Finally a consumer level 3D printer kickstarter project

It's really really cool but what do you do with it after you've made a few dozen plastic rabbits for the grandkids ??????

Maybe I have no imagination but what the heck would you use it for ?? You would have to need to make a lot of something to make it pay for itself.
 
Cool stuff. :thumb: I agree somewhat with the comments questioning what one would make with one of these, but on the other hand, you've gotta start somewhere. ;-)

...I am bothered by their "pledge" method of selling this item. Gimmicks are always suspect.

Kickstarter funding (the whole "pledge" thing) is being used by a growing number of startup companies, as well as some established outfits. Not really a gimmick anymore. It has become a legit way to get a new product off the ground.
 
Went to a class last night on how to use a 3D scanner/printer. Very interesting. There is no doubt we are only at the very beginning of this technology becoming very popular. The capabilities of the unit we saw is amazing. Detail possible is phenomonal. On the downside, the process is excruciatingly slow. A scan of a small object, like a 4" statuette can be 1 to 2 hours. The actual printing would be 6 to 12 hours. Until the process is sped up greatly, you won't be seeing a lot of these around.
 
Cant wait for something like this to hit the stores at a consumer price.
That one is definitely getting there.

I am bothered by their "pledge" method of selling this item. Gimmicks are always suspect.
Kickstarter funding (the whole "pledge" thing) is being used by a growing number of startup companies, as well as some established outfits. Not really a gimmick anymore. It has become a legit way to get a new product off the ground.
I've backed a number of ventures so far from bands making albums, mesh networked micro processor gizmos, and a bluetooth controlled paper airplane. All were completed to complete satisfaction.

It's really really cool but what do you do with it after you've made a few dozen plastic rabbits for the grandkids ??????
Maybe I have no imagination but what the heck would you use it for ?? You would have to need to make a lot of something to make it pay for itself.

There are a lot of things I can think of beyond toy rabbits. You could make small gimbal mounts for camera, custom made enclosures for small electronic projects. Skys the limit really.

Went to a class last night on how to use a 3D scanner/printer. Very interesting. There is no doubt we are only at the very beginning of this technology becoming very popular. The capabilities of the unit we saw is amazing. Detail possible is phenomonal. On the downside, the process is excruciatingly slow. A scan of a small object, like a 4" statuette can be 1 to 2 hours. The actual printing would be 6 to 12 hours. Until the process is sped up greatly, you won't be seeing a lot of these around.

Time is an issue, but it's that way even with CNC type machines. Basically get the price down, and just scale up by having more machines.
 
Currently its clearly not a production speed product, but if you are doing product design and prototyping it would be a killer thing to have. For the next few years I'd expect it to be mostly for folks catering to some specialty one-off markets where you can charge accordingly and prototypers who can now skip the turnaround time to have someone else create the part (and much of the expense).

In the sub $300 range where this is headed I can see a lot of possible users.
 
While Kickstarter has for the most part done fine, there was one newsworthy exception, in lots of peoples minds: Occulus Rift. They received their funding, or almost 10x what they wanted, and then after receiving it and before fulfilling their end, being bought out by Facebook for 2 BILLION dollars.
They also face possible patent suits, from a company who has taken publiclly contributed idea's, and patenting them.

I'd like to see something that can print, affordably, in metal. But I don't think I will see that, for at least a decade.
 
Some more on the economics and future here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8Wv3LCJcUE

Randal: depends on what you mean by affordably and in metal :D Practically speaking all of the current metal systems I've seen seem to have some fairly significant limitations that may eventually be addressed but limit their use somewhat at the moment (not that they aren't amazing, they just aren't - yet - quite as amazing as we might wish them to be :D)

http://www.minimetalmaker.com/ sub $1k in metal clay
http://newton3d.com/about/ $??? another metal clay system
http://www.appropedia.org/Open-source_metal_3-D_printer - around $1200 but the resolution might be a bit.. challenged
casting of course.. http://makezine.com/projects/guide-to-3d-printing-2014/metal-casting-with-your-3d-printer/
future possibilities: http://reprap.org/wiki/MetalicaRap (really pretty crazy idea)

There are also a number of outsource places with various levels of "afforable" (might be ok for boutique work I suppose).
 
