RepRap Central Announces 2015 3D Printer Challenge

[JRDM]

I like that Prodways technology. Makes sense that they could get great resolution, but at what cost?

Perhaps they feel that there's some buyer resistance to resin machines. Although i've never worked with one, i tend to think of resin based machines as expensive, having a small work envelope, and messy. Although i could be wrong on all counts, as an average consumer, i would still tend toward the "melted plastics".

All that is still relatively true. I think you can build decent machine for $1000 USD. Some resins are $60/liter, which is less than a 1kg spool's worth of filament equivalent. The mess is still unaddressed in the inexpensive machines, though there's always going to be some clean-up.

I have no idea what Adrian, et. al. are really trying to promote. I get the feeling even they don't know, that this is some kind of X-Prize-like thing where they want to offer rewards for figuring out how to make it happen. I question the feasability to make a huge grid of nozzles though, going strictly by their description. Even a long linear row of nozzles for a single sweep per layer seems like asking a lot, and one stuck nozzle means a bad day.

There are other whole-layer technologies, such as those that layer sheets of cut paper. I don't know if that's desirable. Mcor has one that prints where the edges of the part goes, so you have a multi-color model when it's done. It's hard to say it's full-color because it has a faded look.