Desktop Factory

Hello, I'm new.

I came here after someone on 3d buzz posted this website, I was considering buying a Desktop Factory (http://www.desktopfactory.com/) It's a fairly cool idea. They won't to make a 3d printer for under $1000 by about 2010 2011. My questions is will we be able to make a RepRap with one of these things? I think it would be cool if Desktop Factory had a button that said "Build a RepRap." Anyways hello.

Here is a video: [www.desktopfactory.com]

Absolutely. Albeit a fragile a fragile reprap, as fused powder tends to be quite fragile. But if you have the printer, you could keep making replacements until you have achieved 100% replication. Only thing you need to be worried about is parts melting, I don't know if the plastic it uses melts below the temperatures reprap operates at, but even then you could still churn out replacement parts.

Somehow, I doubt that Desktop Factory will be incredibly supportive of this effort - RepRap is arguably their biggest competition! However, I would imagine printing a RepRap to be within the technical specs of the machine.

The example parts shown in the video are about the size of the largest reprap parts. The parts look pretty good quality so that won't be an issue

Gene Hacker Wrote:
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> Only thing you need to be worried
> about is parts melting, I don't know if the
> plastic it uses melts below the temperatures
> reprap operates at, but even then you could still
> churn out replacement parts.

Reprap is designed be be built from CAPA (starts to melt at 70^C, so these parts should be aright.

greenarrow Wrote:
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> Reprap is designed be be built from CAPA (starts
> to melt at 70^C, so these parts should be aright.

While CAPA (PCL) was the original plastic of choice on the Reprap project it has been largely superseded by the far more common PLA and ABS.

The machine in the video is expensive but produces impressive looking results now, with the promise of being cheaper in the future. The RepRap is cheap now, and promises impressive-results at a future time. So they are approaching the problem from opposite directions, and may someday converge to the same point. (Except that RepRap is open source.)

Does anyone know what Desktop Factory does for support material? Or even what kind of accuracy/precision they get? All I can find on their site is that they use some kind of drum to roll the layers on, but that isn't incredibly descriptive.

Desktop factory rolls out a layer of a nylon/metal powder mix and then melts the bits that it wants to be solid with a focussed light beam, not a laser. The unmelted powder is the support material.

Tracking the technology, it looks like to me that they are having some serious technical/economic problems. They were supposed to start shipping at the end of 2007. The last I heard it is out to the end of the third quarter of 2008 and slipping fast. The bad part is that they've been taking deposits on machines at 10% of the purchase price. That sort of locks them into their $5000 list price which may no longer be applicable. Sounds a little like the trap that Sony got themselves into with PS3. At this point I am wondering if they are ever going to manage to field a product or if they will just fold up their tent and disappear.

I don't know. $5000 for a 5x5x5 inch print volume seems to be a bit much, too. As well, they think that that volume will meet 95% of their commercial market and yes, they are targeting a commercial, not a individual user market.

Their CEO, Cathy Lewis sounds like a bit of a nitwit.

[www.socaltech.com]

I mean, what kind of startup boss refers to early, individual adopters as a "lunatic fringe" to an interviewer?

Anyhow, Reprap Darwin seems to be on track to deliver the goods, so why worry about "Desktop Factory".