Did a rough calculation using one of my Interurban cars on the prices quoted for the form 1. Buying 200 cars from Shapeways would cost the same as buying the form1, resin etc. The minimum detail the form 1 can print is 0.3mm my cars printed at Shapeways have detail printed at 0.1mm so most of the detail would be lost on the form 1. In my opinion there is still a long way to go.
The 3D printer should be in a good shape. You need to get it checked with some hardware professional. Many a times you find a used 3D printer consumes a lot of cartridges.
Whatever is availble on the low-end will be greatly exceeded by the high end, and much of the expectations of this crowd is for more detail, less layering, and lower cost. While you can miniaturize electronics, there's lots of moving parts here to wear and need maintenance, plug up and go haywire. Think how long the average low-end inkjet printer lasts anymore. Nobody cleans heads, you just throw it out and get another one. My first low-end color inkjet, the Canon BJC-600, was $600, and that was in... 1993? it still runs, if you can find ink, pretty cool product for its day. The last Lexmark I got was full-feature with a scanner for $198, and it turned out to be inoperable after a couple months with print head failures. My 'industrial' printers in the office have a service contract per-page, and they ALWAYS work. In my engineering business I have a pair of E-sized plotters, one inkjet and the other laser; they also have full-sheet scanner features and on both I have service contracts, between the two it's about $2500/yr, and they earn every penny keeping those going. If they are down, I am down, period. There's a parallel here on keeping expensive, critical, and delicate hardware operating. Maintenance and service contracts are a big part of the equation. My first experience with working in 3D has been very interesting and better quality than I expected. But to do what I really want is going to still require a quantum leap in the quality end, and I know it exists because I've seen the prints from it. And it's not at this price point, by any means, so I see my future still using Shapeways, or something like that, to get the actual part made. And I don't want to try to figure out why it is gooping plastic all over with some kind of mechanical/technical failure; cleaning out an inkjet is quite bad enough, thank you. Personally, although I'll admit to struggling learning 3D design, it's been worth it. I have a good teacher with my son, I have always been comfortable with 2D drawing with real pencils, but AutoCAD is a beast to be truly competent in. Sketchup has proven to be a little wierd, but better than I thought for the basics. I'm seriously skeptical about how far it can be pushed into more sophisticated designs, but I'm corresponding with people doing outstanding work in it. So I'll hang in there, this first project has been really fun, and got good results. And remember this is the same guy that still pretty much lives in an C80/truck mount/DC world and questions the validity of change at every step of the way. The other 'missing part' right now is working in metal on two significant holes in the boat for locomotives: Printing out your own frames with the same precision as the plastics, and getting either better material or etchings for fine details like handrails. For now, I've made sure that my kit etchings are transferrable to 3D designs, I see that evolution. I haven't seen a durable delrin-like material though that can hit .012 cross section and smaller, still waiting for that one. Those two are as critical as the basic shell material and resolution to move this. I'm also using a service for etching, that's very practical, has worked extremely well, and solves that problem if you can get the volume up high enough to cover the front-end setup and investment. In the world of 'unintended consequences' I'm wondering how all this will affect the manufacturer. When a significant niche of the hobby can print stuff out that used to be mass-marketed as injection molding, what happens to that? It also places much more responsibility on the modeler for their own painting and decaling, which seems to be a lost art, or develops a new market for custom finishing. That's why I felt that Testors decision on shutting down Floquil was a complete mistake.
I rather doubt there will be a significant impact. Maybe some, but not enough to spell doom for the injection market. For one, we will still need mass-produced entry-level products, and RP will not satisfy that need. For another, RP is not a high-volume technology; everything is made one at a time. That makes it difficult to compete with injection, where thousands of units can be knocked out in hours or days. Plus, only a small number of modelers have the wherewithal to deal with 3D design. Just as a word processor doesn't make someone a writer, even the easiest-to-use 3D drawing application will not make a modeler a product designer. We might expect to see vendors selling finished product designs to modelers who can print them at home, but this still results in a DIY situation, because the modeler would still need to know how to deal with mechanisms and assembly and so on (look at the nearly overwhelming demand for RTR today). Lastly, since this is emerging technology that still has a ways to go before we all have one sitting on our workbenches, the market will adjust and find other ways to compete. Think of digital imaging: the smart film manufacturers migrated to digital products, and the ones that didn't disappeared. So, I don't see the "revolution" coming that many RP fans claim.
By the time high detail 3D printing is available to the masses I wonder what technology the major manufacturers will have at their disposal, and will they be using it? At the moment they are still using the same plastic injection molding that they had fifty to sixty years ago, albiet with computer aided design and tooling. I always imagine Captain Picard going to the replicator and saying "RSD15, N gauge, DCC, sound, ATSF zebra stripes", and there it is along with his mug of earl gray.
