3D printers
Out of context: Reply #19
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- chach0
erm, sure, if you want to buy the printer it is a large amount of money, however, if you want to do a 1-off of some shape you've been refinging in a 3d app, you can get it printed (less than a cubic foot) for less than a hundred bucks. there are lots of places that have them and lease their use. i can actually get then done at our local state college here for free.
as far as how they work, it basically passes a strip over a horizontal surface, leaving behind a thin single layer of sediment. additively, this builds the volume vertically.
...and as far as the scalability, they initially developed this for printing scale vehicles for wind tunnel testing. next, the tech was refined for precision; they can make casts for jewelry with this process now. lastly, a macro version was created that rides on a railway, and is used to build cement houses alongside the track.
as far as materials, it atarted out using salts, and now resin mixtures are used according to what the final application will be (cast/ prototype/ finished product.
there are even a few companies that are trying to capitalize on this process by setting up a buisness model where people have these prnters in their homes and they can order data from the web, which gets sent to the house and 'produced' on the spot.