I agree somewhat with the comments questioning what one would make with one of these

The library said most of the uses so far have been to repair items that have been broken. Instead of buying an entire new item the broken part is glued together, scanned and replicated.
I am interested for another reason. When our son died 17 years ago we found in his effects four small sculptures. They were done in the oven bake clay. And they are fantastic, we did not even know he had a skill like this. I want to replicate them and make several copies of each. They will be painted to look like stone or bronze and mounted in shadow boxes to be given to relatives. I really would like to have bronze castings made but that is costly and I fear the originals might get damaged in the process. If I can ever cover the bronze cost the plastic replicas could be used. The plastic I saw was very-very tough stuff. I doubt you could crush a replicated ping pong ball with your foot. The detail was incredible, near perfect at standard settings. Slower settings give much higher resolution and detail. For our family, I think these would be wonderful momentos. Like all new technologies, the 3d replicators will find their own market.
 
There are infinite applications for this cost of machine. I think one needs to recognize the global nature of the world economy today and to recognize that many more people are making use of technology and tinkering with product development in niche areas that have global reach due to viability of reaching people via the web.

In all my business life I have been involved in product development and even in my early corporate days was still essentially part of what one would classify today as a small business. Back in the day to make a plastic part of which our designs always had many and numerous needs for small parts, we would have to have a custom tool made. This involved a great deal of time provided we could find a toolmaker interested in doing it for the effort versus return. Then along came stereo-lithography and the ability to grow the parts. I remember when in my own business we first took on doing this and the cost implications. It was still cheaper than making the tool then taking a new product to market then finding out what the client wanted liked and did not like or want and coming back and making mods to a tool or potentially scrapping the tool (rather what happened was the tool was hacked due to the already sunk cost when it should have been scrapped releasing the designers to make a more suitable design. Even though it was faster to do than waiting for the tool to be made it still affected time to market.
We know its part of our human make up for some of us to be more visually orientated than say oral biased. So when presenting a new idea new product etc to a group of people some of whom have no technical interest in the product it helps tremendously if you have a tangible sample on hand. We are still feelly touchy humans not robots. :) Being able to show a toolmaker the sample and have him make molds for mass production for it further helps remove errors and plan tooling even though this is designed fully in Cad. At this kind of price point i would have put one on so many desks it would not be funny.

Schools can use this in so many ways it just takes a bit of imagination. The affordability at this kind of price point makes it possible to teach cad cam as a subject as opposed to having to purchase a cnc carver or router. We know our member Jonathan is teaching kids to turn at a lathe which cost more than this printer yet what the heck are those kids going to do with being able to turn a pen. Its not Jonathan's choice but schools need to radically change the syllabus if they to create workers of tomorrow that can be employed. A printer like this is just an enabler in my view at an affordable price and engaging when you see what some schools that have the budget have done where they could afford to buy kit like Shopbots etc.


I can see a person like Chucks Thoits wife Kalea (also a member here) who makes Jewelry being able to print her own one off or set of custom bits for a unique piece of jewelry or even make a plastic item that gets used later to make silicon molds to mold many more parts or even loss wax method.

Then don't forget there is a new generation emerging that is getting into niche hand made manufactured items of all sorts and starting new businesses. Given they not finding work and are highly educated they putting their creative talents to use and going it alone or in collaboration.
An example of this in a non tech sense is this hand made soap factory in New York.http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28600177, they specifically may not have a need for a 3D printer although i could see them doing so but others will use this level of automation in their business and the barrier to entry is relatively low.

The very open source nature of a 3D printer speaks to this plus add to it the fact that the funding for these things is being raised via a brand new crowd concept in the first place.

Some of you may not be aware but at present the US leads the globe in not only Crowd funding and but in the creation of a legal framework to support this kind of new investment initiative. Kickstarter is only one of the elements of this new (? its been around for a while) concept.

