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Post by xiombarg on Oct 2, 2012 0:03:01 GMT -5
Computer make me a cup for my Earl Grey Tea. Engage! Gene Roddenbury knew all to well that replicators would be possible, and decades before the actual technology was thought up. Thank you Gene for your awesome shows and your innovative ideas. Up next the molecular transporter followed by warp speed! Too true! There was actually a little documentary piece about this, but the only thing that stuck in my mind was the cell phone aka. communicator.
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Post by magengar on Oct 2, 2012 0:16:50 GMT -5
to think, they actually had BRICKS, in space, back then! ;D zozo-mag .....the only thing that stuck in my mind was the cell phone aka. communicator.
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Post by xtrlowz75 on Oct 2, 2012 1:56:57 GMT -5
I think it is cool that at some point very soon we can make new missiles and weapons for our loved toys at a fraction of the price to buy or bid on them. Even my Gi Joes can now be complete haha.
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Post by Kidchuckle on Oct 2, 2012 7:33:54 GMT -5
ha me and a few illustration buddies talked about it. it sound crazy fun! Although there's lots of tweaking I hear for some of other home grown printers. (sometimes there are wholes). Or spacing maybe a issue (or thickness of parts). It sounded fairly fiddily.
But this new machine seems like it would take a lot of the frustration out from earlier home 3d printers.
I'm curious on what the fansproject transformer guys do. Or what machine they use.
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Post by magengar on Oct 4, 2012 2:52:22 GMT -5
I think the home 3D printer technology will evolve so that future machines will be able to produce objects with better quality and minimal flaws. After that, (and even now), it's up to the individual user to learn how to set the machine up in the proper dynamics as specified by the object to be made.
The basic approach is similar to setting up and programming a CNC die-cutter or grinder machine to sculpt aluminum parts and dies.
zozo-mag
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Post by xiombarg on Oct 4, 2012 13:34:53 GMT -5
ha me and a few illustration buddies talked about it. it sound crazy fun! Although there's lots of tweaking I hear for some of other home grown printers. (sometimes there are wholes). Or spacing maybe a issue (or thickness of parts). It sounded fairly fiddily. But this new machine seems like it would take a lot of the frustration out from earlier home 3d printers. I'm curious on what the fansproject transformer guys do. Or what machine they use. Holes usually show up when you don't have big enough wall thicknesses, and the allowable wall thickness depends on the printer. I would suspect the Form1 printer will allow for as thin as .02 of an inch (or roughly half a millimeter) which is fairly typical for newer stereolithography printers. As to what the fansproject guys are using... it's high end for sure, but my guess is that it all ends up being plastic injected, otherwise I don't think they could supply the quantities they do and have relatively fast turn around times.
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Post by Watari on Oct 4, 2012 20:42:01 GMT -5
Wait, the 3rd Party Transformers guys are using 3D printers to mass produce their stuff? Now that is awesome
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Post by xiombarg on Oct 4, 2012 21:26:09 GMT -5
Wait, the 3rd Party Transformers guys are using 3D printers to mass produce their stuff? Now that is awesome Well... most likely they are using 3D printing for the prototypes, but the end result would almost have to be plastic injection molding. To mass produce on the scale of fansproject, 3D printing would take way too long for processing and post processing.
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Post by magengar on Oct 5, 2012 2:13:56 GMT -5
and besides, 3D printing is kinda geared towards individual use for making one's own objects. I don't think a 3D printer could handle mass production even at a slow rate; that would certainly put a lot of wear-n-tear on the mechanical and electronic parts real fast. A 3D printer by itself is quite expensive right now, starting roughly at around the $2,000 price range... so imagine how expensive it would be to maintain the machine through average use and buy replacement parts when something wears or breaks down.
Nonetheless, once you have the machine all you'll need to worry about is maintenance; and of course the printing materials for the jobs (whatever type of 'plastic' material that the machine will support).
