The Rise and Rise of 3D Printing
The recent news that ZCorp now offer two new 'value' printers is perhaps not that shocking given the recent entry of HP into this rapidly expanding 'low-end' market. Not that I think ZCorp have developed these latest offerings in response to HP's entry (a recent chat with CEO John Kawola put paid to that theory), but it's increasingly obvious that a number of companies have their eyes trained on the sub £15k 3D Printing market. I doubt that Z Corp will be the last to make an offering in this area.
Todd Grimm and Associates have recently released a report that benchmarks seven 3D Printing systems, showing who does what, who really can't do that despite claiming to be able to, and how much it's all going to cost you. The report excellently highlights the abilities and inabilities of the machines, and demonstrates that of all of the technologies to chose from, you're going to feel let down with it at some point.
It could be the sharpness of detail, or the fact that parts of your build simply failed to materialise, or that you've made too many models and now you've no money left. Either way, it's going to grind your gears at some point. It would be the same were you in the market for an injection moulding machine; whether you go Engel, Arburg or Negri Bossi you're likely to come across something, at some point, where your machine is outperformed by one of the others.
If you know what you want from your 3D Printer however, and are willing to accept that no one machine ticks all the boxes just yet, you at least have the options in front of you.
Some see the ultimate goal for 3D Printers to be on every desk next to your home computer. I don't see it happening myself, but I realise that could be a 'one computer in every town in America' type of statement.
If you look at the evolution and uptake of inkjet printers, they went through a huge surge when everyone decided that inferior quality photo-prints using gallons of expensive ink an premium paper were the way to go. Eventually we realised that hunting for drivers online, fixing paper jams and listening to THAT NOISE when the thing is starting up was not fun. So now we upload our photos and get them printed by experts and sent back to us the next day. Bingo.
Facilitating the inkjet revolution was the concurrent revolution in digital photography. Suddenly everyone with an opposable thumb was a photographer. Without this development inkjet would probably never have infiltrated our quiet studies with THAT DAMN NOISE like they did — so what's the concurrent development 3D Printing needs? The ability to design in 3D made as easy as digital photography, that's what.
PS. Just as I was about to post this, an rp-ml post dropped in. From www.pp3dp.com, a Personal Portable 3D Printer. Searching for some info at the moment. The website looks to have been registered in China, and the technology is FDM... Anyone have any ideas? Oh, it's $1500 too.
2 Comments - Click to Add Your Comment:
Re. your statement near the end about 'what's the concurrent development 3D Printing needs - The ability to design in 3D made as easy as digital photography, that's what.' For many individuals 3D CAD packages are not easily accessible as they do not use them for work or work for a company that uses them. Nor justifiable - too steep a learning curve and high cost. Many of the freebies are not easy to use either. Our company, Anarkik3D, has just released Version2 of Cloud9, an affordable haptic (virtual touch 3D sketch/modelling package which is very easy and quick to learn and use. It is sold through A1 Technologies as Chameleon (bundled with a haptic device) and will again be shown at this years TCT Exhibition. It is fully compatible with 3D printing and therefore makes designing in 3D for 3D printing nearly as easy as digital photography is. Aesthethics in both areas is another matter but as its doing that really counts that can come later!
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