Hi guys,
right now now we are thinking about expanding our business with 3d printing - but we are at the very early stages and frankly don't know what we are getting ourselves into. I have read a lot on the Internet, but there are still lots of things I can't wrap my head around.
[What business are you in currently? It would make most sense if you were in a related field, and had existing customers who could use your new services.]
1. Materials. We are not sure what all to print, and right now just think about everything, from architectural models to action figures, toys, prototypes, logos, "heads" and so on. Those will probably need different types of materials (at least stuff for kids need to be safe and not toxic) - would you need different printers for those different things, or can printers use different kind of materials - and what exactly would we need for that?
[Making things for children is a minefield, legally speaking. There are new rules that make it illegal to use potentially toxic materials, or make things that can be choked on, or have parts that can break off and be swallowed, etc. And they won't take your word for it - anything intended for kids under 12 has to be submitted to independent testing labs:
http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Business--Man...on/Toy-Safety/
There are lots of materials that can be 3D printed, but aside from actual food products, I don't know of any that are 100% safe to put in ones mouth.]
2. How fast do they print? Can I print several different things at once? And how much does the material cost for one model?
[It depends.]
3. What softwares would we need to learn? We have some experience with 3d modeling, is that enough, or do we need some specific software? How hard is that to learn? And are there some programs that help you create specific kind of things like humanoid figures or architectural objects?
[If you want to do architectural projects, there are architecture programs you can use, like Revit. For figures, there's Poser. But if you're just printing other people's projects, they will probably have those programs themselves, and will just want you to deal with their output. Different 3D printers have software of their own, which varies from extremely simple to bafflingly complex.]
4. 3D-Scanning. Of course it would be cool to scan a person and then print him - I have seen people use 64 cameras to digitalize a person. Is there a better or cheaper way?
[Sure; it depends on how much detail you want to capture, color or not, how still the person has to be when being scanned, etc.]
5. It is extremely difficult to just check out what printers there are. Which ones would you suggest (for a professional business, not for home use. Money will of course play a role, but don't worry about money with your suggestions - anything under 100.000$ is fine to be in the conversation)
[There are plenty of 3D printers you can get for that price, but metal printers are more. You need to narrow down the choices by determining what sort of output you need - surface quality, size, material, etc.]
6. I have sen the zprinter 650 being suggested - that is a 6 year old machine. Are there any real interesting new printers coming out this year? Which printer would be similar to the zprinter from stratasys?
[I think that printer is from 3D Systems, not Stratasys. It's one of the few that will print in full color, but the material is not very durable right out of the machine - it needs to be impregnated with some kind of plastic filler to have any strength. I'd caution you against investing in a 6 year old printer, if you're trying to use it in a business; they take a lot of maintenance. There are new printers coming out all the time, though.]
7. Overall, do you think there can be some real money being made with a 3d printing service, or will the whole technology be so much cheaper soon, that every company and every private person that want something out of a printer have one themselves in a couple of years?
[Demand for 3D printing services has been on the rise, but there are also a lot of people with printers. And companies like 3DPrinthub have been aggregating these private printer owners to compete with service bureaus. Cheap FDM printers are pretty common, and you'd have a hard time competing with them if that's what you were using, but more expensive SLS, polyjet, SLA, and DLP printers have much less market penetration, and are still mostly the province of service bureaus.]
thanks for your help guys. Like I said, we are at the very beginning here and might just shelve he idea. And of course we will do a lot more research before making any kind of decision, but I would really like to clear some of my question marks first...
Mike