[mtripoli]

1 million+ colors...

http://www.mcortechnologies.com/products/iris/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnn-ACoMw4w

[hatts]

Cool result, such a strange method though...an Epson inkjet printing on thousands of sheets of paper...

[Hervé]

nice but not really revolutionary... and just paper...? I noticed seams on the face print...

[polynurb]

nice but not really revolutionary... and just paper...? I noticed seams on the face print...

true.. but it could be from assembling several build boxes together. even with a plastic or powder printer seams like that are unavoidable.

i saw somewhere that it is ~11.000€ that is very cheap at a reasonable build box size (a4)

i am just wondering how it works when you build a small part.. do you throw away all that is left of the a4 paper sheet???

[Hervé]

well... from what I can see here, it was done in ONE piece...

http://www.mcortechnologies.com/gallery/gallery-videos/

(first video)

as far as I know, regular powder 3D printers never show seams, or maybe as you say if it is printed in multi pieces.. and then glued together.

Besides, eco friendly...? well... again, as far as I can see, the rest of paper is just trashed... big waste.. I mean in big companies they try to reduce Paper printing..
These people just do the opposite..lol... poor trees... ( but it depend what they mean by Eco....< economic or ecologic..

h/

btw... 11.000 euros ..? more like 32.000 euros... hihi
at least that is what a rep is answering here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnn-ACoMw4w

[polynurb]

it might well be that there is some alignment issue on that piece; i have seem old LOM models and i always liked their appearance and they were quite tough.. would like to see one of these new ones in detail.

you are right about the price.. what i read came from here (german link)
the 11.000 is for a 3 year all included plan or something like that..

http://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_ ... is-bekannt

[hatts]

as far as I know, regular powder 3D printers never show seams

This just made me realize; with this full color paper printing, you literally can't finish it at all. FDM/SLA/SLS can be sanded or polished until they look nearly perfect, but you couldn't sand a paper model without messing up the ink.

[Hervé]

as far as I know, regular powder 3D printers never show seams

This just made me realize; with this full color paper printing, you literally can't finish it at all. FDM/SLA/SLS can be sanded or polished until they look nearly perfect, but you couldn't sand a paper model without messing up the ink.

.... absolutely.....

>>>> But no hope is lost, and I am sure as I type these lines, researchers are working very hard... the people that will succeed in making a High def color printer that prints large and good will be Billionaires... hahah

[JDHill]

This just made me realize; with this full color paper printing, you literally can't finish it at all. FDM/SLA/SLS can be sanded or polished until they look nearly perfect, but you couldn't sand a paper model without messing up the ink.

I think that depends. You'd have to cut apart a model to find out, but I don't see why they wouldn't take the normal for each mesh face and project it backward into the model, printing the color for the face to a reasonable depth. Colors would converge for convex areas, but at least to some good degree, you could sand on the model, and then finish it however you like.

[hatts]

JD you're right, and I think they do print to a reasonable lateral depth (as seen by the video), but as for the quality of the model after sanding, I guess I'll wait til I see one in person...

[Hervé]

well yes seeing it for real is the best thing... but it might take a long time since this is kinda new...

I think polishing would ruin it, even though the ink is deep enough to do so... but I might be wrong...

[Hervé]

this would be an interesting place to visit, although it look for pro only

http://www.rapidpro.nl/home-en-US/

[mtripoli]

I'm interpreting "seams" as "steps"? Do you mean the steps you see from the individual layers? If so, this is present in all rapid prototype processes, just easier to handle in some. I use a lot of 3D printed parts, from the "powder printed" to FDM. They all have their pros and cons. "SLA" parts are the easiest to post finish as far as sanding and painting. There is at least one company that can produce parts that don't require post finish but it can literally take days to do one part. These are usually for things like jewelry. I agree, with this paper process any post finish is probably out of the question, however if you "need" a color sample this doesn't look *too* bad. No idea of the cost. As for the "waste" part; its fully recyclable. Not so with "plastic" parts as they're really a hardened resin.

Zcorp has a system that can print color http://www.zcorp.com/en/Products/3D-Printers/spage.aspx. I haven't been happy with Zcorp parts in the past. The parts are made with a powder process and then dipped or coated with essentially super glue (cyanoacrylate). Over time they absorb moisture and become worthless. I've been most impressed with the Objet stuff...http://objet.com/

[hatts]

I thought he meant "seams" as in, when you adhere multiple printed parts together, there will be inevitable seams.

Steps seem pretty minimal in this process, since you're sort of seeing the "edge" of the ink-soaked paper. So that's good. Also you're definitely right about the low quality of Zcorp inkjet RP...we found it very useless...

As for the "waste" part; its fully recyclable. Not so with "plastic" parts

This is a bit misleading because most RP processes are additive and thus don't use a solid block of material. Besides support scaffolding, SLS/SLA/FDM basically uses only the material it needs and not more.

The most interesting part about all this was reading that THIS is that company that's teaming up with Staples to offer the consumer-level RP services. To be honest it makes me a little less excited about that story, since it turns out this won't be bringing true RP services to the consumer market but rather this sort of so-so method.

[Hervé]

yes I meant these large square patterns.. almost look like cubes glued together..

anyway, it's not bad at all, but as any new tech, it always has his drawbacks ...

Z-corp color printing has been around for some time now... I was expected something really new after all this time, but they just made one with a bigger size printing, so no new tech (full color models) for now... future will tell..

btw, I also wonder how these paper models will stand overtime...no idea..

h/