Speaking as a small business guy that has had to raise significant capital in the past and had to deal with all the incumbent gatekeepers to money I think crowd funding on this basis even if conducted by a legitimate investment management company such as a private equity fund is one heck of a leap forward for business. Keep in mind a rock band is a business too, even a magician is a business, so there are now investment companies that offer through crowd funding software, the ability for individuals to invest in small sums in businesses that previously would never have secured funding to give their dream a go. And in those cases its as a shareholder not as a donation or in lieu of something such as a first off product. I welcome this internet happening with such open arms its the equivalent of democratizing a previously closed environment.

Most venture capital deals or private equity deals for small business require a significant deal value to make the transaction as a whole viable to the entity undertaking the investment. That limits which entities can even hope to look at raising money. Then even when it does go ahead the share structure that results is enough to discourage the most fastidious entrepreneur unless the hockey stick projections have sufficient evidence behind them to make the investor buckle to the sellers terms. That's not the case for the majority of companies seeking capital.

To me Crowd Funding is to investing what George Washington represented to the Colonists in a non independent USA back then. Liberating . :):thumb:
 
Frank,
There are a number of services popping up out there that can scan in an object and print out a copy. If you google search for "3d printing scanning service" http://bit.ly/1oMtM3L you'll get quite a number of hits. I have NO idea what the relative pricing is or which of them are any good though so you'd want to check that out.

$300 to much how about $100? http://www.peachyprinter.com/#!printer-specs/c1gk6 - not-there-yet but interesting prototype.
 
Frank,
There are a number of services popping up out there that can scan in an object and print out a copy. If you google search for "3d printing scanning service" http://bit.ly/1oMtM3L you'll get quite a number of hits. I have NO idea what the relative pricing is or which of them are any good though so you'd want to check that out.

$300 to much how about $100? http://www.peachyprinter.com/#!printer-specs/c1gk6 - not-there-yet but interesting prototype.

Thanks. Those look interesting and, I am sure, a sign of things to come. However, I would never mail off the originals and trust them to be returned unharmed. When the current political scene quiets down (election day is tomorrow) I plan to make my scans at the local library. I'll put the scan data on a high cap. thumb drive then make the copies at a later date.
BTW, just a day ago I read an article about what HP is doing with this technology. From what I read, I believe, they will soon hit the market in a big way and probably dominate it. They plan to use current paper copier/priner technology for the 3D. Instead of using plastic strings, they will use cartridges filled with plastic powders, or even metal. There will be variety of colors, types of plastic and up to 10,000 nozzles. This will allow much finer detail, multi color and faster printing. Their machines will cost less than competition, but, just like their paper printers, you will have to buy their (expensive?) powder cartridges from them. I'm looking forward to these hitting the market.
 
Wow i highly recommend watching the movie that Dave mentions above. Its an interesting insight to the 3d printer makers and to the world of tech startups.

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...BTW, just a day ago I read an article about what HP is doing with this technology. From what I read, I believe, they will soon hit the market in a big way and probably dominate it. They plan to use current paper copier/priner technology for the 3D. Instead of using plastic strings, they will use cartridges filled with plastic powders, or even metal. There will be variety of colors, types of plastic and up to 10,000 nozzles. This will allow much finer detail, multi color and faster printing. Their machines will cost less than competition, but, just like their paper printers, you will have to buy their (expensive?) powder cartridges from them. I'm looking forward to these hitting the market.

I strongly suspect the machines themselves will be pretty affordable, since it's likely they will be sold at or near cost. I'm certain the marketing plan for 3-D printers will be the same as that for inkjet printers. They are sold at cost with the intent of them being ink (or plastic or metal) delivery machines. The real money is in the expendables. See also: King C. Gillette.
 
I strongly suspect the machines themselves will be pretty affordable, since it's likely they will be sold at or near cost. I'm certain the marketing plan for 3-D printers will be the same as that for inkjet printers. They are sold at cost with the intent of them being ink (or plastic or metal) delivery machines. The real money is in the expendables. See also: King C. Gillette.

I would be surprised if they weren't sold cheap, otherwise they may be self replicating except for the supplies.
 
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