The future of manufacturing is here. Sort of.
This may be old news to some of you, but I saw this today and was blown away. Mark my words, within the next 15 years, protecting Autocad files from internet piracy will be all the buzz.
Imagine torrents of CAD files for the D&D miniatures, then plugging them into this baby:
Isn’t this amazing? One day in the future, owning one of those printers will be routine, and you’ll make your own stuff.
“I have the CAD file for the Dragonborn Defender, let me make him real quick.”
Incredibly cool, and scary.
Posted in: Gaming
www. Newbie DM .com 
RPG Ike
January 5, 2009
Hm. Now that is pretty frigging amazing. It’s really not hard to imagine this becoming commonplace in a few years.
Gawd, I’d love to print my own minis…
kaeosdad
January 5, 2009
I tried to order one of those machines a few years back, I figured that it’d be cheaper than buying minis and I’d get what I wanted. Until I they quoted me the price I thought it was a good idea. It’s expensive as hell and I think mostly used for prototyping. I think wizards of the coasts actually does just this with the newer minis sets which is why the quality went down. They’re getting much better at it with each set though.
It’d be awesome if they made 3d printers more affordable though. I don’t see it happening anytime within the next ten years though. There is a huge price gap between printing bulk in one of these machines, and casting minis in bulk using a machine made specifically for bulk casting.
Hammer
January 5, 2009
Somewhere online, there are plans to build something like that out of parts you can buy at hardware and electronics stores. It’s been a good year since I last saw it though, but a look though Google might unearth it.
Not sure how commonplace they’ll be in 5-10 years though. I first saw videos of those six or seven years ago, with the attached prediction that they would be everywhere within a decade. Still waiting unfortunately
They are very, very cool though.
Brent P. Newhall
January 5, 2009
According to the latest issue of I.D. Magazine (or maybe it’s How Magazine), there’s one going on the market in the next few months, with an MSRP of $5,000.
Sean
January 5, 2009
I heard an interview with the designer of this printer. He foresaw that future were everyone would be swapping CAD files. In fact, he said, one of his printers could make 90% of its own parts. So he didn’t expect to sell too many of them.
Didn’t say how much the supplies cost, though.
David
January 5, 2009
3-D printers are already being used for a similar purpose. You can order your World of Warcraft character from Figure Prints:
http://www.figureprints.com/
Chris Tregenza
January 6, 2009
This is one of the things that excite us at 6d6 Fireball Miniatures. Rather than selling metal miniatures, we can sell designs. No worry about keeping things in stock and our costs will be incredibly low meaning we can have lots and lots of different miniatures available.
The other, closer to reality, future tech we are excited about is publishing on demand. Being able to print & ship personalised campaigns that the customer has created by selecting from a menu of one of adventures and encounters. This tech is almost here, its just too expensive / not high enough quality to work just yet.
newbiedm
January 6, 2009
The piracy issue willl be the next big thing.
Imagine a torrent file from Hasbro’s Star Wars Action Figure Line.
Printing out my own Chewbacca….
My own cups at home…
My own screwdriver…
My own tupperware….
It feels far off and impossible, but in the 70’s who could have imagined internet, xbox, HDTV, etc….
It’s coming…
jonathan
January 6, 2009
that thing is awesome! especially at ~$30,000
See here for pricing
Donny_the_DM
January 6, 2009
Ah, the 3D printer.
When I was doing CAD product design, we had an antique (first Gen) prototyper. Used fiberglass resin. It cost the company something like 70K to get it!
Problem is, the cost to create a widget using these bad boys is astronomical compared to a mass production of blow-molded plastic. At a guess, a mini would run around 6-15 dollars each.
Add to that the fact that they come out the same base color as the resin – yeah, gotta be painted too.
Someday! Thanks for posting this, it tickled my geekbone.
Mad Brew
January 6, 2009
I used to do 3D modeling for the Aerospace industry, and I have had several parts prototyped on a 3D printer. The latest printer I saw was the Desktop Factory. It is decently priced at just below $5k and it fits on a (larger) desk. Of course, the level of detail isn’t that great, but in 5 years, you’ll be able to get professional looking models at half the price.
I was seriously pondering starting a business in rapid prototyping with a mechanical engineer I had worked with, but neither of us wanted to write the necessary business plans!
I can see an underground trade in CAM/CAD files, but you could always just scan them yourself with a 3D scanner at a reasonable price of $3k.
bonemaster
January 9, 2009
Guess, I’ve been out of the loop on 3D printers. Of course, it’s not really my field. Still, I find the concept of doing this in the future and interesting concept.
@MadBrew – Business Plans, we don’t need no stinky Business Plans!
njharman
January 9, 2009
Check out Fab at Home, one of several inexpensive open 3d printer. They’re already at a point were they can reproduce themselves(human assembly required)
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4224759.html