I am currently saving for a machine. My plan is to have the original prototype sprue made on the machine, and then to make a mold of the sprue and mass produce it from there. Having the machine mill out every single production piece would be exceptionally cost prohibitive, especially since the milling bits do break on occasion requiring replacement. I have a number of prototype heads drafted out, that are just waiting to be exported to one of these guys. I even talked with my molding/casting contact who said that it would be feasible to get castings done in plastic (as opposed to resin, which I primarily use now) and still be able to turn a profit after selling a number of kits.

 

Agreed wrt Desktop Factory. They've had several imperial boatloads of publicity and marketing for a company without anything to actually sell. Their vaporware flagship product has been "about to ship" for well over a year now. Flippin' Contour Crafting has more actual prototypes than this!

Not to mention that DF's proposed market niche is getting squeezed from the top by $20K professional printers (and maybe V-Flash) and from the bottom by RepRap, Fabr, and Fab@Home. Unless they come up with genuine, purchasable, quality product by Christmas, they'll be scrabbling for scraps from the big corporations' tables.

This is assuming, of course, that they actually do want to bring out a product, and not just sit around absorbing investors' money and generating press releases.

 

I'm about halfway through my project and I thought it would be a good time to check out some price quotes...

I picked a minimal park and I figured would be easy to make.

Minimum, it was going to be $150. For just one part. I probably have a fifteen or more parts that will be close to this size if not bigger. I quoted several places, not just printapart, and they were all about the same.

sigh

this makes me a sad panda.


It would probably be cheaper for me to lease a machine and make all my parts, then return the machine.

 

Did F_R ever get a quote on that Devestator? Just curious how nuts that'd be to reproduce.

 

don't know if this is helpful info but.. we have one knocking around somewhere at work, it cost $30,000 for the machine, and each print-out costs approximately $8

 

I would gladly pay that if I could find one around where I live.

I need to contact some of my old engineering buddies and see if they could lend a hand.



I need to pick up a lottery ticket for tomorrow. I still would like the idea of having one to cater to toy customizers. Not to say that the ones existing out there now don't do that, but they are more concerned with high end technology/industry type stuff.

 

So I'm a little late to this party, and it's probably already been said, but I'm lazy, and reading hurts...

Products made from 3D printing are just prototypes. They plastic typically isn't that high of quality and tends to wear quickly with excessive use. Least it did two years ago when we were playing around with them in the labs.
...Ah college...
So smaller pieces do hold detail but tend to snap with any amount of force.

 

SLS machines have been around for years and they can print in an abundance of materials including steel.

 

I am still interested and saving up for one of these bad boys.

http://www.desktopfactory.com/news/cnn_money.html
According to that video they are priced at $5k, and they expect them to be closer to $1k in a year...

The process is interesting. I think the machine basically takes .010 plastic stock puts it on a tray, cuts around the shape, then repeats that process 100-1000 times until the height and shape are achieved. It melts the plastic away with a light.

 

I'm not holding my breath on Desktop Factory. The economy is in the crapper and they keep pushing back the release date.

 

Very interesting thread. Just curious, what would it cost at a place like Print-a-part to have a Deluxe sized Transformer made? Around $300?

 

Well, Reprap looks to be slowly getting it's act together. There's at least one person near me who has one. When I'm done school I'm going to look into getting him to make me the parts for my own Reprap.

As for a a coop owning some kind of rapid prototyping machine, check around your cities and see if someone already has one. There is a modern art group in Toronto that has one and it's available to use by members. interaccess.org is their website.

 

Probably more like $500-600. It ain't cheap.

 

Continuing on with this conversation of printers....

I found this article about Desktop Factory and I have to say that I don't think it is going to be what we are looking for in its current state.

http://digital.id-mag.com/idmagazine/id20090102/?pg=99

The part that concerned me the most was painting and the lack of detail. It seems solvent based paints will melt the nylon in used in the material and cause the paint not to set up. You can also see a comparison of something printed out to what it would ideally look like.


I also looked into leasing a machine. A basic machine could be leased from Dimension for a little over $300 a month at 0% interest for 60 months. I'm not crazy about the time commitment, but for a group of guys to get a machine, I think it is affordable. Not to mention making parts for the fandom to get some of the money back. That cost doesn't include materials and cost to run unfortunately.

Again, not volunteering, just thinking out loud. I don't have any experience with these machines and I have limited experience at 3d modeling, but I'm getting better.

 

Hmmm...yeah, desktop factory seems much more rough than we'd need. Reprap seems to have similar problems...

*Sigh* Looks like we'll have to do without for now.

 

Heh, no need to overthrow our friends.  

As for stopping Radicons, yourself and the rest of this fine community continually prove that there's no stopping us  

Heh, we could do a Radicons donation drive for one of these things for my place; I'm down with that   I think it'd take more like $20K, so I could at least finish paying off my truck for, um, everything to be cleared away so I -WE - could ensure this venture.

In the meantime, each of you can take me to CiCi's or the Chinese buffet