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Hi all! I had a meeting with my colleaques(starting a new design studio) and we noticed that we could have lot use for 3d printer. So my question is:
"So do you know which 3d printer would be good investment?"

We have money around 5.000€ to put that thing so recommedations are more than welcome.

Stay away from versions that use sand and binder. They are very messy both during build and during clean up. I know of people that have used very expensive sand media 3d printers, shipped the model and upon opening the box they had a box full of sand. Plastic based printers are they way to go from what i have been hearing

You might want to have a look at this outfit's website... they use Z Corp printers (I believe)...

http://www.lgmmodel.com/

yes, go for the ones with plastic or hard polymers.

http://www.zcorp.com/

or even better: direct metal casting !

ADVICE...... with 5k, ... work with a service bureau... these things get obsolete so fast...

I have worked on Zcorp printers ( the messy powder models) and a dimension printer.

http://www.dimensionprinting.com/

the great thing about the zcorp "sand" based is its very high resolution.
at that time it was better than the dimension abs printer in that respect.
Also imho, the surface looks better than the glossy plastic one.
For rough transport you have to "lace" these models, though.

the Dimension printer is much more proffessional, but takes ~3 times as long to print., and at the time i worked with it, their software could only load single non overlapping .STL meshes, which sucks if you have complex models, and can't get one single watertight mesh too easily.

... now if you have 5000$ ... forget dimension .. they are expensive,
but these guys are new to the market;
with a good offer... 4995$..hehe .. but the build box is a bit small....

http://www.desktopfactory.com/


(*edit: looks like it won't be out before 2009 )

I would repost this question on the Zbrush forum, there are lots of people there with good indepth knowledge of 3d printers.

They could have some valuable feedback for you.

/ Max

could some one PM me when they go down in price to $300-500



thanks!

Wow thanks for the info guys!

I'd second Herve - stick to bureaus.

When you get your machine - you will find that the bed is too small for the next job you want to do - that the machine takes 6 hours to build ...or even more etc etc. they are not as rapid as one would like to imagine.

With a bureau they have more than one machine so 2 parts can be made at the same time, they will have bigger machines , different materials etc

It really is not worth the hassle


Jonathan

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/candyfab

dont laugh.. as a weird candy fab.. that'd be cool.. hehe.. I was going to do it.. but .... hehe