3D printers coming of age...?

The designer of course. Possibly a good analogy for printed parts is a casting and I would expect that printed parts may well become available in a similar manner to some of the lost wax castings that are available now. The IP does not belong to the pattern maker or the foundryman.

There must be enough CNC mills available in the hobby scene to enable someone to start selling G codes for parts but it may be a step too far for the hobbyist model engineer who would cease to have any input apart from as a machine minder. Writing ones own code or developing CAM from your own CAD is a different matter - there is some intellectual input there.

It will be interesting to see what happens, the future is not very far away.

cheers,

Rod

...but the pattern itself does belong to the pattern maker/foundryman (unless you are explicitly buying that too). The design IP certainly belongs to the designer, but the G-code has IP all of its own, which belongs to the programmer. An analogy - when I write an article for MEW, the IP embodied in the article content/drawings/photos remains mine; however, the IP embodied in how David chooses to lay it out on the page as part of the magazine remains with MEW (or My Hobbystore or whatever this week's company name is...)

Regards,

Tony

Edited By Tony Jeffree on 08/11/2013 15:09:32

Edited By Tony Jeffree on 08/11/2013 15:09:55

It's interesting to see how the business model is evolving

One example is Shapeways

MichaelG.

hi john
looks very interesting will look deeper into this wonder how much consumables are
bob

.

Bob,

Here is a range of consumables.

MichaelG.

MG
Thank you very deeply, Think I have got my christmas pressy sorted out hopefully will be showing it at the Thornbury BSMEE next year working.on the club stand. if at 70ish I can get my head around the software
Bob

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Good Man !!

... Go for it.

MichaelG.

http://www.stuff.tv/3d-printers-go-head-printhead/feature

http://www.amazon.com/The-CubeX%C2%99-Trio-3D-Printer/product-reviews/B00D48MDNC/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

http://www.amazon.com/Cubify-CubeX-3D-Printer-Frost/product-reviews/B00DQVI5L6/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

...worth reading

Edited By Martin Millener on 09/11/2013 10:24:19

.

Mmmm ... they certainly were.

That said, they do seem to be "Consumer" reviews:

Have there been any reviews by "Engineers" ?

MichaelG.

.

Good point, Jason

... But there is always some eager hacker ready to help.

This looks useful.

MichaelG.

Hi All

I think the cost of commercial hobby 3D printers is outrageous 1500 to 2000 pounds? And now they are starting to pack the plastic extrusion in cartridges and chipping them. Just like the inkjet and laser printer mob. What a con. As Michael pointed out there may be a workaround but sooner or later they will start putting encrypted countdown chips in them. Some of the new ones On Xerox colour printers for example are not easy to work around.

I am a member of a hacker group. No not internet hackers, a maker group. At meetings typically there are half a dozen 3D printers brought along on the night. all different some Open source Mendals and the like others of the builders own design. Built at a much lower cost than 1.5 to 2K

There are hundreds of suppliers of components over on net **LINK**

If I was going to build one I would join a local special interest hacker group This link is for the UK **LINK** There are groups all around the world.

If there is no local group join a 3D Printer forum, 3D printers are not simple to run, a bit like a lathe, making quality parts requires skill in getting all the parameters right.

Regards
John

Edited By John McNamara on 09/11/2013 13:38:55

I think the reviews posted by Martin are very accurate.

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That's a pity

Perhaps Bob should put Santa on hold.

Might be worth following this blog for a while.

MichaelG.

Meant to add quite a bit more to that post but someone came and I wanted to get my post in as a marker.

Recently i have been doing a fair bit of research on these 3D printers. his has involved traveling a fair distance to visit people, mainly engineers who have got these things to see how easy they are to work plus quality.

After the first couple of trips it soon became obvious that quality is the deciding factor with these things and from what I have seen this boils down to software..

First the reprap type machines, it seems to me that being open sourced no one is in charge and everyone seems to be doing their own thing and they all use a variation of the same 2 or 3 softwares which haven't been updated in ages.

One of the most important things with 3D printing complex models is the support mesh that needs to be generated to support the actual model. This is worked out from the model itself and is down to the software to work out what is the best solution. this is where the open source software falls over. Not enough work has been put into his aspect.

Recently in MEW there was an article called Another look at Reprap in 204 / 205

Take a look at some of the printed parts in issue 205 and this is typical of the quality.

Now I had chance to look at one of the UP! Minis actually working and the difference was like night and day.

Easy to use, not limited to cartridges, plenty of thought gone in to the mesh problem and it can also self calibrate itself. Parts printed look like moulded parts, not all furry and steps or layers showing.

If I was buying one at this moment I'd go for the UP! mini and I'm not associated in any way with them or anyone who sells them.

One other thing I need to point out though after all the hype of owning one and what you can do with it.

You need a model to work with. Can't stress this enough.

OK if you want to print star wars characters or similar that someone has bothered drawing and making available but if you want to print a cylinder for say a pattern you need the drawing.

So of far more importance is being able to draw in 3D and save as an STL file.

If you can't handle this then really a 3D printer is a toy too far.

Nice summary, John

You spoke highly of the UP! Mini, previously.

... Sounds like it's still the model of choice.

MichaelG.

I know of two people personally that have these.

One is a guy in St Helens and i have been and seen this actually working.

The second person is Art Fenerty the writer of the Mach 3 program. He retired from Mach 3 a couple of years bak and currently is involved with Gearotic Motion / Thought which is a very good gear program.

He bought the printer to sort out 3D printing of gears like bevels. I'll get him to send me some pictures and post them here. Art is very impressed with this printer and even went as far as to say he'd not even bother to write his own software given the unique problems that 3D has.

Now if Art says this then I take notice as he's one of they guys in the white hat I really respect and have immense amounts of time for.

Not model engineering, but this shows that 3D printing is progressing quickly, IMHO.

**LINK**

A couple of other possibly relevant links.

http://3dprintshow.com

http://www.stratasys.com

Edited By V8Eng on 09/11/2013 17:18:58