The 3D Printer Revolution Countdown: Print Your Own PC Coming Shortly
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 4:47PM Today's 3D printers can print out robots, eyeglass frames, foods, tools, toys, and more. Who knows what the future holds?
Every week seems to bring a new story about a cool new 3D printer hack or another discussion (like this Innovators @ Google talk from two of the guys behind the Makerbot 3D Printer) about how the 3D printing revolution has begun. But what's really going on with 3D printers? Where is this nascent industry going?
An exact description of 3D printing is somewhat elusive because several methods may be used; but most 3D printers stack thin layers of material to form a 3D object in much the same way that a dot-matrix printer creates an image on a page. Though the process has been around since the early 1990s, it had a relatively low profile until recently. In part this was due to the five- or six-figure prices that early 3D printers commanded, and in part it reflected the relatively low quality of the objects the printers produced.
But in the past few years, the prices of 3D printing systems have dropped to a more reasonable level: $1000 to $3000 is the normal range, with the cheapest model, MakerBot's Cupcake CNC, tagged at just $650). The printers' greater affordability, along with the increased number of options available for home 3D printing kits, has helped take 3D printing out of specialized industrial use and put it into the hands of geeks
Pasted from <http://www.pcworld.com/article/212440/the_3d_printer_revolution_countdown_print_your_own_pc_coming_shortly.html?tk=hp_fv>
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