a laser which is fired into a powder which solidifies when hit by the laser, this enables much more intricate models to be produced.

 

As mentioned above, the real world or home applications of 3G printing are limited...it is great for making sure your design fits together before ordering thousands of forgings or machined parts and therefore potentionally saving a fortune if there is a problem...but I can't see a use for one at home myself.

Edited by oscarsdad
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The use of one is that it is cool.

 

I too have been looking at hackaday and every time I see a mention of one I am stunned at what they can do. Making one is an option, but you need to use three arduinos (I only have one) and the right heater/nozzle equipment. I guess you could make something similar using bits from two printers and a glue gun, but it would be a bodge worth of Mr. Bodgy.

 

I still want one though.

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Well there are Rapid Prototyping bureau and you only have to pay for the bits you want.

 

It's not expensive if there is no other sensible way.

 

For an example, a thin shell model of an old dial desk phone would be perhaps a few hundred for stereo lithography and cheaper still for a 3D printer extrusion.

 

A desktop 3D printer is about £25k.

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