3D Printing and Photography

[orionid]

Does anyone have any experience with 3D Printers? A buddy of mine is a sales rep for one of the big players and is offering me one of their units at his cost if I let hime use things I make as demo pieces. The problem is that his cost is still higer than most of the comparable units from other manufacturers. Another friend has one of those.

I’m not going to make a decision in the very short term (seeing as how I just spent all my fun money on a new body and glass), but I’ve been toying with the idea and considering it since the days when you had to build your own from plans. Now the consumer models are less than I just spent on a camera body. I have no dilusions of making gobs of money on these, but if I can print out enough things for personal use that would balance out the cost of the unit versus what I’d spend on the thing being printed, then it’d be worth it in my mind.

I’ve played with samples, I’m not going to be making GamesWorkshop-quality miniatures. I’m also not going to be stuck with outright garbage. At least early-on everything I make will be form over function, and that’s had me thinking all night (I really hate slow days on nightshift. My ideas get more and more expensive as time passes).

I could make casings for homemade lenses. I could make adapters for everything. I could even make an entire MF camera. I could make 620 spools until the cows came home. I could make that thing I’ve been thinking about for years that’s simultaneously a Mamaiya 6×7 to Nikon-F adapter and T/S mechanism. Add some O-rings, lexan, and a little bit (lots) of faith and I could make a universal watertight enclosure for my dslrs.

But I’m not convinced now’s the right time. Like every new technology, prices drop as people buy into it and research expands. prices now are a fraction of what they were a few years ago. In a few more years, I doubt prices will be much more than an inkjet printer is currently and resolution will be much better. But for anything I can think of making now, the current state is fine and prices are acceptable.

Do I hold out for better and cheaper? Do I take the plunge? If I made cool shit for cheap, would y’all buy from me?

[ennuipoet]

Personally, I’ve committed to the “wait a year and see the prices drop philosophy” but my tech needs are much lower than yours. Hell, I didn’t get a smart phone until last year.

[bender16v]

Many of my customers have these and use them for lots of stuff from making prototype tubes, gages, and fixtures for production. They aren’t very fast but you can start them and let them run all night. Which solid modeling software do you use? All places I have seen are using SolidWorks and then they just hit the “print” button and the part opens in the printer’s software where it estimates time and lets you position the part on the pallet. I really want one! But I don’t have/know SolidWorks and don’t know what I want to make yet. But I want one!

Actually some public libraries have started installing these. My wife used to work at Paul Smiths College in New York and they just bought one and I heard about several places in CT adding them. I think that in the future these will be everywhere and availability to the public will be easy. I’m just waiting for a decent CAD package that is free or reasonably priced.

[Yugoboy]

Me? I’m waiting for the 3D Pizza Printer.

[orionid]

Me? I’m waiting for the 3D Pizza Printer.

I have one of those. It’s called an oven.

[Yugoboy]

Me? I’m waiting for the 3D Pizza Printer.

I have one of those. It’s called an oven.

Too much work. Want to be able to type in a pizza, with toppings, cheese and sauce options and have what I requested pop out the other end.

Pizza-by-fax was just never going to be a going concern, but a 3D pizza printer would be the tits.

[orionid]

Me? I’m waiting for the 3D Pizza Printer.

I have one of those. It’s called an oven.

Too much work. Want to be able to type in a pizza, with toppings, cheese and sauce options and have what I requested pop out the other end.

Pizza-by-fax was just never going to be a going concern, but a 3D pizza printer would be the tits.

How’s this, then? You don’t even need to use code. Just point and click on the GUI.

[Yugoboy]

Where’s the BBQ chicken pizza? The Mexican Pizza? Jerk Chicken? Pesto?

If I want a “normal” pizza, there’s like 4 frozen ones in the basement.

Any Farker/Farktographer that comes to Western New York and visits will be able to enjoy this sort of treat.

[chupathingie]

The only drawback I see from the whole 3D printer scene would be durability/strength and precision of the parts. I’m sure the plastic is fine for light mechanical loads, but I’m not sure I’d want to use an adapter, say, made this way between a camera body and a heavy telephoto lens. On the plus side, there is still an unlimited number of gadgets that can be made that don’t require high strength or precision…

Is the quality of your friend’s unit higher than others? As in better precision or speed?

