All on their website. I’ve been considering the same thing myself.
Oh yeah. For sure. But that’s no 3D printer, that’s a monstrous automated mill. Of course a vertical mill is a standard machine shop item, but just maybe this ridiculous thing you linked is superior…
It can’t form complex machines, guns and explosives have chemicals, moving parts, it doesn’t work that way, but it can form solid metal shapes.
Have you seen the circuit board logic for INTEL chips? No? That’s because you can’t. They’re not human-readable; they’re in some crazy machine code. Hence, the “THAT’S NOT GROUND, DUDE!” fiasco, and other similar things, because the hardware designs themselves are to the point where they’re beyond readability.
So you’re saying that its a T-1000?
That is pretty awesome Cliffski. I had no idea 3-D printing/manufacturing had reached this level of mass-marketability and affordability yet. I immediately sent the Shapeways link to a friend of mine who does graphics art for a marketing research company, as this would be a great way to mock up a new product for various studies they do.
I wonder what the cost of using a service like this is compared to a traditional shop for creating something like boardgame pieces if you’re designing your own game and want some prototypes? Cool.
Yeah, but focusing on the failures misses the main point: that the VAST, VAST, VAST majority of those billions of transistors on all those millions of chips do damn near exactly the right thing damn near all the time. Static verification and analysis tools continue to make amazing strides in reliability.
Roger Wong wins.
I know. Even the failures are amazing and awesome. And the failures themselves generate new tools through the analysis thereof, and we even get new science out of it!
It’s nifty as all hell.
From the movie Terminator 2!
We have one at Queen’s but it’s super expensive to print stuff - something like 6 bucks per square inch of plastic plus ludicrous prices for supporting material if you want overhangs or curves.
My most recent project involved building a solar panel module for the XO Laptop, the basic assumption of which was that soon there will be RepRaps available in villages in Africa and such, and they can use the Solid Edge/Solid Works designs that we came up with plus some rudimentary materials (caulking, wire) togther with the construction procedure we laid out and build their own solar modules rather than constructing them somewhere else and shipping them there.
But yeah, RepRaps are the future. You know how much they charge you for stupid little parts like manifolds in a store? Fuck that, rapid replicate yourself a shitload for way less money.
Damn, one of those would be perfect for some D&D miniatures! Probably not too cost effective, though.
Can you believe that googling “3d printing” on QT3 turned up only one three-year-old thread devoted to the subject? We may have to turn in our geek cards.
Anyway…is this cool, disturbing, or both in equal measure?
We are the first and only company to use 3D scanning technology to allow consumers to create sex toys modeled after their own bodies. We can scan a penis (or any part) and turn it into a silicone toy.
I lean toward “both”.
Ancient cultures used death masks as mementos of the dead. Now, our grandchildren’s grandchildren will have something else to remember us by.
3D scanning implies you have to go their office and drop your pants. And presumably have an erection while doing it. That is just disturbing.
I believe the service offers “scanning to completion”.
The obvious next step for all this is to extend the types of materials that can be deposited/printed. When that happens… holy shit!
Well, like @ineffablebob said above, this must be the place.
Just got this:
Also a bag of filaments. I’m really psyched to play with this. More soon when I get up to speed. Anyone else have a 3D pen?
Okay. Okay. Okay. When I was a kid, maybe 10 years old, I asked my father a stupid question. My father was a very talented guy. He played the trumpet. He was an electrician. He worked on cars. But he was an artist from the beginning. He trained as an artist from high school. He was a damn good artist. Watercolor. Ink and pen. Pencil. Charcoal. I have pictures that he drew of me as a baby. Incredible stuff.
So I asked him, “Why can’t we draw away from the paper? Why can’t we draw all over?” I recall him laughing. He essentially said, “Learn to draw on the paper first.”
Hey Dad! I finally found a way to draw everywhere!
Hey, I’ve been really interested in 3d printing for years, but have not really been happy with the technology yet. It seemed like there was always a choice of either machines on the hobbyist end, which required tons of babying and tweaking, to consumer grade models but which cost over a thousand dollars, at least. Given how fast the technology is developing, I wouldn’t want to invest that kind of money in it.
However, it seems like things are at the point where you can buy a high quality printer, for a reasonably low price, so if it becomes obsolete in a few years, whatever.
I got a printer from a company called XYZPrinting, and got a printer called the DaVinci Mini. Single filament, non heated bed, but very compact, and connects wirelessly to my computer.
The lack of a heated bed makes it a bit wonkier in terms of adherence for really narrow bases, but it seems like you can use a brim to deal with it.
The quality of the prints seems pretty reasonable.
I’m using the spool of filament that came with the machine, which is a translucent yellow, which isn’t really ideal for showing off the detail, but I’m happy with the quality thus far.
Now, one thing about the filament, is that this printer is kind of similar to commercial ink jets, in that you need to use THEIR filament. Basically, their filament comes with a NFC chip that tells the machine how much is left, etc. This is useful, in that the machine knows things like, “Hey, you don’t have enough filament on this spool to finish this print.”
The downside is that you end up paying maybe a 30% premium on filament price compared to some other sources.
However, I think I may be able to hack it. I haven’t seen what kind of encryption, if any, is on the NFC chip, so it may be possible to just reset the tag value and use the chip spool with other filament.
I’ve been experimenting further with this little machine, and I’m pretty happy with it. At its best resolution, it’s capable of some decent detail.
Here’s a Buddha statuette that I printed at 0.1 mm layers:
And here’s a print I just finished at normal settings, of a fully articulated BattleTech MadCat:
Ultimately, I think this is a good printer for what I intended, which was an entry level product. For the price, in quite happy with it, and will potentially upgrade to a larger printer in the next year or so, as their prices drop.