3D Printer, Can't Believe it!

[Bernard]

Take a look at this printer, talk about making model building a breeze, I thought of kashirigi and his method of making models by printing on paper:

 

[Martijn Meerts]

I've been looking into 3d printers quite a bit considering the rather large amount of custom items I need for many of the modules I'm planning. The problem is that the good ones are far too expensive, and the affordable ones are useless for N-scale. The one in the video is mediocre (look at the mouse 3d-print for example, and you can see that one is very rough)

 

The good news is, there are various companies that allow you to send them 3d models, and they will send you back a 3d printed version. Prices depend on the size, complexity and quality of the final product, but some companies are actually quite reasonable if it comes to prices.

 

A friend of a guy at work is testing various companies with some custom models he made, and some look pretty promising, but the prices are such that it should really be done for special items that otherwise are impossible to manufacture ;)

[SubwayHypes]

so how does that work, instead of ink it uses melted plastic or something?  what is the actual physical model made of?  Is it easy to destroy?

 

How much does that Zprinter450 retail for?

[Martijn Meerts]

They don't list the prices of their models, except for their "affordable monochrome" one, which costs "only" 19000 USD ;)

 

As for how it works, depends a bit on the printer. This zprinter for example uses a type of powder/liquid binder combination to print the model layer by layer. Obviously to get a smooth model with lots of small detail, it has to be able to print very thin layers.

 

Depending on the powder/binder used, the final model can be many things. You can make them strong enough to be able to actually drill holes in them, and tap them so you can fasten screws in it, you can create cogwheels with it that won't break, it can also be elastic.

 

check www.zcorp.com for more info on the zprinter series. Even if they're not affordable for individuals, it's an interesting read, and they have some pretty amazing pictures up there as well =)

 

 

http://www.zcorp.com/images/1183_Zprinter_650_0326_LOWRES.jpg for example shows the results that come out of the printer are fairly rough (and this is the 650, not the 450), so they'd need some sanding afterwards. If you want to print small N-scale bits, this might be too rough.

 

They also have a full color printer, which is rather impressive.. http://www.zcorp.com/images/107_002.jpg