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From Austria, the World's Smallest 3D Printer
fangmcgee writes "Printers which can produce three-dimensional objects have been available for years. However, at the Vienna University of Technology, a printing device has now been developed which is much smaller, lighter and cheaper than ordinary 3D-printers. With this kind of printer, everyone could produce small, tailor-made 3D-objects at home, using building plans from the internet — and this could save money for expensive custom-built spare parts."
It may not be as small, but just about -- and a kit is $1299US, cheaper than $1707US ($1200EU), but some assembly is required, and it doesn't harden a bath of patented chemical liquid with LEDs -- Makerbot builds things using a plastruder (high res hot glue gun) and a spool of "lego" plastic.
Still waiting for the "revolution".... I feel that it's just around the corner.
Agreed. Or a reprap for $800 USD http://www.makergear.com/products/3d-printers
What's impressive about this device isn't the price (at twice the mendel reprap), it's the precision (.05 mm) at that cost.
It's small, but probably not as cheap as a Rep Rap which is a fully open-source implementation of a 3D printer that's been around for a few years. They've developed the first iteration into the 'Mendel' which has addrssed some of the issues they came across in initial development.
gas cap is complex. track wheels you want a lathe. button I can't tell.
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if you bothered to read the 1 page article you would know its not cheaper than the Rep Rap, it weighs in at 1200 euros
BUT! the rep rap is at best a toy with little practical use outside of a hobby market, this on the other hand could be used for light commercial applications
Why do you say that? The Rep Rap can produce the same quality as this commercial 3D printer if built properly and can fit in a better form factor if you really needed it to. What can this device do that the Rep Rap can't?
This thing has sub millimeter precision levels - I don't think the Rep Rap is quite so precise. That puts it in the potential tool category. The Fine Machine also uses a 'resin' based substrate and might well be strong enough and stable enough to make useful objects. The Rep Rap seems to be limited by it's relatively weak thermoplastic material.
Do Want.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I'd think the precision on makerbot, rep raps, etc. is sub-millimeter given that similar stepper motors I've seen driving the carriage and platform could get you there.
What's interesting though, is as you mentioned, using this light activated resin with none of the usual extruder complications. I'd really like to see some finished, intricate product out of the prototype. At 20th of a millimeter layer thickness for Z resolution, and good X,Y res, I'd like to see what you get.
Lego bricks have precision that is *FAR* higher than what is apparently obtainable with this device. You may very well be able to make your own Lego parts, but they probably wouldn't fit regular Lego very well.
Okay so you get to make Mega Bloks instead!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Milling is a subtractive process. Start with a block of stock material and a drawing of the part you want. Cut away everything that ain't your part.
3D printing is an additive process. Start with feedstock material of some kind, and through some process fuse bits of it together to form your part. The machine in the article solidifies a resin slurry. Many 3D printers extrude plastic rod through a heater barrel, and deposit the molten plastic onto previous layers and let the whole thing solidify again. There are many 3D printing processes with various advantages and drawbacks.
Both milling and 3D printing involve a Cartesian robot that moves the tool head and/or the build table to achieve X/Y/Z positioning. A key difference between something like the MakerBot is that there are zero side forces on the tool head as it moves around. When you are driving cutting tool through steel stock on a mill there are big-time side forces. This is the key reason 3D printers are small, light, and office friendly, and why mills are big, nasty machines that weigh thousands of pounds and can rip your arm off.
Resolution is limited by the deposition process, not the Cartesian robot. On the typical RepRap, thats around 0.5mm, although some guys are experimenting with finer nozzles. High res 3D printers exist -- one I have seen prints UV curable resin using something like an ink-jet process. Outrageously fine resolution.
I have a CupCake -- it's tweaky. It's fun for hackers, but it isn't turn-key, it's a lifestyle choice.
RepRap can produce parts as big as this whole printer is big.
I think the finest detail size to manufactured object size ratio is on RepRap's size, and commercial application of this is primarily limited by absolutely tiny work area. And the resin is expensive. Sure this has its place where one needs tiny precise custom parts. But I believe objects bigger than a cubic inch are in higher demand...
There was a different project, that utilized similar approach but much better work area. http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/04/homebrew-liquid-resin-3d-printer-gets-resolution-boost.html
This actually has a potential to be cheaper, because it uses pretty normal LCD screen, not LED projector one with microscopic pixels.
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But with a 3D printer you don't need all those normal machine tools. If it's a part that the 3D printer is capable of printing at high enough tolerances and in the right material (and as the technology continues to involved the quality of both the printing process and the materials used will improve) then it will be cheaper to print it yourself than to order it from someplace using old style mass production techniques. The cost of the equipment that needs to be amortized is far less that way, and there are less people involved in the chain who need to make a profit.
Of course in reality at least some companies will switch from custom dies and CNC and such and just print the parts out themselves, lowering the cost. Others may decide it's cheaper to sell you the plans and let you print it out yourself (either on your own printer or at the local Kinko's.) And of course some companies will switch to the new production method, keep charging just as much as they did for the old production method, and sue anyone who tries to print out the parts themselves.
Like the other commenter pointed out, this is just like the switch from large scale printing presses to personal printers. You can still save money in some circumstances (very large print runs) but most of the time it will be cheaper to use your own printer for single copies and small batches rather than dealing with a whole supply chain.
Arguing that the _old_ cost of printing is justified because of the amount of labor involved in carving out the woodblocks for the images is.... kinda irrelevant?
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