If it were Me with a 3D printer, I'd use the printed object as a prototype to make rubber molds and then cast dupes of the object by hand, with the object serving as a master template piece.
zozo-mag
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Post by xiombarg on Oct 5, 2012 11:27:46 GMT -5
and besides, 3D printing is kinda geared towards individual use for making one's own objects. I don't think a 3D printer could handle mass production even at a slow rate; that would certainly put a lot of wear-n-tear on the mechanical and electronic parts real fast. A 3D printer by itself is quite expensive right now, starting roughly at around the $2,000 price range... so imagine how expensive it would be to maintain the machine through average use and buy replacement parts when something wears or breaks down. Nonetheless, once you have the machine all you'll need to worry about is maintenance; and of course the printing materials for the jobs (whatever type of 'plastic' material that the machine will support). If it were Me with a 3D printer, I'd use the printed object as a prototype to make rubber molds and then cast dupes of the object by hand, with the object serving as a master template piece. zozo-mag Exactly. And this is the same reason why having your own printer isn't all that necessary for the average hobbyist who knows how to cast. Just use a service, get your part, and then make multiples. You also mention the cost of the materials, which if you compare the price of 3D printer resin to regular casting resin, it's probably four to five times more expensive to use printer resin than it is to cast them.
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Post by bourno on Oct 5, 2012 23:08:08 GMT -5
There is a new kickstarter program for a thermal plastic printer
The price is very good at $800, and sounds interesting for trying to take out much of the setup and adjustment time for printing. I am still trying to get a collective buy at work for the Form1 printer, but no one is really interested in 3D printers.
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Post by magengar on Oct 6, 2012 5:25:25 GMT -5
...And, ya get to cast the resin in yer own choice of colors, or all of them, too. ;D zozo-mag and besides, 3D printing is kinda geared towards individual use for making one's own objects. I don't think a 3D printer could handle mass production even at a slow rate; that would certainly put a lot of wear-n-tear on the mechanical and electronic parts real fast. A 3D printer by itself is quite expensive right now, starting roughly at around the $2,000 price range... so imagine how expensive it would be to maintain the machine through average use and buy replacement parts when something wears or breaks down.
Nonetheless, once you have the machine all you'll need to worry about is maintenance; and of course the printing materials for the jobs (whatever type of 'plastic' material that the machine will support).
If it were Me with a 3D printer, I'd use the printed object as a prototype to make rubber molds and then cast dupes of the object by hand, with the object serving as a master template piece.
zozo-mag Exactly. And this is the same reason why having your own printer isn't all that necessary for the average hobbyist who knows how to cast. Just use a service, get your part, and then make multiples. You also mention the cost of the materials, which if you compare the price of 3D printer resin to regular casting resin, it's probably four to five times more expensive to use printer resin than it is to cast them.
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Post by magengar on Oct 6, 2012 5:33:47 GMT -5
Wow... I really like the design of that Pandabot printer; it looks so simple and compact. I was excited about the Makerbot 3D printer when it first debuted. But, to be honest, it does look kinda ugly to me... ...I guess the wood case makes it appear bulky, like it was built in Skid Row down by the L.A. City Mission. ;D Meanwhile, the Pandabot looks really slick and light-weight, like it was professionally built as a consumer product for hobbyists in this new trend. the Pandabot wins, hands down. zozo-mag There is a new kickstarter program for a thermal plastic printer The price is very good at $800, and sounds interesting for trying to take out much of the setup and adjustment time for printing. I am still trying to get a collective buy at work for the Form1 printer, but no one is really interested in 3D printers.
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Post by xiombarg on Oct 7, 2012 11:57:52 GMT -5
The best thing about that Pandabot is the price. To be fair to Makerbot, they do have a new printer than can print detail up to 100 microns (roughly as thick as a piece of paper) which is much better than what they've had in the past, but even at 100 microns a printed piece will have a fair amount of texture, and the cost of one of the Makerbots is more than twice as much as the Pandabot at around a couple thousand dollars. I'm not sure what the Pandabot's resolution is, but it appears to be similar to this.