It might not be that long. Depends upon how quickly initial costs fall, and when they turn to our sector for the next stage of marketing. It could be as soon as the next couple of years.
price for 2 head 3d printer http://www.ebay.com/itm/CTC-3D-Prin...277?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ed9d2899d I bought mine a year ago for 750
Unless one plans to go into business the current costs of a 3D printer are not something that the average modeler can absorb without generating some income to offset the costs. Perhaps sometime in the future some enterprising soul will be in the business of developing the software that individuals can buy to print their own cars eventually on simpler and less expensive machines. However I just don't see the prices of the raw material ever going down. However in the future I can see folks eventually having the tools to do a lot of in house things. I just saw a laser cutter being offered by the folks that send out the tool and supply catalogue every month. I did not look at the price or any specifics but it does appear that the ability to Laser cut your own sides and parts is just around the corner. At some point in the future one may very well be able to cut their own wood sides for a boxcar either out of thin wood stock and manufacture their own trucks under frames, braking rigging, and roof walk, and door hardware plus ladders for those cars in their home workshop using a combination of Laser cutting and 3D printing. I just don't see it in the time I have left on this earth. A quick post script: I did go to the folk's site on the web and the cost is $1,995 plus shipping bring it to a little over the $2000 mark for what is called the Laser Knife. On the plus side there is supposed to be a shared program site for various designs. However like the 3D printer one has to also factor in the costs of supplies.
I would say a 3D printer is not in my future. I say that with the understanding of prices coming down, as they usually do, and the quality of the printed product increases to acceptable levels. In addition, with that same understanding, I also expect that there would be a plethora of "cottage type industries", essentially modelers wanting to amortise their costs by offering their production services to others. This would be very similiar to what we see in the area of custom decal printing today. Yeah, you could have bought an Alps printer to make your own but how many different types of decals would you need? I ordered custom made decals. I needed enough to do 25 cars. I got one sheet with 52 decals on it. I paid $104.00 for that one sheet. The second sheet, if I wanted it, would have cost another $14.00. The majority of the cost was in the design and artwork. The point being that the $104.00 I spent was a lot cheaper for me than buying an Alps printer and doing it myself. I expect the same scenario would be true for 3D pinting. So if anyone wants some 3D business I would like two bodies for the West Penn Traction 700 cars. These were once available as resin castings at $25.00 each but no longer available.
As a photogrrapher, I can tell you that the evolution of 2D printers has proved that Moore's Law does not apply to mechanical devices. There is a substantial difference between the cheap HP crap office printer from WalMart and one of the fine photo quality printers from Epson or Canon. Yes, they are more reliable than ten years ago, but I still have to do head cleaning on my Epsons, although now it has gone from weekly in the olden days to maybe once a year of two today. Do not expect the cost of printers to decline like the cost of cameras. And the cost is still higher that you might expect for a photo quality printer. For me the roadblock is preparing the files. If I wanted to do engineering I would have gone to school for that. I can't get my head wrapped around making 3D files for a printer. The at of printing should be something almost anyone can do quickly and easily, but getting a file to feed the printer will be another story.
I have made the leap. Mainly for wargaming but I have done some bits like buffers. It depends whatryou want. My printer has a layer resolution of 0.1mm. Interesting that at model railway/wargameing ranges (about 4 ft) that is not noticeable. It does have some limitations like 1mm diameter section and its a bit rough. However for my N scale tanks its fine. We have to use commercial printers for some stuff but there are places significantly cheaper than Shapeway if you look round. It may never get sensible at ultra high detail as the cost and enviroment may not be compatible with a home. Even mine plays up if it has not had time to get to a stable room temperature. The question may be, what is actualy acceptable and what is an excuse not to buy one. ;-). I have proably paid for our printer by making models at 20p (UK) not £5.00 in about 2 years. Its loads cheaper than golf!
Seriously speaking, LHSes need to jump on this ASAP. Not everyone likes to tinker with CAD files and not everyone can afford their own printer. If a LHS had an in-house printer, they'd be doing a sweet business, especially if they offered their services online as well.
I don't know if anyone saw it, but last week a company called Carbon3D unveiled their new 3D printing technology that is 25 to 100 times faster than other printers, and has a surface finish approaching that of injection-molded plastic. It's similar to the SLA method in which a model rises up out of a bath of liquid resin, but theirs doesn't have the distinct layering effect that other printers suffer from. They describe it as a continual growth process. The machine will probably cost tens of thousands of dollars, but as long as companies like Shapeways and iMaterialize can afford them, I'm content with sending out my files to have them printed. Why pay for a printer that will eventually become obsolete when you can have access to the latest and greatest printers through a company like Shapeways. Article on the Carbon3D printer... http://3dprint.com/51566/carbon3d-clip-3d-printing/ Recent NPR Science Friday radio broadcast on the printer.... http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/03/27/2015/liquid-3-d-printer-speeds-past-the-rest.html Steve S
If I was in my 30s / 40s, and if I could, as John Moore mentioned, sell some of my designs then, ya, maybe / probably I would buy one. At this stage of the game, I'll stick to using laser and inkjet printers to make buildings and such.
