I saw a demonstration of a 3D printer at the weekend at Birmingham University, first time I`ve seen one working & wondered if anyone has any experience of using them etc.?
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My friend an ex-employee, and indeed student when I was a teacher built one of the first. In the tech office he shared with five others he built this thing with cogs, gears, stepper motors - all in a wooden frame. It took the thing all night to produce a dice sized cube, and the noise drove the rest mad. He now lives in California, and builds them for a living, having loads of staff.
His company are here http://www.typeamachines.com
They've advanced amazingly in the last few years in terms of size, speed and type of materials they use. You can build so much with them, and they're very popular in schools and colleges.
The cheaper ones suffer from size limitations, with the print bed and rise height being limited, and of course the other downside is the programming - because you need proper CAD files. So it's now a serious business tool, plus a great hobbies medium. Model makers love them, and best of all, you can often use one to produce much of a new one! Printing off the gears and plastic parts for the next one. Kind of scary, really.
I believe the space station has one, to make parts for repairs.