The Future is here !

[camera doctor 25]

This is awesome !

I have seen output from older 'laid resin' 3D printers, but they are deicate and low resolution, but take a look at this :

You Tube Video

Wow ! Great for rapid prototyping - not good news for qualified fitters and turners

[$toffz 0]

Item added to Christmas List.

Now just to download the schematic of a whole bunch of BBS wheels I wonder what the strongest material they have for the printer is?....

way cool.

[3 SERIES 92]

That wrench probably cost $3000 to print lol

[E30BMA 0]

Whoa that is crazy cool.

[Greg111 13]

I hate it when i lose my tools in space.

[Matt 123]

At my work we have an FDM machine for prototyping which make parts in ABS plastic, not the greatest resolution though. We also get all of our more finely detailed parts prototyped in SLA before we make our mould tools, which speeds up the prototyping process massively.

BMW (and probably a lot of other car makers) prototype a lot of their parts these days by 3D printing aluminium so they can pretty much rapid prototype major components of the cars in the correct material. Very very cool.

I've also seen a 3D printer that can do titanium in incredibly fine detail. Unbelievably expensive but so awesome!

[Sam@TMBMW 0]

I don't believe that you can scan a wrench with moving parts where the computer will figure out the intricacy of its inner workings and create a replica with moving parts.

What they did not show is that the wrench would have to be taken apart to scan the three components separately (handle, worm gear, rack gear). Then, a 3D modeler spent hours cleaning up the models of the three components and assembling them with proper clearances and tolerances so that the printer would print the components without connecting them.

[pjay 8]

There was a time people did not believe moving pictures in a box also.

[deeveus 81]

I've seen these for sale at KMart for $55.23 - we have one but I hardly use it.

Seriously, that's an awesome thing, I wonder if they could make me an M5 ?

[hotwire 352]

Got a link to that the other day too.

Must admit - I also wondered on the scanning of a complete moving parts piece & the printer replicating as a complete assembled working unit.

Tis way cool though - I want

[E30 325i Rag-Top 2915]

There was a time people did not believe moving pictures in a box also.

A good point Pjay, but Sam is quite right, they have used a bit of poetic license to cut out the boring bit in the middle where the scan information is taken and turned into a CAD model. Even with the greatest software in the world this still takes a CAD operator a considerable amount of time and effort. It wouldn't make interesting viewing on the video though!

Undoubtedly it's great technology and has a lot of applications, and it's coming on in leaps and bounds. I'm looking forward to it's application in production use, rather than one off and proto-typing, that will be fun!

[MLM 57]

Not quite new but still cool. We use them all the time here at work (they run almost 24/7). We also have a mini desktop version which is readily available for ~$1500-2000 us. Just right for small business or keen home designers

Saw a doco a while back where they can print body parts, ie a new kidney, using cells originaly harvested from the patient and grown in a lab. Still early phases but imagine those posibilities.

Edited July 14, 2011 by MLM