

3D Printing Vending Machine on the UC Berkeley Campus - kaptain
http://www.3dreambox.com/

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sbuccini
I pass by this machine all the time, so hopefully I can offer some insight:

* It's pretty much just a Makerbot in a enclosure. There is an Android tablet that you enter your information into which allows you to retrieve your object.

* The machine is surprisingly busy, even though a lot of people I talk to on campus don't know about it. I suppose that's one of the perks of having a lot of people in one area.

* It's great for people to make 3D models without the hassle of setting up and maintaining a printer of their own.

I'm curious to hear the metrics to see if it's in line with my casual
observations.

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Eduardo3rd
What a great minimum viable product!

Ignoring the fact that there's obviously going to need to be more
breakthroughs in 3D printing before this can scale I think that this setup
could shed some light on the demand for consumer 3D printing. A large spike in
demand followed by a bunch of complaints about the user experience/wait
time/build quality/etc could tell you which part of the printer process needs
to be optimized first before this can gain widespread acceptance. Excited to
follow this in the months to come.

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plusbryan
Great concept, but it's a bit ahead of it's time. We'll get there, but
consumer-grade 3d printing is nowhere near unattended operation like this.

Stereolithography maybe, but additive 3d printing tech like the one shown in
this video suffers from all sorts of issues requiring operator assistance -
like the object unsticking from the build plate, and the head needing frequent
cleaning. Unless this "vending machine" is manned, I doubt it could be
useful/successful until technology improves.

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johnvschmitt
Exactly true. Today's tools* require far too much maintenance & operator
involvement to be fully automated like this.

Shapeways.com & Ponoko & others have "upload & print" (by mail) services, &
they work well, since they have operators in their facility.

*But, things change fast. It might just be a few months or years before the machines can reliably produce without maintenance & operator steps. Is this it already? I'm curious & signed up & will give it a try.

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Toadsoup
I like this model. It makes a lot more sense to get people used to the
technology without a huge upfront investment.

The biggest reason that I don't have a 3d printer is after the first week of
making things, I have no idea what I would possibly use it for. Having a setup
like this would be perfect as parts would still be rapid (compared to having
them made & shipped) and it would save the large upfront expense.

Sure there may be some quality & operational issues to address, but that's
fine.

A webcam might be useful for both the end user to watch his part being created
and for the operator to remotely check for jams, clogs, messes, and other
disasters.

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sbuccini
I believe there is a webcam inside the machine that allows you to watch parts
being made.

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josephpmay
Though I like the idea, I feel like this would work much better as a business
if you had professional printers instead of (what appears to be) Makerbots in
the vending machine. The fact that this is limited to small, one colour
designs greatly lessens the appeal. Also, I am concerned that objects would
break coming down that shoot mechanism.

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tnicks
So some back of the envelope calculations here...correct me if I misstep:

They average 5.70 per product. Assumption - 1 product per hour. Assumption -
20hrs/day (leaving time for adding more plastic and down time)

This totals about $114/day and at 7 days a week this would take approx. 16
days to pay for the box itself. Now include expense of filament (again, approx
$20 per day for 20 pieces or so, this is a guess and highly depending on the
product and I am assuming they took that into account) for a total of about 20
days of constant 20hr/day operation to pay for just the materials and printer.
Now include the costs of creating a queuing system for procrastinators who
don't pick up their stuff right away. And technician time to manage errors,
refills, maintenance, etc. If you can get 250 people to buy a product this
sounds like a decent idea.

Now just make sure neat things can be printed and you are a winner.

I may have to try this.

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recursive
On this scale, it seems like the retail frontage space would be a non-trivial
expense.

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eldr
This could be really cool, although as other people have said, achieving
unattended operation seems like it will be challenging.

Does anybody know how the metal printing is supposed to work? Selective laser
sintering machines that I've seen all seem way too big to fit in a vending
machine.

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benjamincburns
We had one where I used to work. I wasn't responsible for it or anything, but
I'd guess it's base was around 8ft by 4ft, and it stood about 6ft tall.

This one worked by depositing a thin layer of aluminum/magnesium powder over
the working base. A laser would then fire, igniting the magnesium which would
fuse together the aluminium. The laser draws the shape of that layer of the
feature. When the layer is complete, the process repeats for the next layer.

The biggest thing I'd worry about is liability and cost of operation. Because
their raw material mix is basically thermite, they have a not insignificant
potential to explode during use. While removing parts, for instance, you need
to worry about sparks igniting the airborne mixture creating a firebomb. The
material is also quite hazardous to your lungs and eyes even when it's not
aflame.

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mrtbld
This seems cool, but I was wondering: Why is it called "3D printing" machine
and not "sculpting" machine?

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joezydeco
"Scuplting" implies something being carved away from a block of larger source
material. 3D printing builds an object by adding layers of material in the
exact pattern of the object.

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drivers99
In trying to figure out what I was trying to say, I found the following on
wikipedia: "Durable sculptural processes ... used carving (the removal of
material) and modelling (the addition of material, as clay) ... A wide variety
of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or
modelling, or molded, or cast."

It seems that building up the material could fall under sculpture, which is
called "modelling."

Maybe we should call them 3D modellers instead of 3D printers. Except that "3D
modellers" is kind of ambiguous. It sounds like a person who makes 3D models.

