Did you just print out a picture? Are you feeling that two dimensional soul sucking bleakness? Yup. That’s what I call the 2D printer blues. A two dimensional image simply can’t capture your genius and inspired view of the world, can it? Well, no more! NOOO more, I say! Welcome to the world of 3D printing my friends. No money? No problem! In this article I’ll take you through the plethera of low cost 3D printing options available to you. Yes sir-eee-ooo! Yes I will. … Ummm … you may still need to beg for those few extra bits of change every now and then to afford it all. But, hey life’s hard, what can you do? – Don’t answer that – it’s a rhetorical question!
3D printers are one of those new/old fangled technologies that have been incredibly expensive. At one point only the opulence of the rich could afford them. Units produced incredible and beautiful designs but typically cost between 20,000-40,000 USD to purchase. But now 🙂 … a quiet grassroots revolution has been underway. Small groups of valient, inspired and motivated engineers from around the world have been working to change all that. And so enter the new and low cost 3D printers! “A 3D printer in every home!” is their moto, and well they’re starting to succeed.
Alright .. that’s enough fluff talk for now, let’s get right to the meat of it all. Here’s a running list of the printer companies available to you. I’ll try to discuss the costs and the pros and cons of each printer in other articles. In fact, the only reason I’m actually writing this little excerpt is so that I can figure out what printer to buy myself!
- Reprap (https://www.reprap.org)
- Portabee (https://portabee3dprinter.com)
- Leapfrog (https://www.lpfrg.com)
- Makerbot Industries (https://www.makerbot.com)
- Formlabs (https://formlabs.com)
- Solidoodle (https://www.solidoodle.com)
- Eventorbot (https://eventorbot.com/)
- Waka (https://www.waka.co.nz)
- Printrbot (https://printrbot.com)
- MaukCC (https://www.mauk.cc/)
- RapidShape (https://rapidshape.de)
- IRapid (https://irapid.de)
- ShaperCube (https://www.shapercube.com)
- Fabbster (https://www.fabbster.com)
- Buildatron (https://buildatron.com)
- Tantillus (https://www.tantillus.org)
- SumPod (https://www.sumpod.com)
- Origo (https://www.origo3dprinting.com)
- PP3DP (https://pp3dp.com)
- Fab @ Home (https://www.fabathome.org)
- Felix Printers (https://www.felixprinters.com)
- Sharebot (https://www.sharebot3d.com)
- MakerGear (https://www.makergear.com)
- Ultimaker (https://www.ultimaker.com)
- MakiBox (https://makibox.com)
- SeeMeCNC (https://shop.seemecnc.com)
- 3D Systems/ZCorp (https://www.zcorp.com)
- 3D Systems: Cubify (https://cubify.com)
- 3D Systems: BitsFromBytes (https://www.bitsfrombytes.com)
- Stratasys (https://www.stratasys.com)
- Stratasys: Objet (https://objet.com)
- Stratasys: Dimension (https://www.dimensionprinting.com)
- Stratasys: Fortus (https://www.fortus.com)
- Stratasys: UPrint (https://www.uprint3dprinting.com)
- Stratasys: Mojo (https://www.mojo3dprinting.com)
- Stratasys: RedEye (https://www.redeyeondemand.com)
Most 3D printers currently available are aimed at rapid prototyping applications rather than mass production. All the 3D printers in the market can be categorized into four distinct types: Extrusion Printers, Granular Printers, Photopolymerization Printers, Lamination Printers. Some printers may cross between these categories occasionally, but this is the exception rather than the rule (for low end printers).
A huge community has developed as a result of cheap 3D printing. The thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com) is an example of how communities are beginning to share and modify designs of unique objects or products.
Printers normally have consumable costs associated with them. Most low end printers use extrusion technologies (i.e. fused deposition modeling) and so these consumables take the form of plastic filaments. Photopolymerization typically utilizes rapid curing of liquid resin or photopolymers via UV light (i.e. stereolithography & digital light processing) . Granualar printers utilize granular plastic powders and use a process of selective sintering (melting & fusing) to form a 3D part. Lamination printers typically use film like materials (paper, plastic, etc.) combined with adhesive or sintering process and laser cutting to create shapes. Anyways! That’s it for now folks. I’ll write more about 3D Printers in another article.