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Engadget Experiences the Solidoodle 3 3D Printer
Engadget reports that former MakerBot employee Sam Cervantes has brought to market — or at least to Engadget headquarters in prototype form — a working, cheap(ish) 3D printer from his own company Solidoodle. Originally, the new Solidoodle 3 printer was announced at $500; the price has crept up to $800, but that still sounds like a bargain in the world of home fabrication. Unlike the current MakerBot, it has no built-in card slot, so a computer connection is required for the length of a build.
The problem with these ABS extruders is not building the frame. The problem is not building a 3-axis positioning system. The problem is that you're welding a hot thing to a cold thing. That's always going to be a marginal operation. Without a better welding process (I've suggested aiming a small laser at the weld point) this will continue to be a flaky technology. I've seen about five versions of this technology in action, and they all sort-of work, but don't yield consistently strong parts.
The ultraviolet stereolithography technology yields much better part quality, but still costs too much. Formlabs may succeed in getting the cost down to $3500 or so. They're demoing at CES.
I wish someone would make a companion 3d printer product that will recycle plastics into the plastic used to print things with some of these 3d printers. If you could turn most any plastic into a strong plastic ink source, then the cost of owning one of these printers goes down and gives people a reason to recycle with a fast gratification of making stuff.