

3D printer for $5000 shipping in 2009 - martythemaniak
http://www.desktopfactory.com/our_product/

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biohacker42
5K is a bit much for an individual.

But a great business idea would a small shop, that owns one of these and sells
its use. You send them your plans, come in the next day and pick up the part.

It would be like a neighborhood factory, that manufactures anything you want.

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Retric
It can build a 5x5x5 inch cube, but at 1$/cubic inch it would cost you ~125$
to do so. Depending on size and tolerances I think it would be an excellent
way to prototype things like mice, but it's still far from cheep to use.

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wmf
Of course, most designs are smaller than a cube and hollow objects are much
cheaper.

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martythemaniak
Its not quite "The Diamond Age", but I still think it is really cool,
especially from a hobbyist perspective. Just think about all the stuff you've
wanted to build, but could not because it would have required both access to a
a workshop and the skills to use the machines there properly.

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electromagnetic
Well for someone wanting to prototype something, it might be a lot cheaper to
buy one of these than buy the equipment needed to create a prototype out of
wood.

I mean the fact that it can make a cylinder is great. I mean the only good
thing about prototyping with wood is that a wood lathe is relatively cheap due
to them existing for centuries.

Buying a small wood lathe and chisels would be relatively cheaper than this 3D
printer, but it would take a lot more skill and talent to create some of the
models you can see on the shapeways site.

I would like to know what temperature some of the 3D modelling materials melt
at as it would make it easy to use for casting of metal models. I mean if the
stuff melts at 100 degrees, you could just build the cast and melt the plastic
out just like using wax. If this was possible, it's just easy to imagine the
uses for turning a good prototype into a final product. It's like if you
design a good model, just build the cast pour in the metal and there's
something to sell. Like if you get this on a large scale imagine what could be
done for a cast-iron furniture business. Instead of hours spent sculpting a
model and then building a cast off it, you make a design and reuse it
repeatedly. For the convenience of printing out the model it would save a lot
of time and to say I saw a simple (very simple) cast-iron gate selling for
around $1500, you'd be able to absorb the $200 for making a new model every
time.

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samlittlewood
The Selective Laser Sintering "rapid" prototyping process can be used with
casting wax.

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jamesjyu
Love the idea the CEO said about manufacturers allowing people to download
files to print out objects to repair broken ones. No more waiting for a part
to ship!

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jasonlbaptiste
This completely shifts the way 3d printers and the industry works. The price
for most of these START at 18k, but really cost 50k. There's been a lot of
advancements in this area, including the open sourcing of schematics and
software for the technology.

Problem with this company... its vaporware. They've been talking things up and
"launching" for quite a while. I hope they do launch though, and soon, because
it will be a winner.

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nihilocrat
Now that you mention it, the picture of the printer looks like a rendered
mockup.

Still, choosing to reveal a product only when it's finished can be a really
good idea, depending on company and product.

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joshu
I saw one of thee in action. They material is, I think, a metallic powder and
a plastic powder. It produces a somewhat gritty model, using a vastly
different process than either the inkjet/glue/powder models, the extruded
type, or the laser sintering.

The more the merrier, I think.

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ivankirigin
Think $5K is too much? Just wait until you get a dozen services to print what
you want for cheap. Fab is overrated and underrated at the same time. We're
not going to make our own robots anytime soon, but we are going to get a
meteoric rise in expressiveness of physical identity.

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JoelSutherland
A good comparison is photo printing. Even Walmart now carries the expensive
Fuji machines that only the top online printers were using.

We'll see the same with Fab -- there will be personal models that work ok.
Things will take off though when you can run to Walmart and get things done on
a better 3D printer they can afford.

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DanielBMarkham
Oooooooh.

This is about as useful to me as a second nose, but for some reason I really
would like to have one. I guess because it represents the next huge step in
computers -- home manufacturing. Once that takes off in 30-40 years life will
never be the same.

