What I saw at #CES2014. My take on the move to bring 3D printing mainstream plus short write-ups and floor pictures of (almost) every printer and scanner at the show. A seismic shift is beginning and these are exciting times. 2014 will be huge for 3D printing and even if consumers don’t bite - we’ll still get a lot of fantastic tech out of it.
Awesome writeup @Anna_Kaziunas_France ! Thanks
What about print speed? Last year, there were 3 main reasons people said 3D printing wouldn’t go mainstream: Resolution, limited materials and print speed. I see that 2 of three have been blown out of the water. Did you see anyone marketing or commenting on print speed improvements? I hear claims of 300, 400, even 500 mm/s but that is only in the open-source environment.
There is a physical limit on how fast you can push plastic out of a hotend. It needs time to melt uniformly. FDM speed increases will be small and stall out completely very soon. For higher speed we need a paradigm shift.
True, there are physical limits to all machines and 3D printing is slow. As manufacturers make all kinds of claims when it comes to resolution and speed, I won’t be able to comment on how fast the new FDM machines are without actually testing them. However, speed may matter less if you are able to confidently walk away from a machine and go about your business without fear of failed prints.