Use 3D Printing For Mass Production With the revo

A new type of device is coming to town. Magic Maker, a Canada-based company, will be bringing their revo to Kickstarter in early 2015. The new device, the world's first desktop revocaster, is a rotational casting device. Using 3D printed molds, it can create duplicate items in as little as 10 minutes. The revo can create objects in the material of your choice, from wax or plastic to chocolate. Check out the details on this new printer-type product: http://3dprint.com/26207/magic-maker-revo/ ‎


Below is a photo of revo with some of its creations:
http://3dprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/revo3.png

There's Roto Maak, but this is nicer looking.

I've been doing resin casting for quite some time. I see one major flaw with this unless they come out with a silicone filament you're going to have one major downside, undercuts. See with a silicone mold you have good flexibility. And I've had no problem rotocasting with a 2 part block mold by hand when the mold weighed 5 pounds. Now the only filament they could possibly get by with using for a negative mold might be Filaflex but I'm not sure how flexible that filament can be. And you're only going to get a few resin pulls (around 5 I figure) before your plastic mold breaks. And I'm not sure I would want to cast chocolate in a mold unless the mold was food safe.

I get that this is a rotational casting machine, but these have been around for years, you can look up DIY Rotocaster or Rotocasting Machine and you'll find a few dozen cheap and easy results. Sorry couldn't edit my post.

We read about this guy some time ago if you recall http://www.rotomaak.com/

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Originally Posted by Geoff

We read about this guy some time ago if you recall http://www.rotomaak.com/

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So I just received a Rotomaak a couple of weeks ago. Assembled it but haven't tried to cast anything. Assembly wasn't hard and it seems to run ok; it's almost too simple not to.

Looks like the revo would be easier to assemble, but there is nothing in the pics to determine the scale of the thing. (Looks to be about the same as the rotomaak tho.) The belt/idler/shaft/bevel gear arrangement seems insanely complex compared to rotomaak. The o-ring that drives the rotomaak does stretch, effectively giving a lot of 'backlash' on the inner ring, but I can't think of why that would be a negative in this application. (I'm thinking it could be replaced with a timing belt, but I can't think of a reason to try.)

Of course you can print molds for casting simple parts, but I believe the more common application would be to print a part, finish the surface properly (easier than the inside of a mold), and cast a silicone mold from that. Then use the revo/roto to cast hollow parts from the silicone mold.