Why buy a 3-D printer ?

3D printers can be bought so as to set up your own fabrication center or fab lab. A fabrication center allows to produce large batches of a limted range of 3D models, whereas a fab lab is more of a research center where prototype designs are printed further assessment before giving the go ahead to produce it in large quantities. Fabrication centers hence suffice with 1 or several low-cost 3D printers, where fab labs tend to require a collection of different (expensive) machines.[1]

If you don't need to produce large batches of a same 3D model, it may make sense to use a 3D printing service. These either have local fabrication centers near your location where you can then pick up your printed model, or they produce it further away and then ship it via a parcel service to your doorstep.

If you want a 3-D printer, by far the least expensive method to get one, is to build it yourself from open source designs. A RepRap, which you can build yourself for under $600 is detailed here on Appropedia, for other designs see below.

List of open design 3-D printers

There are now several open design 3-D printers on the market for example:

  1. RepRap[2]. See this article for the basic idea. Again you can buy a setup for 795 pounds here but also build it yourself. The really interesting thing about this model is the machines can produce themselves - at least to some degree. For some examples of what it can do see this. Makeshift RepRaps, or Repstraps
  2. The original Fab@Home
  3. MakerBot Industries -- Although they have CupCake CNC kits for sale -- all the plans are available - it says "I am an open, hackable robot for making nearly anything". See a video from CES 2010 on the CupCake here. The old makerbots are open source - not so with the new one.
  4. ORD Bot Quantum 3D printer
  5. Some others may be found at the 3-D printing article at the P2P Foundation

There are a lot of interesting possibilities for the use of such 3-D printers to create appropriate technologies for sustainable development. This is the beginning.

For more on 3-D printers and open sourced sustainable development see this Journal of Sustainable Development article

3D printing with materials unsuited for low-cost 3D printers

Most low-cost 3D printers are not suited for printing metals, ... This is because this requires a very sturdy 3D printer that can also withstand high heat. However, we can still make 3D objects using these printers, by using the 3D printer as a a intermediate step. This is done as follows:

  • we first print out a model using a 3D printer in another material
  • we then make a mould of this (ie in sand, ...) and then use the moulds to make duplicates

The need of a case

Some 3D printers come standardly with an enclosure/case. This enclosure serves to minimise the amount of toxic fumes that are produced while printing. Toxic fumes are produced when printing with almost any material that is toxic in nature (the only 3D printing material that isn't toxic being PLA). If your 3D printer does not come with a case, consider building a case around it yourself, there are many DIY articles on this to be found on the internet. Also put your 3D printer in your garage, or another space you don't come too frequently, and/or can be ventilated well. The most optimum case design would include building a fully enclosed case, together with an air inlet at the top (with filter), and an air outlet at the bottom (with pipe venting the air to outside the building the printer is in); a fan may also need to be included at this air outlet.

Applications of 3D printing

See: Open source 3-D printing of OSAT#Examples

Design competition

References

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See also

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