

New 3D printer uses standard A4 paper to make complex models - replicatorblog
http://www.mcortechnologies.com/

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bprater
The marketers working at the company should be taken out back and flogged.
Show me the device and tell me how it works!

From what I can tell, it's like taking a big stack of paper, gluing all the
pages together and then carving it into the object of your desires. (The
carving and stacking order may be reversed.) And apparently, it's cheap, since
it's run-o-the-mill paper.

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yters
Why don't they just use solidified wood pulp, and remove the paper gluing
step? Seems inefficient to me.

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abstractbill
Right, but you can't pop down to the local store and buy wood pulp (can you?).
This does have the advantage of using something you can buy practically
anywhere.

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yters
Hmm, in that case, the machine should generate solidified wood pulp from any
paper waste. Then your source of material is much larger and cheaper - i.e.
cast off cardboard boxes from the local supermarket, irregular shapes and
sizes don't need to be glued together.

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endtwist
This is particularly interesting, especially as opposed to the plastic and
resin-based printers. While less useful should someone want to actually use
the printed parts, it definitely has its uses under a great number of
circumstances, such as models (e.g.: dental, as they show), or cheap custom-
fit packaging.

Looking at the cost of these models ($9 for the model of a head, $1 for the
model of the teeth), I would love to have one of these just to print up things
for prototyping ideas or just as models to paint. As well, I could see many
companies adopting this as a secondary tool to the resin-based machines, being
a cheaper way to prototype things roughly so they can refine it and then print
a more complete prototype on the resin-machine.

On that note, anyone have any idea how much this machine will cost?

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replicatorblog
endtwist, totally agree. the reduction of cost to that level would make this
ideal for consumer applications too, like toys. Could imagine all sorts of
uses for a tool like this, if it can truly produce parts that cheaply. I think
the only other concern would be time. if it takes 10 hours to produce a model
that is going to be a barrier.

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otoburb
10 hours isn't a long time, relative to the amount of effort it would take to
produce something similar with other materials or older processes.

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replicatorblog
You are right, I'm just thinking about it in terms of production rather than
prototyping. 10 hours is nothing in an engineering office, but if you are
trying to produce low price point consumer products, or custom packaging, or
something along those lines it becomes cost prohibitive.

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lallysingh
Please don't use something this wasteful (paper) for production.

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replicatorblog
Lallysingh, I totally agree with what you are saying, but you need to balance
the "wastefulness" with the environmental benefits:

Lower embodied energy - With personal fabrication machines more products can
be produced locally. This reduces the need for transportation, warehousing,
returns, and a great deal of scrap.

Solid Waste Management - There is a raging debate in environmental circles
regarding the use of paper vs. plastic grocery bags. It turns out paper bags
have a number of problems. Their recyclability and biodegradability work in
their favor though. These things could be composted or recycled. Plastic items
for similar purposes will be in landfills for more than 10,000 years.

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lallysingh
All very good points. Is there a way to do this without the rest of those
sheets of paper going to garbage? Maybe if it glues small rectangles together
across instead of a large sheet of paper?

Some of this reminds me of some of Stephenson's earlier work with raw material
feeds being distributed as we do water, with local fabrication at home in a
microwave-sized device.

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jonhohle
Paper based prototyping, like LOM (laminated object manufacturing), can
produce parts with a similar texture to wood. They're pretty durable once
finished, but a major problem is that when you're done you're part is stuck
somewhere in a block of wood (a 8.5x11xN block in this case). The machine will
hatch the negative areas for easier removal, but there is still quite a bit of
post processing, and the final product is generally lacquered to prevent
splitting.

I'm sure replicatorblog knows the current state of the art better then me,
but, while this technology is cheaper than what was going on 5 to 10 years
ago, its no more advanced. All of these cheap "3D Printers" have the same
drawbacks people have been dealing with for a decade, they just cost thousands
instead of hundreds of thousands, and are less accurate.

I feel like rapid prototyping/3d printing is going to be one of those things
that is always x-years away from breaking into mainstream, where x is some
constant.

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replicatorblog
Jonhohle, I know what you mean, 3D printing always seems to be in the 5+ years
portion of most technical reports by companies like Gartner. I'm not a big
believer in the immediate application of 3D printing, but I think progress is
being made. Companies like www.figureprints.com are starting to bridge the gap
between science fiction and everyday commerce. While it is certainly "nichey"
we should remember that we had rotisserie baseball on Prodigy before Google
and Wikipedia.

You are also right that the low cost printers aren't much better. Their value
is more in exposing smart people with diverse skill sets to the technology and
from there bright entrepreneurs will find a way to commercialize it. We need
hackers and marketers to understand the potential before we have Amazon.com

I wouldn't be surprised if the first big inroads are in toys and game related
things, but quickly swing to critical areas like medical. In any case a fun
area worth watching.

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mixmax
I had no idea that anyone still made whole sites in flash. Horriffic !

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replicatorblog
yeah, neat technology, but the site is terrible. You can make realistic
looking teeth out of copy paper and you bury the image in a crappy flash
gallery 10 pics in? Hopefully the technology is better than the marketing.

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kirse
Sometimes I wonder if the average person makes these amazing leaps of judgment
(i.e. flash website = poor product) when they visit a site in flash.

Aren't you in the business of 3D printing also?

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replicatorblog
Kirse, I didn't say the product was inferior because it had a flash website.
I'm actually a big flash fan. My comment was more to do with their
presentation of info. The 3D models they produce are amazing and should be
prominently featured, not at the bottom of the list. I'm not in 3D printing
actually, just blog about it.

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tamersalama
Goodbye trees :(

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slackerIII
Ah, but what if someone uses this device to prototype a system that reduces
the amount of trees used for other purposes?

