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3D Printer Round-Up: Cube 3D, Up! Mini, and Solidoodle
MojoKid writes "3D printing is a fascinating new technology and an exploding new market. The process involved is pretty basic actually. Heat up some plastic, and sort of like that Play-Doh Fun Factory you were so fond of as a kid, you extrude the melted plastic out to create objects. It all started back in 2007 when the first RepRap machine was built. The idea behind RepRap was to design a machine that could build complex parts in three dimensions using extruded molten plastic and that machine could also "self-replicate" or build a copy of itself. Since then, 3D printers of all types have emerged from the community and this round-up of machines covers a few of the more prominent names in 3D printing systems. The Cube 3D, the Up! Mini and the Solidoodle 2 can all get you into 3D printing at retail consumer price points with precision down to 100 microns. The technology has very much come of age and it's going to be interesting to see where these machines can take us."
Whether or not they have a legitimate beef against FormLabs, the act of dragging Kickstarter into their little patent war was absolutely inexcusable. This is a company that sees itself as threatened not only by competition, but by the existence of the marketplace itself.
If you are considering purchasing a 3D printer you could do well to pick a company that won't use your money to suppress competition through enforcement of bullshit patents on abstract ideas like photolithography. Or one whose business model is so insecure that it relies on barratry against unrelated parties.
Disclaimer: I own a MakerBot Replicator 1, and haven't used any of the models published in the article. These printers look promising and have attractive price points, but here are my two big complaints about home 3D printing that none of them address yet, AFAIK.
1. printing with ABS plastic literally stinks. If your printer's in the garage or shop it's probably not so bad, but woe to the user that keeps one of these printers in a home office. Good ventilation is a must, but breezes and drafts can significantly mess with your print quality. I prefer to print with PLA (corn-based) plastic, because it smells like Mrs. Butterworth's imitation maple syrup. Makerbot's already doing this with its Replicator 2-- as I understand it they've given up on ABS for their first version and only print with PLA.
2. Overhangs. I doubt any of these printers can yet print an overhang that's more than 2mm without post-processing support. Gravity tends to pull overhangs down during the printing process, meaning the object's designer has to take the orientation of the printed object into account when designing it. As amazing as home 3D printing is, this is a pretty severe limitation once one gets past printing cubes and scans of heads.
The first company to produce a 3D printer that can handle big overhangs has my upgrade cash.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
Watch a few episodes of Jay Leno's garage where they use a 3D printer to make parts and molds for vintage vehicle restorations.
This video of a sand printer is the most interesting application of 3D printing technology I've seen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8MaVaqNr3U
I've been building my Prusa Mendel for several months now (work's been crazy, I should be able to finish it over winter break).
I think if I had it to do again I'd get a Makerbot, the RepRap open source models promise a lot but there are a lot of pitfalls: available instructions, software and parts on eBay all seem to be at different versions at all times!
To me it would have been worth the extra $500 to just get a box that had everything, that was guaranteed to all fit together, not look strange or different from the instructions, and have support, but to each his own. I'm definitely learning a lot -- having the wrong revision of something physical is a big deal compared to having the wrong commit of ImageMagick :) It's something OSS fab folk will have to deal with going forward.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Bit extreme, no? I've used Craigslist and eBay both as a buyer and seller and never once have I had a single problem. Sure fraud happens there, but fraud happens everywhere, it is not unique to either platform. All that is required is user intelligence, and kickstarter is not much different except for instead of buying a product that maybe someone will never send you you are buying a product that maybe will never exist. Besides that: Kickstarter, though it has its problems, has also had its deal of successes where people that don't have the ability to make things but have the money to buy them are paired up with people that have the ability to make things but not the money to sell them. The only people that could be mad at Kickstarter are people too dumb to read and understand what they are getting from investing in a campaign (read: good feelings for trying to help out what they perceive as a good idea). If you're backing a campaign because you want to buy a finished product you're doing it wrong.
Your claim, that it is not possible for two similar non-obvious solutions to be arrived at independently is itself open to ridicule.
Sure, it's possible. That's not the question. Should it result in the issuance of a 20-year government-sanctioned monopoly?
Only a sociopath would say as much.
RepRap only makes plastic parts, not quite two-thirds of itself. Compare that with a serious milling machine (and note not even a CNC one), which can and has made over 95% of itself since the 1940s.....
It's a toy for making cute plastic parts.....
What? The Solidoodle uses a plain spool. It's the 3D Systems unit that uses a cartridge.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Let's see... a layer size of 40 microns, maximum speed of 250 mm/s, build volume of 21x21x21 cm for only 1200 euros the DYI kit (or EUR 1700 pre-built). It beats everyone else in every department. Period.
Ok, it is still missing a second extruder or hotbed, and printing is still an art that takes skill and patience, as with any of the 3D printers in this price range.
Disclaimer: I own an Ultimaker, oh yeah.
If you're looking at getting into 3D printing, take heed that 3D Systems (maker of theCube 3D)are currently suing Formlabs (Kickstarter company pushing insane 3D technologies to consumer prices) over a seemingly ungrounded patent infringement. Read up either here: http://www.wired.com/design/2012/11/3d-systems-formlabs-lawsuit/ or google up a storm! I'm always careful to make sure I'm backing the innovators, not the litigators!
It sounds like you are only aware of the hobby-level printers.
FDM printers are a dead end.
Be aware that they have been around for over a decade. They are very common in engineering companies, ever since they replaced the UV hardened resin printers that came before them. The resins look pretty, but they are brittle and photo-degrade. They still have their place though.
...the overhang issue and the fluid dynamics problems limit this specific technology to "bleeding edge
The overhang issue was solved long ago by using soluble support-material. The hobby-level printers just don't include support for it.