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I'm sure that's right OB, but the consumer technology is still in its infancy. I fear the impracticality of the present generation of printers may destroy the current market before the technology has time to mature. But I believe in the long run we'll see the arrival of low cost, high quality, multi-material 3D printers.

I didn't mean to be disparaging. I think the state of the consumer technology, particularly for the price, is quite remarkable. I just caution that when shopping for one of these things, treat the examples they show you with healthy skepticism. You don't know how many attempts it took, how many hours, or even if it was really made on the same machine.

You are not thinking big enough!!!
Take a look at this link
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/lunar-3d-prin ... y?cmp-ukfb

So that's why you didn't show me your workshop when I last visited.

I started this thread in 2009, so it's time to see how things have progressed.

The simple answer is that affordable 3d metal printing has arrived, in the form of two reliable, high precision American machines; one just above $100,000, the other just below.

Desktop Metal and Metal X

OK, so maybe we won't all be rushing out to buy one, but the point is, the quality these lower priced machines now achieve will hopefully trigger a surge in low cost metal print shops. I'm thinking of how Prontaprint et al provided digital 2d print shops before the home printer quality/price revolution. Although currently the demand for metal printing is largely industrial, when it becomes relatively cheap and simple to reprint a worn, broken or lost metal component, the market is bound to expand.

I wonder what the chances are of the expansion coming from being able to walk into a 3d print shop and buying a household product or display item picked from a catalogue and printed out for you. The beauty of the 3d print shop would be it would not be restricted to one type of item, only the format of the item, so a saucepan, statuette or slot machine part would all fall into the same bracket (we hope).

One of the problems from our point of view is that, at the moment, 3d printing either works by printing the item from a code already available from a memory source or by copying another item it can scan. As it's unlikely there would be a code for the part we need and scanning the original would produce an exact copy of the worn or broken part... so there is still work to be done.

I remember seeing one of the first laser printers at a computer expo in Las Vegas in 1986, it was 5 feet high and 6 feet long and banished to a stand at the back of the hall. We asked if we could see it in action... When the guy, who seemed to be glad of the company, tried to run it... it wouldn't print. We left.

3D printers are only restricted by x, y and z axis and material used.
A worn part can be scanned and a few perimeters for size input so any wear would be corrected in them perimeters.
They are even printing smaller campers now and any layout changes can be done quickly and easily.
See the link below.
The print process is slow but improvements in materials are speeding that up the more people exepiment with them.
I wouldn't doubt that soon you'll see them using two part epoxies in them if they aren't already.
This would reduce the thickness and weight of material needed thus speeding print times.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4044823/3d-p ... saskatoon/

Hi
If you're thinking of making parts with a 3d printer I strongly agree... They work well and until original parts show up at least the game is up and running.
Have been doing it for a few years now.
Scottie

That is fantastic, Scottie. Are the dimensions of that part true? It certainly proves that 3D printing could be a solution for replacement of low-load components.

I keep hearing people say it's expensive, but I don't think thruppence is a lot.

So maybe, in the not too distant future, you'll be able to replace those broken Beromat payout slides (etc.) by downloading the CAD file from Resources...

provided the technology arrives before the last slide crumbles away

Hi youngergap
Yes, all the parts are true. These 3d printers are adjustable so you can print slower and get better quality.
At first I was just doing parts that were not under any stress (coin chutes, ball levers etc.) but I tried coin slides and hopper and they worked out just fine.
You can use very fine sandpaper if you need to adjust the thickness of a part if it's a bit too thick. There is many types of plastic you can use and colors too ...
Scottie

Awesome stuff, if this your own printer......I know nothing about this stuff, but on seeing you can get setup for as low as £200 for a basic model or nearer a grand for a medium one, what endless things one could do. Then I realised there is nothing I need that would cover the cost, so going to a 3D service provider seems the best way for the odd part.

I am still in awe of the quality of this stuff and guess you need to select the right raw filament for the job, like ABS. The thing that seems to be the issue still is how long you have to wait for a quality item to come out, 10 to 12 hours

Also how do you capture the item you want into a 3D form electronically

In a few years everyone will have pink parts in their machines

I think most of us have been aware of all of the short comings of this resource as it has progressed along.
We've grown up seeing new and wonderful inventions being talked about in glowing terms relating to what they're going to be able to do ..... not quite yet but in a few years time ...... probably.
How many of us rushed out to buy the Betamax? Not me.
Philips Laser disc? I didn't.
Sinclair's three wheeler diy suicide kit? Nope.
Hydrogen filled airships? If I had been 30 years younger, then yup that would have been me!

Mostly we'd all do what the Japanese used to do, wait for somebody to do all of the research and pay for the failures, before stealing the working product.
It looks like we're almost there.
It might be time to gird your loins chaps and step into the arena. If TF is right and a hundred thousand coppers might buy a practical 3D printer then I'm now becoming interested. I appreciate his view that for the few things you might need to replicate at first it's be cheaper to outsource ...... but just think of the fun to be had outside of the hobby. Far from me to mention making door handles out of the image of your body parts. Or in my case making a key ring.

Already Windows 10 comes with Paint 3D, it won't be long before either this application or another that links it should be in a position to do the business.

I bet the model railway lads are dribbling at the thought of their own house sitting on their layout, complete with a scale model railway inside complete with a model of their house which has inside it a ......

BP

Hi Treefrog
No, it's not my machine. What I did was place an ad on a local (buy sell) website and had someone else make the parts.....
Scottie

I think this is amazing, as BP says the outsourcing always precedes the DIY, I can remember that thing of the past a print and copy shop. Does anyone know if the sort of procedure Scottie used is available in the UK yet? It would mean the days of the missing Beromat slide are numbered.

coppinpr wrote: ↑Thu Mar 22, 2018 9:34 pm Does anyone know if the sort of procedure Scottie used is available in the UK yet?

Yes, 3dPrintDirect is just one of many UK companies who've been offering 3D printing in plastic for several years now.

There are also quite a few 3D metal printing services, like Croft Additive Manufacturing, but I suspect we would still consider them too pricey for most purposes. As I said though, this will surely change rapidly as the lower cost metal printers come on line and competition hots up. Smartphones are already integrating 3D scanners and the software is increasingly user-friendly.

Good morning
It wasn't a company that did my 3d printing, just some guy that had one in his basement for hobby reasons. I'm sure if a company did it, they usually only do 100 or 1000s of parts orders only - not 'one of these and two of those'.
You could put an ad on GUM TREE... OR kijiji
It's a lot easier if you do have one part that you want to have printed this way. The guy can do all the measuring and enter the information into his computer.
If you don't have a part to copy, you will have to figure out all the measurements of it first. I always had the guy do all the measuring first while I waited, because I didn't want to leave any parts with him... just in case if it was misplaced.
I know these are not original or home-made, but at least the games are working for now till I'm able to get a hold of original parts.
Scottie

treefrog wrote:Also how do you capture the item you want into a 3D form electronically

There are a few programmes on the market TF that can be utilised to 'build' up a 3D image and also a number of CAD programmes will export their 3D file in a native format that the 3D printer will read. Autodesk have a good programme (free if you are not a business) called Fusion 360, it takes a bit of getting used to as all software, but is a very good programme, I have been looking into this technology for a while now but cannot at the moment justify the money spent on a good 3D printer.

There is another 3D printing technology that can produce high quality items (the current thermo-plastic forms tend to be 'banded' and not completely smooth). The object emerges from a bath of liquid where it is formed via a laser activating the liquid resin material, most home 3D printers of this type utilise blu-ray lasers to activate resin. I think this technology will quickly replace the thermoplastic 3D printers that are currently on the market.