3D printable camera?

[a whitmer]

Been reading a lot lately about 3D printers. Seems they are making their way into mainstream culture. Saw this ...

http://www.foxbusiness.com/technolo...k-try-printing-out-brownie/?intcmp=fbfeatures


Seeing how I bake to make ends meet, kinda unsettling. Are cameras next? Pieces and parts already being printed? Does Red have a plan?


Keep in mind I was in high school when the calculator was invented - or at least hit the shelves. And yes, they were forbidden in class. We actually had to learn the abacus. I think I've lived through - and have yet to live through a good deal more - the tech 'revolution'. Um, I grew up on BW TV before the UHF/VHF business. Now we are printing brownies at home. Lol, how long before the first pot brownie is printed?

Can you say The Jetsons?


Alex





http://thestarvingdramaturge.wordpress.com/

 

[William Albertini]

um, I have had one of these printers for 6 months and they are pretty amazing, in the same way early xerox machines were amazing. Printing a camera? No. Printing parts for custom rail systems etcetera, yes.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Cameras? No, not yet at list, but I believe we'll see an amazing development of 3D Printers, which will allow to create anything , and I mean anything at all, at unprecedented lower costs of production, and higher, more repeatable precision making then any current other way of manufacturing.

 

[Mark Phelan]

Speaking of The Jetsons, another show had the same sort of replicator gizmo, Lost In Space. Even at the young age of whatever, it never made sense to me that they could replicate anything they needed, except for the fuel to get back to earth. Somehow, magically, it couldn't replicate that, everything else yes, just not fuel. Like the many suspensions of belief in Star Trek, one must check one's brain at the door before proceeding.

Grrrr, writers!

Oh and about the calculator Alex, same here. We had to learn the slide rule rather than the abacus. We were much more progressive in our education back then.

 

[Derek Devine]

Tea, Earl Grey, Hot

 

[Bill Anderson]

Abacus? You were lucky, we Scottish kids had to use sheep. I wonder if one could print a sheep, Dolly 2, then we could knit sweaters and eat Irish stew till the cows come home.

There must be a comedy film in it all, a new slant on Honey I Shrunk The Kids.
Opening scene: Kid's Bedroom; a couple of nerdy kids impatiently rip open a very large cardboard box to reveal its contents, a "3DDD" model printer….. "Wow.."

 

[a whitmer]

Slide rule. Ugh. Never mastered it. Sat abandoned in my little plastic protecto-sheet inside the looseleaf binder. I gladly took the F.


Yeah, I'm sure it won't be lng before it makes its way into film as a prop of some sorts. Hmm. Gears are churning!

 

[a whitmer]

um, I have had one of these printers for 6 months and they are pretty amazing, in the same way early xerox machines were amazing. Printing a camera? No. Printing parts for custom rail systems etcetera, yes.

I haven't seen much for end-user products outside high tech and medical applications (skin and organs). I know guns are an immediate concern. What can one really do with them right now?

a



http://thestarvingdramaturge.wordpress.com/

 

[Antony Newman]

In all the years that Makerbot have made 3d printers they sold around 25,000 printers (ie total turnover since year dot = $65m) .. yet Stratasys were bought them up for $400m.

If they were sitting on research to create full colour 3D Printer heads - I'd be excited - but I think the money that these companies are making is by charging punters for 'chipped' plastic just like the ridiculously overpriced normal-printer cartridges.

Maybe NASAs R&D will drag the majority of 1970's tech in these printers into the 21st century?
Maybe HP will rejoin the 3D print world when the old patents run out in 2014_02?
Maybe someone in BotObject will rework their printer so that it actually does full colour?

I hope that someone actually brings out a 3D printer that breaks out of the current mould the industry has found itself in.

AJ

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I haven't seen much for end-user products outside high tech and medical applications (skin and organs). I know guns are an immediate concern. What can one really do with them right now?

Lots of uses for 3D printers. We have an older Makerbot that has a lot of miles on it now. Always making little gizmos or prototyping pieces before we move forward with having a machinist tackle an actual production unit. Everything from simple clips and clamps to hose fittings or doo-dads we want for camera accessories, computer parts, etc.. We do pieces for architectural models, mock-up product designs for clients, or make prototypes of things we would like to use. The gun thing is an over popularized and politicized talking point. The fact is, most people who have 3D printers right now are people who make things for one reason or other. If someone is capable of 3D printing a weapon, they're just as capable of making it some other way. All the info and specs to make nearly every type of firearm, be it a Colt .22 or an AR-15, is cataloged by the US government and available at most any public library. It doesn't take any special person to take that info and re-create on a 3D printer, a conventional milling machine or any other equipment capable of fabricating those components. In fact, that is exactly why all that information is available to the public. A person who is good with their tools or craft can improve on those designs. As there have already been a few cases now where people have taken common handgun designs and modified them to be more stable, or at least usable for a few shots, when made out of the relatively weak ABS or PLA plastics used by common printers. Anyway, before we continue down that road, which will become entirely too political, I'll just end it with this... Any and every tool is capable of being abused or used for malicious intent.