Edit: that last sentence came out completely wrong 😆

[orionid]

The only drawback I see from the whole 3D printer scene would be durability/strength and precision of the parts. I’m sure the plastic is fine for light mechanical loads, but I’m not sure I’d want to use an adapter, say, made this way between a camera body and a heavy telephoto lens. On the plus side, there is still an unlimited number of gadgets that can be made that don’t require high strength or precision…

Is the quality of your friend’s unit higher than others? As in better precision or speed?

Edit: that last sentence came out completely wrong 😆

The dealer is pushing the unit that claims to have the highest precision on the market. Most of the reviews put it in the top three. The less expensive one that’s owned by the other friend is maybe top five or ten in reviews and number one for strength/durability of every test I’ve read. One even had a 200 pound man stand on it while it was printing. He’s only used it for toys for his son, and …. ummm…. things that he’d prefer not be mentioned on the internet.

[orionid]

Many of my customers have these and use them for lots of stuff from making prototype tubes, gages, and fixtures for production. They aren’t very fast but you can start them and let them run all night. Which solid modeling software do you use? All places I have seen are using SolidWorks and then they just hit the “print” button and the part opens in the printer’s software where it estimates time and lets you position the part on the pallet. I really want one! But I don’t have/know SolidWorks and don’t know what I want to make yet. But I want one!

Actually some public libraries have started installing these. My wife used to work at Paul Smiths College in New York and they just bought one and I heard about several places in CT adding them. I think that in the future these will be everywhere and availability to the public will be easy. I’m just waiting for a decent CAD package that is free or reasonably priced.

Software and learning curve would be the biggest hangup. I was a whiz (and competed in) 3D Studio Max and Autocad in high school….. and haven’t touched a CAD suite since. I figure I’ll start with the open source stuff and go from there.

[CauseISaidSo]

Well, I really do understand the craving to be an early adopter, especially for this technology. I have no idea what I’d do with, but I still want one, too.

I’ve learned over the years that often (not always, but often) if you can deny yourself for a little while, you’ll be happier with the end result (i.e., cheaper and/or more features/stability). That said, if it’s something you truly want NOW, if you can live with the fact that next year’s model will likely be 2/3rds of the price with twice the features, and if you can afford it without neglecting necessities, hey, it’s your money and money’s no good unless you can use it to make yourself (or those you love) happy.

If I made cool shit for cheap, would y’all buy from me?

I wouldn’t buy something just because you made it, but if it was something I wanted/needed/liked, I’d definitely buy from you before looking elsewhere.

Hell, I didn’t get a smart phone until last year.

Ha! Me, too. Still don’t use it much, although since I work from home and get crappy cell reception here, I don’t use a cellphone in general too much. I did find it really handy to keep track of sports scores during the college football & basketball seasons.

[Yoyo]

This thread is TL/DR. I use Shapeways for my 3D printing. It’s cheaper than a big capital outlay and worrying about consumables. It does miss the instantaneous gratification. Shapeways has very good fine detail. (I was able to print usable M58x0.75 threads.) If you just want to make toy soldiers, get some lead and a meting pot, then make rubber molds from existing minis.

[Yoyo]

Also, SolidWorks is popular because it’s cheap. And by cheap I mean in the single-digit thousand dollar range. I just priced out IronCad and it’s $4k. Currently I’m using ViaCAD because it’s about $80 (and I haven’t crashed it yet).

Try taking a CAD class at your local community college so you could get a student edition of something for cheap or make nice with the computer guy and get a bootleg version for free.

[ennuipoet]

Hell, I didn’t get a smart phone until last year.

Ha! Me, too. Still don’t use it much, although since I work from home and get crappy cell reception here, I don’t use a cellphone in general too much. I did find it really handy to keep track of sports scores during the college football & basketball seasons.

I didn’t use my droid phone for much of anything, I bought a cheap POS. Then I bought an iphone, and now I understand. I am not quite an iphone Zombie, but I used it a lot. There is an app called PhotoCalc which I used almost every time I shoot.

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