**make your own high quality bmw parts**

I mean they are printing drones and airplane parts I'm sure it can print some mechanical parts.

I have been following this tech on and off for a while. It is quite exciting, but it is to be used only for prototyping, especially at this stage. The materials available are not stronger than what BMW molds its part out of. If you made an expansion tank from a 3D printer right now, it would blow up. If they ever figure out how to print composite materials, then we may be on to something. Right now, as I said before, this is only useful for engineering prototyping. It is incredibly usful for that. You can print a part design and test fit it, then have the real part machined. It eliminates that intermediate money waste of machining a part or making a mold for a single part and having it fail to work. The accuracy is also of concern. Due to the nature of plastics, tolerances are at minimum several thousandths. This is absolutely fine for some parts (most plastic parts have quite loose tolerances), but for precision work, only metal machining or molding can acheive the proper results.

The new printers can use metals. Boeing is printing engine turbine parts, military drones are being printed. GE is printing airplane engine blades.

Originally Posted by gselsidi

The new printers can use metals. Boeing is printing engine turbine parts, military drones are being printed. GE is printing airplane engine blades.

And cost more than you will ever see in your lifetime.

Originally Posted by choxor

And cost more than you will ever see in your lifetime.

I wouldn't go that far. As I previously stated within this thread, there are numerous companies working to bring this technology into every American home for the price point of around $800.

Originally Posted by tock172

I wouldn't go that far. As I previously stated within this thread, there are numerous companies working to bring this technology into every American home for the price point of around $800.

you think an inkjet cartridge is expensive? Just wait until you have to buy aluminum and steel cartridges.

It'll be the Gillette model. We'll sell you the printer for $100. Your proprietary cartridges are going to cost you through the roof.

Originally Posted by tock172

I wouldn't go that far. As I previously stated within this thread, there are numerous companies working to bring this technology into every American home for the price point of around $800.

That can do production level parts. K. Link it.

First you don't need a 3d printer the size Boeing is using. You can do it for under 10k for smaller parts. Yes it is going to be a gillet business, but the costs will be relative to today's printer and cartridges once the technology becomes main stream.

Originally Posted by scarede46er

God bless capitalism and the power of the rational man.

http://production3dprinters.com/slm/direct-metal-slm
can print full metal parts, is it going to be 100% factory quality? Who knows from the looks of it it seems like it is. 5-10 years from now this technology will have advanced even farther.

Were not talkin about printing engine eternal parts, but you can print out a disa metal valve, turn your plastic hoses into stainless metal ones, with enough money though you can print high quality oem products, it will just take some time to get costs down to where people can afford it.

Originally Posted by gselsidi

First you don't need a 3d printer the size Boeing is using. You can do it for under 10k for smaller parts. Yes it is going to be a gillet business, but the costs will be relative to today's printer and cartridges once the technology becomes main stream.

I'm not sure what the current spot price on black ink is, but I'm fairly sure it's well under the prices for most metals.

Look at the ideal of being able to print off anything you want (a phone, a computer, complex car parts, robotic automatic intelligent masturbatory aids) and you're really going to up the cost factoring in cost of exotic material. Then having to keep those materials on hand?

It's going to turn into RPG low-level questing combined with alchemy and metallurgy. "Bring the following ingredients: 2 ounces of shinseki steel, 1 pound of pure titanium, three pelts of a wild boar, 7.5 ounces of plastic with the following qualities..."

Yeah pretty much, but the market will figure costs out eventually. The biggest impact this will have is on manufacturers GE is already saving 50-100M in costs, but I can see companies sending you a kit with the materials and design and you just print it out. Or go the rpg route and have your inventory with toad balls

Originally Posted by gselsidi

Yeah pretty much, but the market will figure costs out eventually. The biggest impact this will have is on manufacturers GE is already saving 50-100M in costs, but I can see companies sending you a kit with the materials and design and you just print it out. Or go the rpg route and have your inventory with toad balls

It also pretty much removes any burden of a warranty from those companies who were manufacturers. "Hey, we didn't make it. Any manufacturing defects are on the shoulders of the manufacturer."

It's pretty clear most people here don't really get how a lot of these 3D printing systems work. A lot of them don't use any sort of catridges. They use a plastic (or metal on the newest ones) powder. The machine deposites a very thin layer of powder and then that layer is either melted with a laser (as in the metal parts one) or it is "glued" together with a binder in the shape of that particular cross section of the part. Then another layer is spread over the first, and the next cross section is binded together. It does this until the part is completly built up. At the end you have to unbury the part and chip off any extra powder that remains. So you would have an adhesive cartridge and bags of powder to put in the machine, or just powder and electricty for lasers.

I can see this technology not quite making it into the home. I don't think there would be that big of a market. I mean how many times have you actually needed to print something? I think it would be used in a manner where you could easily have a company print something for you. Today, if I want a metal part machined, I have to pay a machine shop a **** load of money to have someone either hand make the part, or they have to someone program a $250,000 CNC machine to do the job. With this technology, it would almost be completely unsupervised. No labor needed. Simply pick the correct orientation to print the part in, and let the machine do it. I bet you could order custom parts and have them in your hand in 2 days depending on complexity. No labor would cut out almost all of the cost of machining. You would be surprised at how hard it is to properly machine something even using a CNC machine. By hand is mind blowingly difficult. Well, not difficult, but you have to be perfect, no mistakes.

Just because you can print something that looks like a replacement part, doesn't mean it's an acceptable replacement part.

Originally Posted by gselsidi

Yeah pretty much, but the market will figure costs out eventually. The biggest impact this will have is on manufacturers GE is already saving 50-100M in costs, but I can see companies sending you a kit with the materials and design and you just print it out. Or go the rpg route and have your inventory with toad balls

It also pretty much removes any burden of a warranty from those companies who were manufacturers. "Hey, we didn't make it. Any manufacturing defects are on the shoulders of the manufacturer."

We have several of these at work and they are really cool. The units we have use a very light weight cream colored plastic to build up a part, the metal units must be totally different.

Originally Posted by choxor

That can do production level parts. K. Link it.

Chill, it's probably not even a prototype yet, but I think someday there will be one in every home.

http://www.fool.com/fool/free-report...io-181284.aspx

Originally Posted by zhp43867

I know