KeepItPrinting.com

[cjwilt]

Wondering if anyone out there has come across these in their travels or if anyone sells and services them.

From the looks of things, the stock value has blown up on the major players over the last year and a half.

There's lots of different technologies that they have to accommodate many different applications. FDM, PolyJet, SLS, MJM and SLA to name a few. Some medical places are doing test prints of body parts already. (I'm sure Mark has a comment here)

Anyone know anything about these???

[mark in vegas]

How did I miss this one?? Wonder if you can print complete bodies....Ones you don't have to blow up
_________________
Regards,
Mark
RVN 68-69
It's so nice to be insane
No one asks you to explain

[doodad]

If you go to RealDoll.com you can order a life size/weight doll you do not have to blow up. And you can order exactly what you waht in a woman or guy, if you are into that. And they don't talk back or argue with you.

[mark in vegas]

<And they don't talk back or argue with you>

I thought that was called a dog......
_________________
Regards,
Mark
RVN 68-69
It's so nice to be insane
No one asks you to explain

[doodad]

But a dog needs to be fed and let out. The dolls do not. A lot cheaper than a pet or a woman.

[scott]

I am not sure Mark likes his dog appropriately, but they do say "mans best friend"

But I have came across one of these newfangled 3-D printers. Unfortunately I do not remember the make or model.
It had a square tray that the machine would fill with a thin layer of powder, a inkjet style head/carriage assembly would spray solvent/glue onto the powder. The tray would move one "layer" down and the machine would dust more powder on it, then mechanically level it. Then run another pass. Took forever, ran specialized software that they said was "Quirky".
The whole thing is a sealed chamber so the powder is filtered and re-used.
Then, if you want the model to stay together, there was another sealed chamber that vaporized a material that would soak into the model and bond the powder together permanently.
I will admit, the finished product looked nice. But I question the market for these things.
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Any ideas expressed are figments of my imagination.
Any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental.

[mark in vegas]

These printers are a boom for prototypers. And you don't have to tell a dog you love it, and you don't have to meet it's parents, and you don't have to take it out for dinner........I know there's more
_________________
Regards,
Mark
RVN 68-69
It's so nice to be insane
No one asks you to explain

[cjwilt]

Thanks for the input.

There are a lot of different technologies out there but I haven't heard off one with glue yet. Some use lasers to melt metal, others use resigns cured with UV lights and others use melted plastics. It seems like a new and developing thing but they have been out since the late 80's.

I've seen more and more publicity on this technology and I feel like it could be the wave of the future for manufacturing. Who knows, maybe one day it will say "Made in America" again?

Thanks for the insight and let me know if you see more of this in your future travels. I'm very curious about this stuff.

[tjohnson]

Our local university has one and I've seen some small items they have printed out on it, I also have a customer a half hour south that has one, they are into different technologies, I have not seen either operate but I've see them on tv before. I do think it takes virtually a day to print out even the smallest 2" items, but the end result is a dead on replica of the original. I don't think you can feed jobs into it like a printer based on digital data, they make copies of existing items, so I'm not sure how prototypes would be the use for this, if you have to already have one to make another.
I could be wrong, my memory isn't what it used to be!

[tech2tech]

My son uses one for prototypes. you print to it by inputting a 3d image and then it will print that item. If you are duplicating something they have a handheld scanner that you scan the item with and it will create the image or you can design the image in things like Cad or Google sketch-up. You can also make working Firearms. Check out this link to youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30i_6awxEG4

[doodad]

We had a 3D printer for a while. We did do a few 3D objcts on it. Was painfully slow, did make very nice objects. There was not a lot of demand for them tho.
I do think I would want to fire off any 5.56 out of anything make from ink and sand.

[Placebo]

Last year I went to 3D systems to get trained on their ProJet X60 series additive manufacturing machines. As mentioned the technology has been around since the 80's. It is amazing to me how many different technologies are out there and that are emerging everyday around 3D printing. It is a fascinating field to watch and has the potential to be a major game changer.

[cjwilt]

Cool. Have you worked on these very much? What's your thoughts on servicing it?

[Placebo]

Only a handful of times. They are surprisingly simply as far as machines go. The real magic is in the software. It lays down a layer of powder, which is composed mostly of gypsum powder, then uses an HP ink jet print head to squirt a liquid binder where you want the powder solidified. There is an X, Y, and Z axis. The build bed moves up and down via an all thread shaft providing the Z axis. After solidifying one layer the machine brings another layer of powder into the build bed and repeats the process. Each time the build height increases .004". Once completed there is some post processing to be done before your print is complete.

[mark in vegas]

Did you happen to see the article about the guy that printed an actual, working handgun? I'm thinking TSA needs to rethink their procedures.
_________________
Regards,
Mark
RVN 68-69
It's so nice to be insane
No one asks you to explain