As most of you probably know by now, Colorado and Washington have legalized marijuana. Certainly not a user myself, but, I thought I would have some fun with it. Using geotiff's and warping and correcting them for Colorado and using large scale contours for Washington I made these fun little key fobs. I don't have a physical Colorado as I just designed it last Sunday, but, the Washington's are very cool in person.
Isn't scanning and 3D printing technology fun!
I was about to say they would be great with a 3d printer but you already got it.
I'd love to have one of those printers just to play around with but that will just have to wait for a special occasion some day.
I don't own a 3D printer as there is just too many technologies and I do not want to get locked into any. The prices keep falling and the features go up too. I use Shapeways.com to do most of my printing. Yes, you have to wait, but, those big laser sinter printers are VERY expensive. I am sending files for my first prints in stainless and brass, so, we will see how that goes. Colorado and Washington are laser sinter as I felt they needed to be very strong and detail was secondary, the instrument models I posted earlier are a deposit style print and while not as strong the detail is breathtaking.
I started printing with the laser sinter as I needed the strength. I was scanning cars when it was really slow and designing aftermarket car parts and printing sinter prototypes for mold making. I just went nuts from there.
This is a laser sintered phone case of a race track in Washington State. I used lidar for the base topography, yes bare earth through the trees does not matter on a phone case, LOL Then took a bracket mounted VRS for the track edge at a 25 foot sampling. As you can imaging the track edge matched the lidar so well, you could not see the track, so, I offset the track edge and did a uniform lowering of the points to create an artificial ditch.
Even though it is all surveying inspired, I still use my Stanley Cup case as daily
They aren't that expensive are they? My nephew just took a job as a high-school industrial arts teacher and got a grant to upgrade their stuff. CAD stations and a 3d printer. I think the printer was about $1500. That's not a lot more than the first flat-bed scanner I bought (back when I had money to burn).
Has to do with what you want too. My guess is that at $1500 it was definitely not a laser sinter device and probably an extruder. Each type has pluses and minuses, but, only the sintered plastic ones have true strength. I will probably buy one next year, but, the extruders are getting cheap enough to have one for test printing now, as you said.
The high end deposit style still cost 300K plus and sintering is north of there, BTW
Holy crap!!!! I had no idea. First, so as not to be ignorant of the subject, I had to look up what sintering is all about. I can say for certain what my nephew got was NOT one of those - nor will I any time soon. You are probably correct about his being an extruder type thing. I have only seen one pic on my Dad's phone of this thing. Corbin (nephew) had programmed it to build a t-rex skeleton. Dad says his plan is to use it [the printer] to build himself another printer.
Now that would be cool!! Maybe he can build me one. Perhaps by then we can just get one out of a breakfast cereal box as a prize. 😉
What can be done now is amazing, but, the future ... WOW. NASA has a laser sinter that prints in wafer thin titanium. You can buy 3D chocolate printers, so, is Star Trek really that far off?
Here is a print of a 1/24th scale version of my sports car an Ariel Atom frame. It was a sintered print at one time and not pieced together. I did add model car tires.
[flash width=960 height=720]//www.youtube.com/v/Q-lcgn1THKQ?version=3&hl=en_US[/flash]
Sorry if I am a little too passionate about printing, but, I am having a great time with it.
Man, that is just sooo cool.
Is that ceramic?
Do me a ceramic paring knife - it'll last forever!
Actually Shapeways does have ceramic printing. I got all excited about it and designed up this really cool coffee mug and then I priced it, ... $200 for a coffee mug, umm no. There is a reason they are all little espresso cups for sale, LOL
and too actually answer your question, everything shown with the exception of the jack and GoJaks shown in the Atom frame photo are laser sinter. The jacks are deposit
Can I print out cables and/or batteries while out in the field?
:-S
