{"id":646,"date":"2010-11-16T10:05:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-16T10:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/archives\/646-3d-printing-at-home-or-office-access-vs-quality.html"},"modified":"2014-07-03T17:00:08","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T17:00:08","slug":"3d-printing-at-home-or-office-access-vs-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/3d-printing-at-home-or-office-access-vs-quality","title":{"rendered":"3D Printing at Home or Office: Access vs. Quality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><!-- s9ymdb:2048 --><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/archives\/521-The-Shapeways-Makerbot-Bunny.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"681\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/shapewaysbunnycomparison12.jpg\" style=\"border: 0px none ; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There has been a bit of discussion in the past couple of weeks about 3D printing in the home, the world of possibilities it opens up and the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/archives\/639-It-Will-Be-Awesome-if-They-Dont-Screw-it-Up-3D-Printing,-Intellectual-Property,-and-the-Fight-Over-the-Next-Great-Disruptive-Technology.html\">IP implications<\/a> that may also unfold. It is great to see more people being made aware of 3D printing and how it is becoming increasingly accessible, but the quality of most 3D prints at home are not quite at the level of consumer ready products.&nbsp; It may not (or maybe it would) please Gorge Lucas to see a gnarly, malformed and barely recognizable <a href=\"http:\/\/starwarsblog.starwars.com\/index.php\/2009\/05\/20\/makerbot-sings-imperial-march-and-makes-a-vader\/\" target=\"_blank\">Darth Vader head being extruded out of an open source 3D printer<\/a>, but I don&#8217;t think the Star Wars franchise is too concerned about the potential income lost (they have malformed and barely recognizable new &#8216;Star Wars&#8217; films for that).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!-- s9ymdb:2049 --><a href=\"http:\/\/starwarsblog.starwars.com\/index.php\/2009\/05\/20\/makerbot-sings-imperial-march-and-makes-a-vader\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"363\" height=\"329\" style=\"border: 0px none ; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/3550655584_0938481f1b2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nWe are seeing more and more 3D printers start to hit the home DIY market from the open source <a href=\"http:\/\/reprap.org\/wiki\/Main_Page\" target=\"_blank\">RepRap<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/fabathome.org\/?q=node\/10\" target=\"_blank\">Fab@home<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.makerbot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Makerbot<\/a> to the <a href=\"http:\/\/pp3dp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">UP! Personal Portable 3D Printer<\/a><br \/>\ncoming in as a slightly higher resolution, no assembly required 3D<br \/>\nprinter.&nbsp; Having ready access to a 3D printer in your home is great for<br \/>\nspeeding up the design process, so you can test and reiterate your<br \/>\ndesign, but when it comes to a finished product, many people are<br \/>\nturning to higher quality machines (via Shapeways) to produce the end<br \/>\nproduct. Like this <a href=\"..\/model\/173425\/video_mixer_button.html\" target=\"_blank\">Video Mixer Button<\/a> tested on a Makerbot, but finally 3D printed by Shapeways.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!-- s9ymdb:2050 --><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/5179822001_7407d8fcaf2.jpg\" style=\"border: 0px none ; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;\"><\/p>\n<p>Weirdly, <b>this is sometimes putting the DIY 3D printer back into the role of<br \/>\nrapid prototyper rather than on the demand manufacturing that is<br \/>\nevolving with the higher end machines<\/b> with finer quality materials.&nbsp; Sure you could have printed it with a home 3D printer and had a working button for your video mixer, but with a higher quality one it may not negatively affect the resale value, it could even raise it?<\/p>\n<p>There are of course constant improvements and some truly amazing experiments like Junior Veloso&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/3dhomemade.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">high detail DIY 3D printer<\/a> using visible light and DLP chip to cure visible light resin and as these processes become available we will see higher resolution models, but there are still the materials to consider. A piece of jewelry 3D printed in a polymer is still very cool, contemporary and sometimes quirky, but may not be an everlasting piece to be handed down for generations and working mechanical parts my be a little unreliable. The options available from commercial 3D printers that include stainless steel, gold plating, silver and titanium require such complex and extreme processes that it is unlikely we will see them in the home in the very near future.<\/p>\n<p><!-- s9ymdb:2051 --><a href=\"http:\/\/3dhomemade.blogspot.com\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 0px none ; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; width: 630px; height: 394px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/CopyofALE_77002.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The availability of 3D printers at home, hackerspaces and other communal settings is one of the coolest things to happen over the last few years and much kudos to all who are making it happen.&nbsp; It will be exciting to see what happens as the quality of the machines and materials evolve to the point where they are more of a threat to mass produced objects&#8230;&nbsp; Oh, and if anyone has any images of home 3D printed products that are of super high quality please do share&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There has been a bit of discussion in the past couple of weeks about 3D printing in the home, the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[481,478],"tags":[480,484,482,477],"class_list":["post-646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shapeways","category-community","tag-4-art","tag-8-gadgets","tag-6-inspiration","tag-1-whats-hot"],"thumbnail":false,"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - 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