HP Unveils Industrial 3D Printer 10X Faster, 50% Cheaper Than Current Systems

Lucas123 writes HP today announced an 3D industrial printer that it said will be half the cost of current additive manufacturing systems while also 10 times faster, enabling production parts to be built. The company also announced Sprout, a new immersive computing platform that combines a 23-in touch screen monitor and horizontal capacitive touch mat with a scanner, depth sensor, hi-res camera, and projector in a single desktop device. HP's Multi Jet Fusion printer will be offered to beta customers early next year and is expected to be generally available in 2016. The machine uses a print bar with 30,000 nozzles spraying 350 million drops a second of thermoplastic or other materials onto a print platform. The Multi Jet Fusion printer uses fused deposition modeling, an additive manufacturing technology first invented in 1990. the printer works by first laying down a layer of powder material across a build area. Then a fusing agent is selectively applied with the page-wide print bar. Then the same print bar applies a detailing agent at the parts edge to give high definition. The material is then exposed to an energy source that fuses it.

Comments

Since this is an HP product,

[idontgno]

the thermoplastic "ink" will be the most expensive substance on Earth, by weight or volume. And protected by a DRM'd cartridge system. And declare itself "empty" at about 25% remaining, in order to "protect the printer from running dry".

Re:Since this is an HP product,

[Russ1642]

And when you need more printing medium it's cheaper to just buy an entirely new printer rather than a new cartridge.

Re:Since this is an HP product,

[OzPeter]

the thermoplastic "ink" will be the most expensive substance on Earth, by weight or volume. And protected by a DRM'd cartridge system. And declare itself "empty" at about 25% remaining, in order to "protect the printer from running dry".

You also left out that the "ink" levels will slowly decrease over time if printer is not used.

And that if you are out of one "color" you still won't be able to print anything at all - even if you don't need to use that "color"

Re:Since this is an HP product,

[Anonymous Coward]

And the printer will be deliberately crippled so it can't print another printer.

Re:Since this is an HP product,

[Optic7]

Don't forget the clogging and drying up if you don't use the printer for a while, requiring buying new ink cartridges, or a whole new printer.

The 3D printing future is vastly underestimated

[MindPrison]

Anyone smart enough, should work and WORK on this.

The future of 3D printing is so big I can't even begin to mention it so most would understand it, but I'll give it a go:

1) Instant repair parts anywhere in the world on demand.
2) This is the beginning of teleportation!
3) Instant surgical body parts to anywhere in the world on demand.
4) Toys can be bought online, printed almost the same day, you'll pay for the consumables + design.
5) Businesses will be able to personalize your phones/ipads almost instantly.
6) We will build entire houses with this stuff.
7) We will even be able to bring parts to the moon/mars/outer-space without bringing them physically by spaceship.
8) We will even be able to print food, make the textures very similar by scanning eg. meat etc.
9) People! This is the beginning stages of the real replicator you all know from fictional stories as star-trek etc.
10) Insert your own idea / wish here, I can't be the only one.

I will encourage ANY company to do this, small or big. This can only go too slow, if you ever wanted to get in on a revolution in the making, THIS IS IT!

Great Source!

[wsloand]

My favorite part of the article is the fact that it appears to be written by HP given the file:// link in the article.

As always the description is wrong

[Plazmid]

The printer does not spray "drops of thermoplastic," it sprays magic chemicals that either inhibit or promote sintering onto a bed of thermoplastic powder and then uses a big o' incandescent bulb to fuse the powder. This is pretty much the selective inhibition of sintering process, so the magic chemicals are probably just something like salt water and black ink.

Now what does this mean? Well because you have to spray a sintering inhibitor on, you can't recycle as much powder, unless they give you a special powder recycler for removing the inhibitor. Because you're printing out lots of black ink, can't really recycle powder, and HP will lock you into using their cartridges you will be paying out the a$$ for ink and 'toner.'

This is a HUGE development though. If the parts really have the same strength and detailing as those produced with laser sintering, as in even if this machine did not come equipped with color capability, then this has just made a lot of big industrial 3d printers obsolete. Getting rid of the need for laser and nitrogen gas purge system for sintering type machines is HUGE! Even with huge expensive print cartridges it's going to be cost competitive with everything out there.

Heck, it probably makes the whole 3d printing service bureau business model obsolete, because this puts high quality 3d printers in the cost range for small businesses.

This is probably the "attack of the killer micros" moment for the additive manufacturing industry.