3D printer – new work toy , a miriad of personal creations await!

There are others but I think the “reprap” was the first 3d printer designed to be self replicating.

How do you get the design into it? And how much detail can it do?

I was thinking you could get the designs for something, I dunno, an engine and its parts maybe, then just shrink it down and make a tiny teeny version.

It would also be cool if you could get hold of the 3d models they use for animated movies and such.

Orrr.. how about the 3d models they use for Google Earth? If you could somehow get the landscape and all the buildings you could make a model of your city.

Molgrips, it’s just a printer. Seriously.

You put the driver on the computer, open the file you want to print into AutoCAD or whatever, then send it to the printer. And it prints.

They are awesome.

Autocad eh.. hmm.. so if I could draw say.. doll’s house furniture.. hmm…

Surely the app has to support 3D though?

Anything that will save as an STL file will do it (other file types probably available). We use Solidworks but Autocad and a load of other CAD packages will work too inc the premimum version of sketchup I think. I have a silly little app on my phone called trimensional which makes stl files too which I might have to waste some school materials experimenting with.

Autocad eh.. hmm.. so if I could draw say.. doll’s house furniture.. hmm…

Like this: Thingiverse

Anything with an .STL file associated with it can be printed.

You put the .STL file through a program called Slic3r which, well, slices it, and then generates .GCODE. Give the .GCODE file to printer controller software ( like Pronterface ) and Bob has a more than passing acquaintance with your aunty.

This nice

Daughter #1’s school has a full on one…… Very cool. I’m amazed at the opportunities she’s getting.

I looked in my crystal ball and saw that in 8 years time, they will be common place in people’s homes

I looked in my crystal ball and saw that in 8 years time, they will be common place in people’s homes

you really think crystal balls are going to catch on?

I’d be interested in that. Good idea. There’s a danger that most RP machines will just end up producing more unrecyclable tat.

Having said that I just got a sample for the Connex500- 9 different buttons in 27-90 shore rubber done in one build Just the thing for a phone case

How do you find the PLA compares to ABS? I like the idea that it’s biodegradable.

PLA is a lot more brittle than ABS, and is even more temperature critical. Also don’t bother with the clear plastics, they always come out aweful. BUT AFAIK PLA is more dimensionally stable, so anything which has very intricate surfaces that need to have tight tolerances on them will likely shrink out of size in ABS, but you might have a chance in PLA.

We’ve also found different printers have max optimum sizes, sure yeah you can fill the bed with a part, BUT its very likely that it will print out of tolerance, and then warp to hell as it cools.

Yeah seen a really nice machine that does that, I think it mixes the plastics before it extrudes them so you can have different rubbers/plastics/colours coming from it almost instantly, amazing!

But yeah, your gonna love it, just be sure to make the area WELL ventilated to the outside world, as we’ve detected pretty decent amounts of Ammonia being released from the ABS which obviously isn’t great for your health!

Excellent thanks for that. No printer for myself yet but I will get a small one for freelance work soon. Not sure which but great to see the prices dropping and tghe quality improving. I’m just very aware of the limitations of each technique. Would love one for work but til then we’ll keep using ARRK and get them to do all the tricky sanding & painting 🙂

i have stl data of an entire human skeleton.

got grey/silvery plastic?

some kind of scene from terminator could be only days away.

got grey/silvery plastic?

some kind of scene from terminator could be only days away.

How about proper titanium, none of this plastic malarky?

tease me.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/265736/scitech/technology/hacker-thwarts-handcuffs-with-3d-printer

You could get it printed in Gold now, if you have a Gold fetish and a lot of money.
That reminds me of someone….

We did these out of Ti 64 for Charge