Want to find a home 3d printer for jewelery ring prototype???

I have started designing jewelry ring for a while, everytime when i want to print a ring to test the size of it, need to upload to shapeways - since i live in Hong Kong, this has been a obstacles for me with time and price.

I hope you guys can give me some suggestion on getting a reasonable price 3D printer for prototype. My jewelry are mainly silver and I really hope to test the size and shape before sending to shapeways. So the printer need to be accurate with the ring size.

Saw Tiko 3D printer on the web, but no youtube that show more products printed for me to consider.
What as, Moonray is another one that I like - quite expensive!!!!
They both are not out yet, is there any other 3d printer that i can choose from.

Please suggest! Thank you so much!
Celia.

You're lucky to be in Hong Kong because it's one of the top manufacturing centers in the world. Coinciding with manufacturing is product development, which almost always includes rapid prototyping, otherwise known as 3D printing. There are companies that will print things for you just like Shapeways, here's some, but the price is going to be higher and they wont sell anything for you like Shapeways. However, you can get your designs the next day as you don't have to wait for international shipping.

The Tiko is a FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) printer and this kind of printer usually doesn't have enough resolution to do what you want to do. I have three of these style printers and the only time I was able to use one for making iterations was for my Mammoth Skull Ring. I needed to get the shank just right and so I printed about 5 different iterations and also ordered one in Shapeways White Strong and Flexible. I was able to learn what I wanted to know because that ring is so big and I only wanted to know if it felt comfortable on the webs between fingers. Subsequently, I've never been able to used any of my FDM printers for anything else having to do with jewelry design.

The other one will work, but as you say, it's expensive. This type is called DLP based SLA (Digital Light Processor based Stereolithography Apparatus) I have one of these that I built myself. These work great for testing new jewelry designs, but even building one yourself can cost around $700 or $800 US dollars. Just about all commercial machines of this type that are sold assembled are in the the thousands of dollars range. Currently, I'd say the best one for the price is Autodesk's Ember, which costs $7,495.

Thank you James for coming back to me.

I understand what you are talking about. That is way, I need advise from expert to what to get for what i want. I know that there is 3dhubs.com, and they have printing service in Hong Kong. I still want to get a printer for my own convenience, example printing overnight when i go to sleep and have something for me to look at when i get up.

As you explain, I will stop thinking about FDM printer!
Is there a SLA printer that you can recommend beside Autodesk???

Really seriously researching on this, thanks.
Celia

The main issue is software. You need software that can take your 3D model and slice it into slices and send those slices to the printer. The Ember has it's own easy to use software for doing this. Autodesk is good at writing software related to 3D so they ended up doing a really good job on the software. Other companies have their own in house designed software for doing this, but right now I don't think anyone can beat the quality of Autodesk's Print Studio. At the very least, for other companies, you would want to be able to download the software before making a purchase so that it can be evaluated. In particular, you'd want to find out how well the software generates automatic supports and how well can the supports be edited and or added or deleted manually if needed.

OK, let me see if I understand.

I am actually using Rhino for my designing software. The Ember software is a like correction software before printing (it can also be use as designing), is that correct?

If I download this software, I could be able to use other brand 3Dprinter to produce a closer accuracy to my design, right?

Celia.

No, it cannot be used to create geometry. It can make minor corrections to geometry errors, but nothing much more other than translations and scaling.

You can use it with a number of other FDM printers, but I think currently the only DLP based SLA printer you can use it with is the Ember, for now. That will change when further updates are released in upcoming months or within the year. The Ember and its corresponding software are very new at the moment. Just a year or two old. Autodesk has been releasing open source updates veryyyyy slowlyyyyyy so that's why the ability to use the software with other 3D printers is limited.

This software is called slicing software. The software slices a 3D model into layers so that each layer can be printed by the 3D printer. This kind of software also generates support structures built into the layers so that the layers can be printed properly; for example there is no way to print in mid air so supports must be made so this kind of geometry can be created. Well, you could do it in zero gravity, but zero gravity is hard to come by.

Oh and, I should tell you that some 3D printing processes don't need supports at all because the base material is a powder. For more about that look into SLS (Selective Laser Sintering), DMLS (Direct Metal Laser Sintering) and 3D Metal to name a few of them.

In addition to slicing and generating supports a lot of slicers also control the functions of 3D printers in real time during the printing process. Like controlling linear motion, maintaining temperatures, activating light beams and lasers and so on. Also too, a lot of 3D printers can get all of their instructions for creating a 3D print on a flash drive so that the printer can print by itself without having any real time instructions from the slicer software.