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Cubify 3D Printers Aren't Just for Squares (Video)
There are other 3D printers out there, but Cubify claims theirs is easier to use, has easier cartridge changes, and is all-around nicer and cooler than their competition. And Timothy Lord found them at Google I/O 2012, which means Google thinks they're cool, too. Wow. At only $1300 for their basic model (plus $50 each for the plastic "print" cartridges), every home should have one of these. Or maybe two or three. Or maybe Hackerspaces will buy all of them, and that's where we'll go to satisfy our lust for 3D printing.
Something closed-source, with proprietary consumables, and based on how it looks likely difficult to repair.
No thanks, I'll stick with a Makerbot or RepRap 3D printer.
(plus $50 each for the plastic "print" cartridges)
Filament extruder plastic costs about $35 per kilo (talk about mixed measurements... but that's how its sold. Figure "fifteen bucks per pound")
So a loaded $50 cartridge should weigh at least 4 pounds total. I can't figure out on the website how much a cartridge weighs, but just looking at it it seems like you're paying a pretty high premium for your plastic.
Not quite as bad as "precious metal cost" printer ink, but I bet by the time HP sells a 3-d printer they'll find a way to make the plastic cost more than, say, silver, on a weight basis.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The thing that makes me nervous about this 'Cubify' business, though the hardware certainly has a more polished look than some of the DIY models, is that it appears to derive its attitude toward software and consumables from the same cesspool that consumer inkjets use...
By the pictures, the 'cartridge' is a smallish reel of polymer filament('proprietary ABS' per the FAQ). ABS filament should set you back less than $20/lb, not $50/cartridge-of-unspecified-capacity-and-properties...
And software? Ha, ha, ha. Even if you already have an STL object ready to roll, it's their fisher-price-meets-flash-game mutant bastard child of kiddo's first 3d modelling application/device-driver for you. But at least you get 25 free 'creations' if you buy one! Have they been poaching software guys from HP's consumer printers division or something?
It's honestly somewhat baffling. Given economies of scale, mass production, experience, potentially useful patents, etc. it shouldn't be terribly difficult for commercial 3d-printer vendors to compete on hardware specs(along with fit-and-finish and easy availability of finished products rather than kits) with the various DIY contraptions, but these 'Cubify' fellows seem determined to undermine what might be promising hardware with usurious consumables pricing and cringe-worthy software...
I know this will sound like shilling, but all I can give is my personal assurances that I have no connection to the site.
Shapeways.com is cool. I realized long ago that I won't personally 3d print very many items, and there are still economies of scale to 3d printing, even if a lot less than manufacturing. So shapeways has multiple varieties of 3d printer, and numerous materials of varying pricing, and open source models other users have printed you can use or modify and use. As a user, you only see the software(blender) and the finished product when it's shipped to you. Actually OWNING a 3d printer doesn't appeal to me much, but there are a couple things I'm working on to (eventually, some day) print.
SoI take it you have never heard of lost wax casting I take it?
You print the item you want, you pack that in a material with a higher melting point than the desired material for the object, melt the end material and pour it in.
What I want to know is when will these things have a hopper where I can chuck all my old laundry detergent bottles as feedstock?
Someone had to do it.
I don't see people going to a hackerspace to print something out. This tech will take off when it gets adopted by home improvement stores. Then you can get your printed plastic at the same place you get your cut glass and timber.
Oh, you can refill the cartridge; but does your filament have the correct cryptographically-signed-and-timestamped anti-tamper code printed along its entire length?
If the optical-verification scanner in the filament feed path encounters a missing section, or a section not signed with the private key corresponding to the public key QR-coded on the filament cartridge, it won't continue printing, now will it?
And don't even think about a replay atttack... Each cartridge's key is reported to the Consumable License Activation Server upon first installation, and each Enciphered Consumable Subsection String is reported as consumed when it first passes through the optical-verification path. If a printer attempts to validate a previously validated cartridge key, or reports the consumption of filament with the same Enciphered Consumable Subsection String more than once, your printer will fail Cubify Genuine Advantage...
(The above is sarcasm; but I suspect that it wouldn't exactly be rocket-surgery to implement such a system in the real world...)
Or you could have the local smithy cast it for a shilling.
It's a popular idea, but the materials science guys tell us that re-melted plastic has different properties than "fresh" plstic, and the more times you melt it, the worse it gets (more brittle, different melting temp. etc)
If you want accurate prints, you're going to need fresh plstic. Sad but true.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Unfortunately all plastics are different.
No plastic is the same, plastics have different composition, additives, melting points, all sorts of different properties that really makes it impossible to melt them together and expect any sort of consistency.
OTOH it instead of melting the plastics, your old bottles could be shredded somehow into powder and then mixed with something sticky, some glue or epoxy, but even then different behaviours of different plastics would be problematic.
You can't handle the truth.