Thread: Rapid Prototyping Machine/3D Modelling

This looks great. Are you having it printed on a 3D Systems printer or ZCorp?

@niko73 - That looks amazing. I designed a bezel awhile back. They results were better than I expected. I think it was a polyjet part from these guys but not sure now. Does anyone have any experience with SLA parts?

Damn, i wish I have access to one of thise Z-corp printers, i would rebuild half of the car
That thing is 20k, i guess time to DIY

Originally Posted by tempgp

Damn, i wish I have access to one of thise Z-corp printers, i would rebuild half of the car
That thing is 20k, i guess time to DIY

The technology is expensive if you just buy a commercial machine. But there are open source alternatives focused on www.reprap.org. Check out www.BitsFromBytes.com for a very successful system. They have a complete kit -- version 3.1 -- for about 800 Euros. The company was just purchased by a manufacturer of commercial machines, 3dSystems.

The one I'm keeping my eye on is www.UltiMaker.com, in the Netherlands. They're in the final stages of proofing their kit. They haven't announced availability of kits, yet, but it shouldn't be too long. Pricing will probably be comparable to the BFB 3.1, but that's only a guess. It will be open source, meaning plans will be available if you want to build one from scratch.

I had planned to build a Mendel (the second model from reprap.org), and even acquired many of the parts, but decided to hold off and check out the UltiMaker. If the Mendel will work well for your application, there are part sources. Check out www.UltiMachine.com, based in Tennessee.

I was looking at this ages ago, but all the companies that were offering 3d printing (in the UK) were stupidly expensive so I bought some materials and hand fabbed it for about 0.1% of the 3D printing cost! lol

In the UK I think the cheapest quote I could get for the faceplate was about £200! I wonder if it's got cheaper now...

You can make a DIY one using a HD projector with a UV bulb I believe?

Those 3 links seam to be base on reprap which is nice but it has bid downsides, if you want to print smooth surfaces with cavities, the sides get very rough. It seamd that plastic melting technolago is best for machunery parts (support parts) and for pottery like goods where you can build object in sircular motion without braking the "noodle"

So really if I want to manufacture my dash/bazzel I will have to take 1lb of body filler to make the sirface smooth

The powder based printers seam to be much more promising, like the one from z-corp. I found few videos using DIY printers like that but they using regular ink to bond the particles... looks suspicious. I guess for DIY you need some sort of low low viscasity bonder/hardener that can be loaded to ink jet printer and then we need some sorrt of chemical powder that will become plastic like material in less then sec when hardener is applied. If thos chemicals are availabe then we can use high resolution photo inkjets to print layers,.... ading extra roller to spread powder and adjust the bed is not that difficult