[cncadmin]

What is your future interest and involvement in 3d printing?

[cyclestart]

I'm interested in purchasing a 3d printer someday. The technology is evolving quicky ao it's hard to guess when to buy in.

[Nickies08]

"When to buy in" really depends on what you plan to make and if you prefer to have a "plug and play" version or one you can tinker with. I bought a Printrbotbot Plus V2 several months ago and I wish I had done it sooner! I enjoy having a printer that I can modify easily and can make changes to suit different printing materials I want to use. But the drawback is that there is a lot of hands on work which many people don't want. I use it for making everything from camera mounts to vases! Sure there are commercial printers out there that offer multiple colors and materials within one build platform, but they cost $30k-$50k versus the $1k I've spent on my printer.

[cyclestart]

But the drawback is that there is a lot of hands on work which many people don't want.

That's part of it for sure.
I'm watching what's happening with stereolithography. Today it's the expensive alternative.

[slipkid]

Perhaps later down the road I would have an interest in 3d printing. But for now the resolution isn't what I would want or expect. I haven't seen anything made that's really usable except toys and trinkets.

[jm82792]

I'd like a 3d printer that's rather accurate yet not that expensive.
The resolution is decent for the extrusion ones but it's not there yet.
So maybe if I get a used mendle or so forth but otherwise not for a few years unless I want a toy that creates trinkets.

[mcphill]

Depends on what you consider expensive: Formlabs - High Resolution Desktop 3D Printer

[underthetire]

Involvement? Daily. Not hobby toys though. Not just plastic either

Sent from my G-Tab Quantum using Tapatalk

[Rick Linnabary]

Going to build my own with purchasing only the raw materials and just purchase the heating element / tip and so on as far as special parts that I can not make that easy. This will allow me to make one as large as I need at approximately 1/3 the cost of pre-fab new machine.

[LeeWay]

I built a Mendel Prusa a while back and had it fully loaded. I sold it last year complete, but not at a profit. I used it as a learning tool. It is a good starter platform.
I am waiting to see new advances as well. When electronics and technology advance far enough, I will build another.
I was actually designing another larger one and had intended to use some of the parts from this first one, but figured they would be obsolete by the time I had time to complete.
So, helped someone else get in on 3D printing for a reasonable price instead.
That first printer taught me a lot about it though. Well worth the time and effort I put into it. The prints I did were quite useful as well.

[handlewanker]

Hi, without actually going into the full depth analysis of the 3D printers and their practical uses for DIY, I see the filament is like the ink tanks for conventional image printers.....you get the printer for free but the ink tank replacement costs you a bomb for ever more.

There has to be an economic source for the consumables, like being able to reprocess the wast material and parts that need to be "recast" so that the raw material can be used over and over again, otherwise shelling out a couple of hundred bucks for a roll of filament material (correct me if I'm wrong on the cost) that you use to make a part and immediately want to remake the part when it turns out not quite as you want it.

So............we need a machine that can take raw material and like a plastic moulding machine use pelleted raw material, derived from scrap or alternative material, to produce the filament, then it becomes like the LED torch that cost more than the batteries as opposed to the old style torches that cost nothing but cost a fortune in replaceable carbon zinc batteries.

That is how I see it, a nifty way to make objects that otherwise could not be made by CNC machining methods, but at the same time must be able to NOT drain the resources making items that have no real value but are interesting to make.

The evolution of the 3D printer will leap forward when the consumables become so cheap they are almost buy at the supermarket like batteries and nails for those uses.

I am under the impression that a 3D printer can be made with a CNC mill that has a print head in place of the spindle......that would be a leap forward as opposed to having to build or buy another space absorbing machine in the cramped environment that average DIY'ers have.

The ultimate 3D printer would be a printer with an Argon gas shielded Mig welder gun "print head" that laid down the metal part in a series of continuous overlaying weldments to form the item you want to finish machine later, and the consumables would be derived from steel, stainless steel, bronze, aluminium and a variety of other metals that all come in wire form off the shelf.

It gets very exciting when it's realised that you could make an aluminium "casting" without having to first melt the metal in a crucible and make patterns to form the final part and without having to worry about tapered sides to remove the pattern from the mould.

Any shape could be created by the weld deposition as layers are built up.
Ian.

[sunny_daise]

With the development of cloud computing right now, cloud storage, big data and 3D printing have become the most popular topics in our lives. As the 3d printing, I pay much attention to the things printed by 3d, which is a big step for human being in this world.

[bostosh]

The poll shows the desired to own
I am finding the models from scans are a roadblock for many on the way to an object,
I put my efforts into the 3D models and "rent" a professional service bureau to physically print.
Just sign up for a "maker type place" and use their printer .send Stl and receive part. Easy. cheaply.

[stephaniea44]

I think its possible