Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

http://store.makerbot.com/replicator2.html



looks like it can make, or I mean remake, anything

AN INCREDIBLE 3D desktop printer that promises it can create just about anything has gone on sale - costing just $2,199.

The MakerBot Replicator 2 allows users to design anything from toys and gadgets to jewellery, and then watch their creations come to life before their eyes.

Instead of printing ink onto paper - like a conventional printer - the Replicator uses a special bio plastic that creates objects layer by layer.

Because it's being marketed as a desktop printer, users are limited to objects measuring 410 cubic inches in volume - about the size of the average shoe.

But Makerbot think it will appeal to inventors, wannabe designers - and Star Trek fans desperate to get their hands on real life version of the 'Replicator' gadget from Captain Kirk's Starship Enterprise.
And they hope the $2,199 (£1,365) price-tag will make it affordable to hobbyists as well as professionals.

The firm have even opened up a store in New York City to help them promote what they're billing as the world's first user friendly and affordable 3D printer.

I wonder how this thing compares to the rep-rap. A buddy of mine bought/built one of those and started playing around with it and I've thought about giving it a try as well. It can't print at a high enough quality to do, say, GW-quality sculpts though.

Personally, I would rather get a Form 1.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/formlabs/form-1-an-affordable-professional-3d-printer?ref=live

The quality looks to be a lot better then the Makerbot stuff.

Yeah, good effing luck to them verse the Form 1 in my opinion.

Form 1 is vastly superior, with it's liquid resin laser approach.

The layer-by-layer "plastic cake icing" tech is utterly shoddy in comparison.

Yeah, I have a makerbot. For 1k, it was an awesome project to make and use. For double that, Form 1 will eat its lunch money next year.

The specific point is the blue ray laser for the sculpts.


They have a comparison shot of the Makerbots, and the Form 1's producing the exact sculpt. The look on that kickstarter is night and day.

They will be hooking you in the resin when the time comes.

As to "Affordable", if you get one, can you show us a picture of something that you cast? Not nessesarly a mini, but something to see for ourselveds what the quality really looks like "In the flash" so to speak?

I am really interested in hooking one of these things up to Blender, and seeing how it works.

 RiTides wrote:
Yeah, I have a makerbot. For 1k, it was an awesome project to make and use. For double that, Form 1 will eat its lunch money next year.

As long as you live in the USA, the rest of us can jog-on, apparently.

The Form 1 will ship overseas, but will be more expensive.

Also, it looks pretty damn awesome

There is still materials cost and such. Both of them have costs, but the PLA plastic might be significantly cheaper than the form 1, and can construct large pieces.

For us miniature gamers though, the form 1 looks good, but call me when they actually have a product to sell. Just because they have a kickstarter up doesn't mean we'll actually be able to buy within a year.

The form one looks like it might lead the way for some cheaper higher resolution printers at an affordable price.

http://b9creator.com/

Did a KS for them last spring, funded - produced - shipped. Still tweaking the software interface and some other stuff - though the principal is about as simple as it gets.

The bottom of the printer has a pool of light catalyzed polymer (the reason for the funky colored glass). There is a stepper motor that lifts the platform and the cured polymer up one layer at a time. There is a simple projector on the bottom that cures an entire layer of polymer at a time.

The slices are projected on the bottom of the pool in order to cure it. When it cures, the projector turns off, the stepper motor lifts the cured polymer one layer height up and the projector turns on again to display the next slice of the object (very similar to the Form 1 - though using a projected image as opposed to a laser).

One of the upsides with the B9 over the Form 1 is that you should be able to tweak the resolution much easier. Making smaller steps up will increase the Z resolution. A higher resolution projector will increase the X-Y resolution (an HD projector or even just a higher quality basic projector would double the X-Y resolution).

It also utilizes standard polymer which you can get from existing suppliers (as opposed to Form 1 which seems to be going there own way...I hate proprietary formulas...).

Both are leaps and bounds over ones like Maker-Bot. I have been thinking about picking one up to hack at to see about tweaking the resolution.

I wonder now, how GW will deal with this? I guess GW doesn't have to worry about people copying PDF files, now we can actually copy minitures.

Once painted, will people actually be able to tell if it's a GW bought or photocopied?

Davor wrote:
I wonder now, how GW will deal with this? I guess GW doesn't have to worry about people copying PDF files, now we can actually copy minitures.

Once painted, will people actually be able to tell if it's a GW bought or photocopied?

It will be awhile before it is a direct threat to GW. Even at 16 microns (the Objet) you have noticeable striations to deal with. They aren't difficult to clean up, just time consuming. Once cleaned up though, you have a presentable model that can be painted or used as a master for casting from. If you look at the bird cage on the Form-1 page though, you can see how the wires look fuzzy...compare that to something from an injection molded kit.

The other issue is of course the models themselves. There is a certain level of skill involved and the models have to meet specific requirements to be printable. Most of the stuff that you find online right now doesn't meet the standard. Certainly, once they become more common - you will see an increase in the availability of models...but that will likely be a while down the road.

Davor wrote:
I wonder now, how GW will deal with this? I guess GW doesn't have to worry about people copying PDF files, now we can actually copy minitures.

Once painted, will people actually be able to tell if it's a GW bought or photocopied?

honestly, I have a tub of molding rubber sitting around here and some nice casting epoxy to go with it - haven't had the time for too much experimentation yet but with a few hundred dollars of tools to go with it (==a lot less than a 3D printer) I could probably make recasts near indistinguishable from existing models. right here and now. with no fancy technology.
and it actually takes a lot less money. okay, a little more skill but still...

and 10 years from now that's not going to be different.
there's still the striations to deal with, it's a slow and expensive process and it doesn't scale all that well to producing, say, an entire army.
it might be fun for two things:
1) the big stuff you'd have trouble casting in resin at home, e.g. tanks etc.
2) sharing conversion bits via forums etc.

and that last one's the biggun', really.
dakka P&M is going to see folks sharing their CAD files for all the cool bits they made in their spare time and GW is going to be out a bunch on expensive bits sets.
...Because we get a file, print it once, or perhaps a few times, and after cleaning the prints up, cast up any multiples we need.

still, it's going to be a niche hobby for a few hardcore modellers. it takes money, skill, space and a hell of a lot more time than you'd think.

GW is not going to have to worry about these things for at least another decade (or two!)

Yep, for now they're fine, but when the current top-end tech starts to filter down to the consumer level there's going to be shenanigans.