The future of 3d printing.

[Pgtaylorart]

Here's an exciting TED talk video I just watched about a new technique for 3d printing that seems to solve all of the problems with current printing. It's up to 100 times faster, much, much higher resolution (on par with injection molding), and can utilize many more materials in the printing process.

I think you might like this, Bo.

http://youtu.be/ihR9SX7dgRo

George

[uncletony]

Yeah, my industry friend has been telling me about CLIP for awhile now. It really does seem to address many of the bottlenecks and drawbacks inherent in the current techniques.

One thing is for certain and that is: this stuff isn't going away...

[uncletony]

BTW, Sculpteo has a CLIP printer already-- you can try it today if you want.
http://www.sculpteo.com/en/materials/clip-resin-material/

Shapeways has hinted that FUD and FXD (their polyjet offerings) are going to be dropped in the relatively near term-- they have ruled out providing designer controlled orientation partly because they are saying it would be a waste of time to create the software tools necessary to implement it. (Meanwhile they have rolled out designer orientation tools for their SLS stuff [aka "WSF"]).

Could SW be looking at CLIP to replace FUD/FXD? They aren't saying...

[uncletony]

I asked my friend (who may be considering acquiring a CLIP printer) what the downsides are. His response:

Very small build area - approx. 3" x 5"
Very primitive support generation
Materials are two part urethane (which is good) but they need to be premixed, have a pot life and need thermal postcuring (risk of warping, etc.) to reach proper strength.
Not clear on resolution yet.
Despite the "layerless" theory, there are visible layer lines

It’s cool though

[Pgtaylorart]

I thought you might already know about this.

Sculptio sounds very interesting. I'm going to look into that.

George

[uncletony]

Sculptio sounds very interesting. I'm going to look into that.

turns out there is a waiting list now as they tweak prices and try to figure out what is buildable. Sculpteo consistently rejects my models for have too fine detail to print on Polyjet, so while I've been a member at Sculpteo (and iMaterialize) almost since their inception, I've never actually had anything printed there. Too bad; their online tools are pretty good and in general it's a nicer experience imo than SW....

[Bluesfan]

Bo, do you (or anyone else) have any knowledge/opinions about the process and potential of mcortechnologies' approach? It's paper based which sounds a bit doubtful at first sight, however the examples on their gallery pages are very impressive. But I guess they would be...
My initial reaction is that it's not immediately useful in our particular craft, for the models themselves, but maybe very useful indeed in diorama work.
Their desktop machine offers a build size of 240 mm x 205 mm x 125 mm, FWIW.
It's certainly one of the parts of the 3D printing world I'm keeping an interested eye on.
And may I say your own stunning work is another

Mark

[Pgtaylorart]

Bo, do you (or anyone else) have any knowledge/opinions about the process and potential of mcortechnologies' approach? It's paper based which sounds a bit doubtful at first sight, however the examples on their gallery pages are very impressive. But I guess they would be...
My initial reaction is that it's not immediately useful in our particular craft, for the models themselves, but maybe very useful indeed in diorama work.
Their desktop machine offers a build size of 240 mm x 205 mm x 125 mm, FWIW.
It's certainly one of the parts of the 3D printing world I'm keeping an interested eye on.
And may I say your own stunning work is another

Mark

Yes, the paper 3d printing is very interesting, especially since it prints in full color. The samples online of the human figures are pretty cool. Maybe full color, scanned from life, pilot figures could be possible. From what I see though, the resolution is limited to the thickness of the paper.

George

[uncletony]

There's also the ZCorp stuff which prints in full color and has a grainy, sugar like texture. Might be a very interesting way to create certain kinds of diorama objects...

[uncletony]

So my friend down the road just installed one of these new-fangled Carbon3D CLIP printers (see original post with TED talk video), was doing the first test runs a few days ago. He says the resolution is "ridiculous" (good, I think), but the software is clunky and the workflow, also clunky. Hope to pop in this week and have a look for myself...

[bobs_buckles]

 
The resolution is improving by the day. Looks sweet!

vB

[ALBATROS1234]

saw this a while back....have you guys checked the pricing? i wont be able to afford one like this anytime soon

[uncletony]

Heh. It's not exactly a consumer product. Pricing starts at $40,000/year -- you're into six figures pretty quickly with the support stuff and add ons.

But we all know how the price of tech goes, and with Google behind this you know this isn't going to stop with just being a product aimed at service bureaus...