3D Printing

[Harold Hall 1Participant @haroldhall1]

[Harold Hall 1Participant @haroldhall1]

Readers of MEW will have seen the series on 3D printing and I for one would love to have a printer to play with. I do though feel that it is in the early stages, much like the beginning of digital photography. By this I mean that fidelity of the produced part cannot be that good until the extrusion is no greater diameter than say a human hair. With a machine that is capable of that will not printing time be very long. Of course, things will develop and such situations will be overcome.

For some ideas of the plusses and the minuses, see the BBC web site here **LINK**

Even so, I would still like to have a machine to play with if time permitted, but that will not be!

Harold

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Just keep sending the begging letters out in bulk Harold

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

Extrusion based printers are just one of many available technologies. You are correct that generally build time vs resolution is always a compromise. Some technologies can 'grow' a whole slice at a time, reducing build time (though these tend to be more expensive machines).

One of the most impressive machines I've seen uses ordinary A4 paper as the raw material, and cuts each sheet to laminate to the 'stack'.

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