As for 3D printer companies, Makerbot has gone to shit since the Stratasys acquisition. Their support is now crap, there are tons and tons of reports of people getting inoperable or incomplete printers delivered to them. I've had a Makerbot 2X on order for some time and I'm about to pull the plug on the order because of everything I keep hearing and reading. So sad, really... Not sure what else to get, I really like my old Makerbot I've had for the past couple years. The 3D printer market is wide open for someone to come in with a serious product and bust some heads. Hmmmm....

Anyway, there's a huge gap in the market right now. For $3K~$4K we can buy the best of the best for desktop 3D printers. I think the current best one and I'm probably going to get it instead of the Makerbot 2X, is the CubeX Trio from Cubify. It will use both PLA and ABS plastic and can print 3 colors. Although, it seems problematic too, lots of stories of the build plates on these units warping (Cubify and Makerbot alike), among other things.

...Then there's nothing on the market between the $4500 and $30K price point. Like nothing at all unless we want to spend upwards of $35K or more. I'd really like to get one of the 3D printers that use the alumina and/ or plastic powder with the bonding agent print-heads. They're so pricey.

3D printing a camera? I could print a camera, or all the pieces to build a camera, that uses sheet or roll film. ...It would be a pinhole camera, or I would have to supply a lens separately. 3D printing of certain plastics is becoming commonplace and it's proving to be more economical than injection-molding. We're seeing a lot of plastic components show up in devices that are 3D printed rather than injection molded, especially where customization or JIT considerations are a part of the equation -- need to quickly change some design aspect or make every piece slightly different, incorporate unique ID numbers onto each and every piece...

 

[Antony Newman]

I had my name down for a ProDesk3D from BotObject due out in the next couple of months.
It blends 5 colour PLA or ABS to give you Layers of any hue - and with a 25 micro accuracy this had my interest .. but layers of 1 hue is just not good enough.
(I tried to suggest a radial filling algorithm and a push to minimise the mixing chamber volume to actually turn this into a outer surface full colour printer .... but haven't got any feedback yet)

I went to a big UK 3D Print meetup last week - met the guy that had the hugely successful $1000 3D scanner which is going to be great (especially when if they adopt that new 'closing algorithm' that solves the 3D drift issue that all scanners have).

I was however underwhelmed by the tech of the printers. I was actually hoping someone would create a clear plastic melting head with the ability to inject quantities of 5 coloured dies into the outgoing droplets ... but got a strange response like ... 'You can buy full colour printers' (referring the ones the size of wardrobes and the need for you to vacuum up heaps of unused material after each print).

Besides the Nasa funded printer Alloy tech that is coming along ... I've just read that some that Has got my attention.
The Technology Partnership (TTP) has developed the 'Vista 3D' head that goes a step beyond what I hoping for.

http://3dprintingindustry.com/2013/...-and-inorganic-multimaterial-vista-printhead/

If details are not forthwith I'll ask an ex-TTP friend ... but this could mean that 3D printers get interesting ... in 2015/16.

AJ

 

[Antony Newman]

Oh .... forgot the mention what makes the Vista head a 'talking point.

"TTP’s Vista reportedly has the ability to 3D print a wide range of both inorganic and organic matter, including plastics, metals, ceramics, enzymes and biological cells."

AJ

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Yeah, I'm still confused as to why all the ABS and PLA printers are screwing around with various colors of plastic, which tend to have differing melting points, and they're trying to incorporate multiple extruders for multiple colors. This is just plain stupid. Not sure why we can't just buy one or two plastic stocks (like opaque and clear) and then have inks or dies that are injected as needed. They only need to be mixed in at or near the surface and we could specify the "ink depth" in case we intend to cut or sand on the finished object. Or we could specify inking colors for fills or internal structures.

The large ones that use the powder material with colored bonding agent -- those super expensive, wardrobe sized printers you speak of, are interesting. They're not practical in any sense, not unless you're a larger fabricator who cranks out stuff on them all day long -- like a 3D printing service.

I think NASA's alloy tech looks to be the most promising, but it's going to be a few years before it is truly mainstream and especially mainstream in a form that benefits us smaller guys.

I see real possibilities for the Vista head, but it's definitely not something that will be mainstream affordable when it comes to light. Although the possibilities of that are truly exciting... To be able to print out circuit boards or mixed-material components such as metallic objects with plastic components. Print an aluminum hose fitting with a rubber o-ring already in place. Spiffy.

I think I'm just going to sit tight with my current Makerbot. The primary reason I was looking to upgrade to the 2 or the 2X was because ours is starting to have issues with parts wearing out and it's a pain. And the build area is too small for some of the things we're doing lately. I think there are going to be a number of really great options in the next couple years. I'm not really looking for a desktop printer, but it seems that anything larger than a $4K (or less) desktop model becomes quite large and expensive and just doesn't fit our needs at this time.