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I'm just going to leave this here...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/03/16/this-new-technology-blows-3d-printing-out-of-the-water-literally/

If the cost ever comes down, I think this really would be the end of the debate on making your own models at home. Besides, what would be cooler than designing a model and then watching it be born from the ooze?

Guaranteed some Hordes player will make one look like a spawning vessel and print Everblight spawn...

 Aipoch wrote:
I'm just going to leave this here...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/03/16/this-new-technology-blows-3d-printing-out-of-the-water-literally/

If the cost ever comes down, I think this really would be the end of the debate on making your own models at home. Besides, what would be cooler than designing a model and then watching it be born from the ooze?

I mentioned this technology a month ago in another thread (I think the Chinese Piracy Thread).

I saw a demo of it in the Bay Area at a Conference, and it promises to be a game-changer.

It currently has some issues of scalability that need to be solved, but when it does.... It will make printing miniatures a Breeze (and cheap).

Still... Casting would be the best means of mass production, but this could be used to produce custom designs, or masters.

MB

Did you get a feel for what the cost of production is? Casting still reigns as king, but I could see this used for mass production for two very important reasons.

1. You are making a whole model, not parts of it.
2. You have no vents for molds, thus no excess material/waste. Highly effecient, less material cost.

I would invision a kind of vertical conveyer belt system that runs continuous out of an autoreplinishing liquid pool. Just cranking them out, one at a time.

After looking around at several articles about this printer, it turns out the company has not announced any pricing yet on either the machine or the resin. Up to this point, a quality 3D print of a miniature costs a lot more than even GW prices, so if this printer was revolutionary in that respect, we probably would have heard it by now.

Eventually 3D printing will get cheaper, but many of the cool technologies are still under patent protection and have not made it out to the lower end printers yet. That is also assuming 3D printer manufactures don't go all printer ink cartridge pricing on us.

 RockoRobotics wrote:
After looking around at several articles about this printer, it turns out the company has not announced any pricing yet on either the machine or the resin. Up to this point, a quality 3D print of a miniature costs a lot more than even GW prices, so if this printer was revolutionary in that respect, we probably would have heard it by now.

Eventually 3D printing will get cheaper, but many of the cool technologies are still under patent protection and have not made it out to the lower end printers yet. That is also assuming 3D printer manufactures don't go all printer ink cartridge pricing on us.

This is not a production machine, it is just a demonstrator to show that the process works.

They currently only have two working printers.

This is why I said they have scalability issues to work out (how to manufacture the printers for market sales).

It is likely that the Printer will initially sell for around $5,000 - $10,000, which is roughly the price of other high-resolution printers.

But this price, while seeming to be expensive, is actually only 1/100th of the price of similarly high-resolution printers, because it prints in 1/100th of the time of these other high-res printers, thus making it possible to see a return on the investment in 1/100th of the time.

Expect to see them on the Market around 2017.

I know that producers of other printers are talking to them about licensing the technology, so these companies will be the ones making production models of the printer.

And, lastly, you have hit upon a key element of the cost of 3D printing:

Medium.

Most companies, when they charge for printing, charge for the medium, not the time required to print (unless it is an exceptionally long period of print-time).

And medium is freaking expensive.

This process does not change that.

MB