Desktop Factory Makes 3D Printing Available to Households

The concept of 3D printing has been in existence for more than a decade and yet its usage is still not that popular outside the fields of engineering, architecture and manufacturing. The fact that this concept is slowly creeping into the world of art, medicine and education in recent years does not answer the basic question of when 3D printing will be available to the ordinary household consumer.

That day may come sooner than we think. Certainly most industrial-grade 3D printers are still too expensive at around $15,000 a pop to be brought into ordinary households. Homemade 3D printers created using open source plans downloaded from fabber websites may be a lot cheaper and exciting to build for geeks, but the layman will have trouble building them.

What then is the solution? A company called Idealab came up with a cheaper alternative to industrial-grade 3D printers that do not require DIY stunts which is the only way a fabber would work. This alternative is called the Desktop Factory.

What Is the Desktop Factory?

The Desktop Factory is a 3D printer that you can put right on your desktop. At 25 x 20 x 20 inches, it is rather bigger than your ordinary desktop inkjet printer, but you definitely would not need an extra table for it unless you really have to. It is also quite a heavy gadget, weighing approximately 90 lbs.

Just like with 3D printers made with fabbing, you can make almost anything with the Desktop Factory as long as the raw materials you need are just plastic. Right now, plastic is the only raw material that the Desktop Factory can work with. The parts you can make with this 3D printing machine can have a maximum dimension of 5 x 5 x 5 inches, but this does not mean that you cannot glue these parts together to build a larger scale model later on.

The Potential of 3D Printing at Home

The idea of being able to print 3D objects of your own at home opens a lot of wonderful possibilities. Remember that you can create anything with a 3D printer. For instance, you can spoil your child by making the toys that he or she wants straight out of your printer. You can design and make your own plastic dinnerware that you can use on picnics and backyard barbecues. You can make your own plastic fashion accessories. If you are into arts and crafts, having the components of your project made using a 3D printer can save you a trip to the craft supplies store.

There are just so many possibilities that the idea of being able to create 3D objects using a desktop printer can open. Your only limit in making your projects is your own creativity. Of course you may wonder about the cost of having such a 3D printer like the Desktop Factory around. Right now, the Desktop Factory is priced at a little less than $5,000. It is still a bit too expensive for most householders, but this price tag certainly brings 3D printing closer to home.

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