I can see 3-D printing coming to a Staples or a Kinko Store near you within a year or two, tops.
When I was at a audio society meeting at the VPI turntable factory, I got to examine and hear their new tonearm, which is printed on a 3-D printer.
The printer costs $350,000, and takes 22 hours to print one tonearm. However, the machine can do 12 at once.
This is not a prototype, this is how they’re going to manufacture it. Once it is printed, they only have to put in the bearing and the counterweight. Price will be in the $3000 range.
The quality looked beautiful, which is what you would expect on such a high-end printer.
>You can choose your preferred printing material
Really now? Can I get it in Titanium? Get back to me when it can combine Neutrons, Electrons and Protons to create truly remarkable items.
Very cool. I think weekend inventors and tinkerers will love this. Especially those who are concerned about someone stealing their idea... Just farm out unrecognizable pieces of your invention to different small independent print shops (who won’t have the expertise to figure out what they are printing) and it assemble at home to see if it works and/or to tweak the design. Still, there is the problem of learning CAD/CAM but at least you won’t have to sink tons of money into a high-end printer.
Entrepreneurs are going to thrive with this technology.
This interesting article about the Saturn V’s engine has a neat tidbit on the last page about how NASA and contractors are using 3D printing to build parts for a next-generation rocket motor based on the original Apollo rocket engine design.