MakerBot Gets $10 Million Investment 160
First time accepted submitter chrisl456 writes "MakerBot Industries, makers (hah!) of 3D printers / personal fabrication devices, just got a big boost in the form of $10 million from an 'all-star lineup.' Replicators, here we come!"
Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't see why everyone's so fascinated with those extruding printers. They're extremely complex, extremely slow and their output is very low resolution. They have to fill solid parts with extruded material in a zig-zag pattern... takes forever and the output is a joke.
This [blogspot.com], on the other hand, almost looks like magic [youtube.com]. This thing makes one whole layer at a time with extreme precision. It's also extremely simple in design: a single motor on one axis, one projector and a container for liquid resin.
Compare the output of the two types of machines [blogspot.com]. If you still prefer the MakerBot-type machines after seeing the video and the photos, please explain because I can't see any reason for the MakerBot to even exist. It's like wanting Windows 3.11 instead of Linux or Mac OS X.
Agree w/ all but the Lego bricks (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is you can't make bricks of the same quality as Lego bricks using any 3D printer currently in existence or on the drawing board --- the tolerances simply aren't tight enough --- Lego uses _tons_ of pressure in their molding equipment, moreover, Lego is constantly doing QA on their production and will pull a mold and grind it up to re-use it at the slightest deviation --- the new Lego bricks I purchase for my kids still work fine w/ four decade old bricks from my childhood. Lego's precision for brick parts is something on the order of 2 micrometers.
By way of contrast, the printer which Shapeways ( http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=tree&goto=1339&#page_top [shapeways.com] ) uses as a tolerance of, ``... about .1mm, but the material can change it slightly. Overall, .5 should be fine, just make sure that they are not any sort of support walls or they may get broken during shipping or printing.'' .1 mm == 100 micrometers
If you want to know what its like when the tolerances are sloppy, buy a set of Mega Blok bricks, but even those have tighter tolerance than the tenth of a millimeter which Shapeways quotes.
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)
(Also, I'm not sure about the resin properties, i.e. if they are as good as the plastic.)
The fact is, for many simple items the current resolution is doing just fine. And if you don't need to produce large quantities or aren't in a big hurry, taking time may not be an issue since you can just let it print and go do something else.
Re:Can't Wait... (Score:4, Interesting)
My understanding is that the most agonizing part of fiberglassing is making molds. If my jackass brothers could make surfboards, I'll bet you can glass into a mold. So... print molds, then smooth them out for actual use, and then lay fiberglass, or vacuform some lexan... I like Lexan because you can paint the inside and it looks awesome. You could even fade the paint to transparency and/or mask off sections to leave transparent windows to the understructure where it looks cool. But fiberglass doesn't require a big oven...
I'd also settle for nothing but vacuforming the interior pieces if they're not made of metal. That's how the big boys do it. You can do it with a shop-vac. In my acrylics class way back in junior high we had a locally made oven constructed from sheet metal, insulated with fiberglass, and filled with heat lamps. Any jackhole ought to be able to build one of those. I've priced a hand roll/break and you can get one for $200 that will handle the sheet metal you'd need to conveniently build one big enough to handle a whole dashboard.
My dream toy car is a tube-frame Lancer with a TDI+Quattro drivetrain...