What Material would YOU want Shapeways to offer

If Shapeways Developers could select from any material, any finish, any look and/or any feel... what would you want?

from the original question

(can't get the poll to allow multiple selections... hrm. I guess just vote on the one from the list you would want the most, I'm for ABS Plastic, I wanna develop Custom Lego.)

My requests would be:[list type=disc]
[*] Silver ( at a reasonable price )
[*] Silicone ( to make molds to cast my own things )
[*] ABS Plastic ( I am dying to get into custom Lego development )
[*] Nickel / Steel ( I would love to make coins for games and such )
[*] Glass ( I don't even know / care if this is possible, but I would LOVE to make my own drinking cups and... um... Water Pipes? )
[*] Drinking Bottle Plastic ( to make drinking devices and see-thru )
[/list]

Obviously a dream list, but there it is.

Something that costs around $0.25 per cubic cm so I can print disposible prototypes....

hehe

Well let's see ... we already have a black, a white, a translucent, a metal, and a relatively cheap material.

So I think it's really time for a coloured printable material. And by this I mean, a material that can be tatooed or printed with an image based on the image applied on a model. It's the only thing that is missing really.

-Whystler

I like the idea of a super cheap material that would be used for iterative development. It could be a lot less cool too then, right?

EOS produce a material called Alumide for their SLS printers.
It's the normal SLS material with grains of aluminium.
Although the final part is not metal, it gives a metallic appearance and can be ground.
It also gives a non-porous object.
There are no post processing operations like the 'proper' metal materials, so it should be cheaper!

They also have a carbon loaded material that could be useful for anyone wanting to electroplate their models. Although I'm not certain it is conductive?

Ian.

i would love to see a material which can be used to make a good mold

Good molds or wax 3D printing seems to be a great thing for jewelery makers, but would a lot of you use it also?

I probably would. Not that I'm going to get into Jewelry creafting. But I could see myself making a mold for little metal parts.

What about V-Flash printing ? http://www.modelin3d.com . This could maybe allow a low cost per cm^3 but with overall good quality.

I haven't seen many parts by them personally, I'll order some samples but so far it doesn't look much cheaper than the usual stuff.

Not sure what you are referring to with the V-Flash. I have requested a quote from their online system once (Providing basically the same service as Shapeways) They came in roughly 5 times more expensive. If you are suggesting buying a V-Flash printer, I'll caution you on this.

Any company that does not openly post the price tag is doing so to avoid "Sticker Shock". LOLz

I priced out several 'low end' 3D printers and came to the conclusion that my definition of 'Affordable' and the vendors definition were vastly different. I.e. I could see myself paying under $5000 for a decent machine. Most >cough< "affordable 3D decent printers start at around $15000 USD.

15k, thats a bargain!

LOLz! Not on my budget!

I would use wax 3-d printing if Shapeways offered it. For sure.

In the meantime, WSF can be used for lost-wax casting. Original forum post with details.

It's sort of different, but I'd also like to see Shapeways offer laser-cutting, like what Ponoko does.

I'd love a dirt cheap material as mentioned above, spending $200 only to realise i stuffed up aint fun

and something that can offer a smooth finish. - supersuper detail material

I like all your suggestions. Keep them coming!

How should we handle shippingcost with a dirt cheap material? If you want to make a model for $5 and we want it to ship to you it is obviously more expensive than $5. How should we handle that?

Cheers!

Robert

If it were slightly closer to the cost of injection molding, we could order in bulk and set up a land based store, or if we have interested businesses we could set up a warehouse. Oooooh imagine selling skids of models at a time. I would like to see glass printing myself. Color and Multi Color prints. Brass. photovoltaics (JK on that one would be cool but it will be years), ceramics, multi material prints, Copper, thats about all I can think of.

Chocolate! I demand Chocolate!

That way if my design isn't up to snuff, I can eat dat bad boy!

sounds like you want http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wTydnYmDrM