home physical printing follow up

[Michael Chisena]

All,
I have been keeping an eye on this for a while.
Due to money problems I can't do a thing about it.

The problem with most 'home' units has been print size.

The Deminsion 760 I had at NRL printed an 8x8x10 area and was the size of a refigerator.
http://www.dimensionprinting.com/?gclid=CJ61yY2q0K0CFclgTAodyRGLmw
The above is a 'pro' unit.

What I am talking about are home units. Less features and abilities. But good enough with a bit of care.

With home units, the vendors play games with size, and try to confuse us with case size vs print area size.

The 'Makerbot CNC' marketed out of NYC the specs call for a 12x12 space, but that is the foot print of the whole printer.
The actual print area is about 4 inches cubed. 

A snip from their web site.

"* Size: 300 x 300 x 410 mm (12″ W x 12″ D x 16″ H)
* Build Area: 96 x 108 mm
* Build Height: 115 mm"

About the size of a mug w/o the handle. 
Ok for artsey kind of things, not too useful for what we might consider projects.

Seems they just 'introduced' a bigger printer at CES.
You can get a look at it via this link and their home movie.
http://www.makerbot.com/
No published numbers or prices yet.

A couple of weeks back I was day dreaming about something with a bit more utility and a larger print area.
Did a casual search and found this.

It's a variation on the Rip Rap printer.

http://buildyourcnc.com/whiteAnt3DPrinterandCNCMachine.aspx


Prices not too wild either.

X-160mm, Y-190mm and Z-125mm.
6x7x5 inch print area.

A bit more useful.
It can also be set up to hold a dremel tool and used as a mechanical router.
So simple circuit boards can be cut with it too.

My kind of tool.


So clearly this is a busy market. Might be fun to keep an eye on.

Michael F. Chisena
KA2ZEV at Yahoo.com
703 863 4574





"You are, what you do, when it counts" 
The Masso