The ProJet 1200 - Only $4900 - Extremely High Quality

[American 3D Printing]

Until they can build in "real" material, SLA will always be just for modeling and not for making things that can do something difficult in the real world. I love the resolution you can get with SLA, but the materials technology may never get there. When those SLS patents expire this year, THAT's when we'll start to see some really useful machines become affordable. I can't wait to print in stainless steel and iconel!

[DrLuigi]

Until they can build in "real" material, SLA will always be just for modeling and not for making things that can do something difficult in the real world. I love the resolution you can get with SLA, but the materials technology may never get there. When those SLS patents expire this year, THAT's when we'll start to see some really useful machines become affordable. I can't wait to print in stainless steel and iconel!

Ye this might be usefull for a store like your's if you can get 20k or something for a printer, So you can offer a service to your customers to get a STL file and you print it,
But i doubt SLS would ever come to the consumer as its simple to expensive as parts go even if its opensource, Perhaps there could come some more affordable designs, But still i doubt it will go under the 20k very soon.
But yet again it might be a nice thing for stores, Like we used to have paper print shops, we still have em but not as many anymore, But its the same thing.

[Compro01]

Until they can build in "real" material, SLA will always be just for modeling and not for making things that can do something difficult in the real world. I love the resolution you can get with SLA, but the materials technology may never get there.

What is "real material"? Stratasys has an interesting array of stuff you can print with on their Polyjet printers.