Hey is anyone in the know about powder printing? I’ve heard amazing stories about full RGB colour 3D printing with this tech but it doesn’t seem mainstream enough to be as good as people say it is. Is there just some hidden drawback which I’m not seeing?
Full color would suggest polyjet (think inkjet for plastic) as opposed to powder printing which tends to be limited to a single color/ material.
The powder printers that do that from z corp use colored binder for those. It’s still basically a plaster statue when complete and therefore fragile.
There’s also the full colour 3d paper printers that staples was introducing in a few pilot projects. They use inkjet to colour the outside edge I believe. They have their own set of pros/cons
Powder printers are also very messy. The powder is quite fine (it’s a limiting factor for resolution) and gets everywhere.
While fine in an industrial setting where we have proper particulate management, it’s not something you’d generally want in your house.
It’s coming, I’m modifying my Creation Workshop to support inkjet 3d printing and working with some startups.
The original World of Warcraft character prints were done in a color powder process. Basically sintering with a color mix of powder. The colors were washed out and the prints were rather fragile.
I’ve used a z-corp machine extensively. You can get around the strength limitations of the powder construction by infiltrating the finished piece with CyanoAcrylate (superglue).
They are still somewhat weak in tension and not really suitable for making moving parts like the PLA prints common here. Add that with the other downfalls listed above and they have never really been a “mainstream” printer choice for the public.
The technology though is still pretty common. I ordered about $1,500 worth of SLS (selective laser sintered) parts from quick parts for the office just last week. was cheaper than SLA, and I didn’t need the resolution or surface finish, but did need something nicer that an FDM process could give me.