Posted by jim lee [172.68.142.44] on Thursday, May 03, 2018 at 13:02:10 :
In Reply to: Re: For those that are following it. Blog update. posted by Joe Cimoch [172.68.65.129] on Thursday, May 03, 2018 at 07:33:57 :
Back in the day.. About 5..6 years ago? Makerbot came up with a pretty nice 3D printer suitable for home use. It was well setup, did a really good job of printing , was totally easy to use and cost about $2k.
Before that, 3D printing was only for geeks. Most everyone was building their own. Basically people would get a 3d printer together, then download the files to print the parts for a better one. 3D printers were evolving themselves using humans.
I saw the makerbot, realized that it could print things I could actually use, and bought one on a whim. So did thousand of other people. It basically swamped the company and at some point the owner jumped ship, sold everything off to a competitor and that was the end of cool makerbot 3D printers you could get for your home.
Luckily, before they were all gone, I'd grabbed three of them because by then we were printing quadcopters to sell as fast as we could print them.
When I sold off the quadcopter business, I included one of the printers in the sale. The other two I've kept because I just love designing things and making them. Its totally great to be able to "print" your ideas and make them "real". If you look at the link you can see some examples of stuff I've made with the printers.
To really get use out of one you need to get good at 3D modeling. That was a bit scary at first but like the printing, once you get going it becomes addictive. I basically taught myself to use Solidworks just so I could make stuff with my 3D printers.
-jim lee
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