3D Print

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

could you 3d print the pellets?

i think you mistaken pellets with pallets
and to answer question :yes you can print pallets but at much higher cost than other methods

Rory28 wrote: »

Is it any use or is it still in its early days and just gimmicky?

It depends from a operator of a printer
for me it was and is pretty much straight forward but i know that there are ppl that have spent loads of money on a "premium"(meker bot is crap) product and still cant get it to work
even with manual in hand
also i`m producing printed parts for the bussines i work in at a fraction of cost of a genuine part, and a funny thing some printed parts might come out stronger than designed to break original ones

depends from the complexity of such part as it might take loads of hours to design complex parts in software

in other words it does work but there is no really good 3D scanner on the market that would allow to skip that design process

and on the other hand i had 2 requests from lads i work with one was a filter for coffee machine and the other was part of suspension on a R/C plane that was few moths ago and they are still happy up to this day both parts ware very simple to design and i was done with the whole design and print in an hour.

so guess i could but i`m a IT guy and I don`t know how to deal with customers as they don`t come with a keyboard to input data

I was thinking about BB gun pellets and also there are plastic fillers of teddy bears and other crafts
but they never say what type of plastic it is.
And i don`t think that it would be a virgin material

you can use only up to 20% of recycled plastic mixed with virgin material for good strength of such material you can`t recycle plastics endlesly as they are composed of polymer chains that break every time they are processed just like cellulose in paper

yes and no
at the moment if we are thinking about one of parts than the simpler the better or the more sense it makes
if you want few coppies
as there is still not a single affordable 3D scanner that could give you exact dimmensions when it comes to engineering parts
but for art sculptures than shure you can use even MS Kinnect and get very nice prints as it does not make any difference if lets say a hair line is 1% higher or lower but it does make a difference for engineering parts that must fit
just take a look at the pic below and you will notice the multitude of lost details of such process


makerbot-blog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Digitizer_4_700x380.jpg


also take a look at this site if you dont know it
thingiverse.com
it should give you an idea of what can be done, also you might notice that there is only few ppl that upload new projects and 95 % of users just gets the 3d objects from games and remixes existing projects

one more note,
what if you have something broken and they dont make replacement parts for it anymore ?
or just a little pin is broken and they want you to buy a whole new assembly plus the shipping
than the 3d print makes more and more sense and as the competition grows it will be less and less costly until a moment when if need of bowl for breakfast it will be easier to print and toss away than wash it.

hope i did not create to much confusion here

printed buildings
youtube.com/watch?v=OYqBxEAtXZA
3ders.org/articles/20140826-minnesotan-world-first-3d-printed-concrete-castle-in-his-own-backyard.html

Chocolate and other pastes and ceramics
3ders.org/articles/20120417-from-chocolate-to-ceramics-3d-printing.html
youtube.com/watch?v=8WWHpWgaq7I

also you can use metals but a good printer costs a million or more

and timber like materials "Laywoo" ceramic like material "laybrick", silk, cotton, sponge like materials
and all kinds of plastics and there is infinite amount of those with all kind of properties like : foodsafe, flame retardant, flame retardant low fumes, heat resistant, carbonfibre carbon nanotubes and glasfibre infused ones, soft ,though,
on one ocasion i used nylon that is sold for grass trimmers (brilliant material very strong with a nice flexibility 40eur/kg )
stuff like this 3ders.org/articles/20141015-mit-lab-3d-printed-programmable-self-assembling-wood-and-carbon-fiber.html
and that is just the start coz they also print fully functional electronic circuts and touch screens as well.

and in some countries Police is starting to record crime scens with 3d scanners