Printable View
Hurco has invented an adapter that can turn typical CNC milling machines into full fledged 3D printers. The adapter, which they have filed a U.S. patent application for this week, could allow thousands of manufacturers to gain access to 3D printing without needing to purchase an entire printer. More details on this story can be found here: http://3dprint.com/9358/hurco-3d-printing/
Do you think that such a technology could increase the widespread use of 3D printers in manufacturing?
Except that the features that make a good mill and the ones that make a good 3D printer are effectively mutually exclusive. Sure, you can rig an extruder to a mill head and have a 3D printer, but it will be far outclassed by a dedicated machine of half the cost. (the same goes with putting a cutting tool onto a 3D printer and trying to use it as a mill.)
As long as the mill is fast enough, I don't see why it couldn't function as a 3D printer, as well as most dedicated machines, although not perhaps most machines as expensive as a Hurco mill. But if someone already owns one and wants to do some 3D printing with it, this could make sense as an accessory. I'm not sure if this patent would really stand up to challenge, though, since lots of people have already put extruders on their mills and routers - it would be hard to claim that there was no "prior art". Still, our (US) patent system has recently changed from "first to invent" to "first to file", which seems to have touched off a burst of patent filings for inventions that are already in common use by others who didn't try to patent them.
Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com