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Well, they are getting cheaper and faster and with a stronger material base for home users as time goes on. Still, best case you are looking at hours to knock out one item. Anything that might require multiple objects to be assembled is the work of days. And while the cheaper models listed are pretty good, they can lead to a rougher finish. If you want something a bit more polished it's in the higher four figure range. Realistically though, in about....a decade? You are going to see some crazy poo poo going down with the technology. If you have the money to drop now you can pull off pretty cool things. Thingiverse and the like make it easier for non-artistic types to pull off practical applications of the technology, but if you have an artistic flair you can do some crazy things. Want to commemorate your victory in a fantasy football league the right way? Whip yourself up a trophy top depicting your sodomy of number two in the league. *That* will be a memory they don't soon forget! Want to make children think you are God? Whip out a toy their tiny retarded kitten brains made up on the spot. Once you show them you have that power, they will be broken to your will forever. Considering the applications, it's a remarkably front loaded technology. The big loving print costs a lot, sure, but filling it isn't *that* bad unless you use it constantly. And if you are using it constantly, you are getting your money's worth aren't you?
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Nov 14, 2010 07:01
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Slung Blade posted:The worst part about that, though, is the fact that companies will purposely make things even less durable in the hope that they can make more money on microtransactions for little fiddly clips and brackets that loving break all the time. It's very much a genie/bottle type situation. Once quality 3D scanners and printers get cheap enough [If you want something baby smooth now, you are probably at least in the 5 figure range for a printer. Quality 3D scanners also ridiculously expensive] that home users can realistically pick them up, you are in a sense done. They are functionally no different than any other type of printer. You tell it what to do, it does it. Anyone that wants to put up the plans to print <blank> is within their rights to do so, and all you need to do is snag the file and print. With cheap enough 3D scanners, you can snag the information for all sorts of things and knock off a duplicate pretty easy. You don't need the greatest artistic skills, you don't need to own the thing being scanned. Just point, click, zoom around the thing to gather it's data and done. Some minor editing to get rid of anything that doesn't belong and there you are. Do it enough and you can get all the parts for a complex piece of machinery, and then congrats. You've just copied and duplicated the manufacturer of what could be a very expensive piece of machinery. And there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop you. Much like stealing movies and games off the internet, once the technology is out there you can't take it back. You can't even regulate it all that much. All you can do is deal with the new reality it presents.
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Nov 16, 2010 01:14
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The Bananana posted:This is super cool! I wonder how long it will take before the average consumer will have access to one. Well, technically, now. Even the Thing-O-Matic, the most expensive of MakerBots offerings, is only about 1.2k or some such. Now that isn't super cheap, but it's not really more than people would pay for a solid desktop computer from a store. Cheaper, smaller models are only a few hundred. Those are most certainly "hobby" model 3D printers, all. They will not be quite as perfectly formed as professional models would produce, but generally they are durable enough for you to sand them or do other work to make them look more professional. And, you know, they don't cost fifty thousand dollars. So that is a bonus. So if you have anywhere from like...six hundred on up, you can rock out. I can't actually see that coming down a *lot* more, but I can see the quality going up for what you are paying for. Hell, even now you can drop about 1.5k and get a 3D printer and 3D scanner and enough accessories to do all sorts of poo poo with your printer. Print in silicon or peanut butter, hook a pen up to the thing and forge signatures, whatever you want. It's not exact a mature technology, but it's certainly getting there and most of the models you can get are easily upgradeable.
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Dec 30, 2010 22:47
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