Makerbot, Autodesk... Etc, 3D printing

[Booya]

I recall sometime ago we discussed these at length and a handful of people here even ordered one (I recall someone specifically that admitted they had no clue how to design anything, but wanted to learn).

Who all bought one and what have you made? What do you want to make that yo haven't? Would you make something new/different if you had the design help?

Lets see some of the creations! I'd love to see what anyone has done at home and hear about how they easy/well their printer works.

Personally, I think these are awesome and we're kicking around getting one at work. Full disclosure, I might be very interested in a mutually beneficial arrangement trading design work for printer use or something similar. But even more then that, I'd really love to see what people are making! Obviously if it's "proprietary" or you've made a widget that you intend to sell/market, I don't want to pry.

Lets see em!

 

[Scutter01]

Spasmo and I are currently in the market for a new 3D printer. Tagging for interest.

 

[Booya]

We've been eyeballing the Makerbot quite a bit... Without doing much research on the different kinds, so it's the marketing that has put them in the lead for the moment

Obviously, these things have unlimited potential, but the amour of stuff we design compared to what we pay in rapid prototyping costs.... Huge money saver. The sky is the limit though really!

 

[hoosierdoc]

There are super-users who you can contract to tune your device up. We worked with 3D Parts Manufacturing in Indy and they have numerous small ones, in addition to the half million dollar ones. I still badly want one but need to get out of debt first.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Picked up a Cubify that does three colors simultaneously and can print something the size of a basketball. So far I've used it as a platform for new stuff that comes in the house, but hope to get it set up shortly. I want to make some model railroad cars, and my son's getting into military dioramas; I figured we could print tanks and such, maybe make casting molds of them. That and plastic guns

 

[hoosierdoc]

plastic guns

makes it easier on the NSA bots

 

[ATOMonkey]

3D printing has really come a long way.

We are printing some of our more intricate parts out of steel and nickel allow.

It's better than casting in just about every way, especially for the small parts.

 

[Booya]

3D printing has really come a long way.

We are printing some of our more intricate parts out of steel and nickel allow.

It's better than casting in just about every way, especially for the small parts.

That's what I'm talking about. We haven't even yet looked into printing steel and nickel, but it's pretty high on the list!

 

[RobbyMaQ]

I want one just to be able to fix all the plastic crap that breaks around the house... I could use one to make a new latch for my dishwasher that just broke.

 

[michaelw2608]

Has anyone looked into building one themselves? I was checking out RepRap and they have pretty detailed instructions and parts lists. The printer is actually designed to so that most of the parts (brackets and such) are printed from another 3d printer.

 

[hoosierdoc]

I have talked with those who have. It is slow and you really should have a good mechanical understanding. Don't expect to build it in a day or two. Then there is a lot of tweaking, and of course endless upgrades available. I looked at a RepRap but i saw items off a different open source one that looked awesome

 

[CathyInBlue]

Who's making 3D printers that can print in steel and nickel? That's superalloy territory. That's the stuff they're printing regular rocket engines out of these days.