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Post by luclin999 on Oct 8, 2012 0:01:32 GMT -5
The best thing about that Pandabot is the price. To be fair to Makerbot, they do have a new printer than can print detail up to 100 microns (roughly as thick as a piece of paper) which is much better than what they've had in the past, but even at 100 microns a printed piece will have a fair amount of texture, and the cost of one of the Makerbots is more than twice as much as the Pandabot at around a couple thousand dollars. I'm not sure what the Pandabot's resolution is, but it appears to be similar to this. The claim in their specs is: Layer thickness: 0.1mm Which is the same as 100 microns. The real question is whether it can actually print reliably at that scale or do you need to print at a lower resolution in order to reduce errors in the job.
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Post by xiombarg on Oct 9, 2012 1:14:31 GMT -5
Right. But I think a big part of the reliability of one printer to another has to do with difference in how the resin (or plastic) is applied. It appears that the Pandabot uses a similar type of printing method as the Makerbot Replicator which heats and extrudes a plastic filament string through nozzle. Up to this point this filament method has had some difficulties recreating models with very small holes or gaps at small sizes as the ABS filament doesn't adequately release from one portion of the model to another as the nozzle is moving around to build these more complex structures at a small scale, but this has become much less of a problem than it was even a year ago with newer and smaller filament types.
The reason stereolithography works so well is because it's not extruding anything so nothing gets stuck to a nozzle or stuck to a part of the model surface where it isn't supposed to be, or worse yet, not sticking to what it's supposed to. Stereolithography uses a pool of liquid resin where a "laser" moves over the top of the pool which cures and solidifies the resin in a 25 micron thick layer wherever the laser touches. Once a layer is cured, that layer moves down into the resin pool so that the next layer starts which cures and sticks to the top of the previous layer, and so on. When all the layers have been cured on top of each other, up out of the pool comes your finished product, very clean and without unwanted resin where it shouldn't be.
In a round about way, both processes are doing the same thing, but because the laser can be so specific in its curing area, it doesn't have the same potential hangups of plastic that is being melted and squeezed through a nozzle.
To be fair though, filament has come a long way. The filament in the past has always been ABS, but the new PLA filament is supposed to be MUCH MUCH better and more predictable in how it hardens up. For most models I'll bet this would probably work great though with more surface texture than stereolithography (SLA).
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Post by bourno on Oct 10, 2012 11:23:46 GMT -5
I have been watching and reading the 3d printers for the past year, but haven't ever operated one. It does seem like the plastic extruders are getting better and better for producing nicer looking parts. Some of the more cheap printers about a year ago looked horrible in my opinion for what they produced and only the more expensive ones looked decent.
But, I do have to admit, the newer extruders are producing pretty good parts with decent resolution. Still seems like they can be time consuming to get things dialed in for producing those results though from reading here and there.
These first "light" curing printers are already in the price range of the higher end "extruder" units for cost for the basic machine. Of course, minus the material to produce the parts. Not sure how much the resin prices will drop down as the machine makers are mixing and making their own resins and not having the end user buy it from a 3rd party. Back in April/May, there were some open projects going on, but seemed to die out when the B9Creator was shown on kickstarter.
Some good discussion here. Was thinking about the Pandabot, but may just bide some time to see if the resin cure printers may come about more, like the boom with the plastic extruders.
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Post by Falconhood on Dec 16, 2012 9:05:25 GMT -5
I wonder if this becomes more popular and more perfected that they will have to crack-down on illegal toy downloads, like on Nabster with music.
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Post by xiombarg on Dec 16, 2012 14:13:54 GMT -5
A good way to go about getting a printer would be to find some people in your local area who would be willing to all go in on one and just keep it in a central place.
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Post by Falconhood on Dec 25, 2012 20:54:52 GMT -5
like a work place. or a lab.
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