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

Posted by samzenpus on from the brand-new dept.

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.

4 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Where will decent software come from? by rolfwind · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Eh, I think the weakspot in any 3d printing will be the software. As a hobby engineer, I use Solidworks which is several thousand dollars (luckily already on some of my employer's computers so they foot the bill).

    But at home, I tried FreeCad, Cubify Invent, and several other free or cheap options and I find them invariably terrible, at least as far my limited experience can discern. FreeCad in particular, asides from UI nonintuitive issues and heaps of bugs (various cuts and operations simply disappearing for no reason), is only up to v0.14 since launching in 2002. It's like the Gnu Hurd of that genre.

    I don't see how the 3D printing revolution will remotely come to town without something decent on the software front that's $200 or less.

    *Posted this yesterday in a thread, but was too late for anyone to see it.

    1. Re:Where will decent software come from? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Interesting

      CAD is recognized by the FSF as an area with a lack of suitable Freely-licensed software.

      Really? What is wrong with FreeCAD? It is a full parametric 3D modeling system. It can be scripted in Python. It exports industry standard STL. I find it far easier to use than AutoCAD, SolidWorks, or any other CAD program I have used. I have used it for dozens of projects, and have run into no limitations. I have also used it with a 3D printing class at an elementary school for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. They also had no problems with it. The license is GPL.

    2. Re:Where will decent software come from? by choprboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well... I just got FreeCAD running last night. Been using QCad for several years and recently started OpenSCAD for some 3D modeling. So you want a new FreeCAD user's prospective?

      I have spent the last 4 nights, 3-4 hours each night, trying to build and install all the dependancies for FreeCAD v0.14 on a CentOS 6.5 box. It was an absolute nightmare. The build documentation is crap and lists multiple things as requirements that have changed to something else (i.e. PyQt4 -> PySide), dependancies claimed to be optional but are infact manditory (i.e. GtWebkit [or, as I did, get fed up and rip out the code... why in the hell do I need a download models option in the open menu? Why is git/svn/etc. demanded in an end-user executable?]), hardcoded -python2.7 version dependancies. This comes after all the mess of compiling half-a-dozen different 3D libriaries each with their own compiling problems.

      The first thing after finally getting it open.... the interface is a mish-mash of a dozen different modules with no indications of what to really use... The user has to go and learn every single one, then try to figure out what to use. Examples were installed... but who the hell knows where, there are no example libraries in the menu structure. And python? Why would a end-user want to learn Python just to create an object?

      So I try to open a pretty basic STL I made earlier in OpenSCAD (disc with some bolt holes and a flange).... it takes 60+sec to import the STL object, but atleast it looks right. Kind of have the construction tree for the object in panel, but no obvious way to edit the code. I move it a bit, rotate the object around... and then suddenly its gone with a stream of "array[-1]" errors in console... Not a good way to start.

  2. A good sign. by ndykman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's a sign that years and years of mismanagement maybe didn't completely kill the ability for them to come up with interesting stuff This is exactly the kind of thing they need to do. Shore up HP Labs and solve some neat problems and ship cool stuff. Sure, let's be skeptical, but good for them for trying.