The 3D printer costs around $2,000 / €2,000 instead of five hundred grand

Sep 10, 2014 12:35 GMT  ·  By

Most of the things we report from the 3D printing industry consist of FDM 3D printers for consumers, which normally ship for between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars / euro. There are other technologies that go for ten or a hundred times that much though.

Which is why it's so amazing to hear when someone manages to cut the price to a tenth or less of what it would normally be.

We've seen it happen with prosthetics. When made normally, they can cost around $50,000 / €40,000, but when they're 3D printed they sell for $50 / €40 - €50. Some are even made pro bono.

Advances in 3D printing technologies themselves aren't as frequent, but that only makes them more amazing when they do happen.

Polyjet printing just got shockingly affordable

This is one of the 3D printing techniques that usually cost in the six-figure range to implement. Which is to say, polyjet 3D printers can ship for around $500,000 / €400,000 or more. Not to be confused with Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), which also costs around that much.

A man from London, David Feintrenie, may have just put his name in the annals of history as the major reformer of the polyjet 3D printing industry. Polymer Jetting Technology, if you want to get all technical.

He was originally going to get a master's degree, but decided to instead drop out of graduate school and use his tuition money on an affordable Polyjet 3D printer.

Somehow, he pulled it off, creating a polymer jetting 3D printer that only costs around $2,000 / €1,550 instead of the amount of money you would normally pay for a whole house.

How polyjet printing works

Basically, it's a type of SLA printing, in a sense, because it uses resin and UV light to cure it, harden it as it were. But the technology needs too much resin to be cured at once through simple exposure to a light projector.

Normally, polyjet printing (sold by Stratasys) deposits material where it needs to be, then shines UV light to cure it. Four Dimatix 100 dpi heads are used to layer the material (2 for build material, 2 for support material) while two huge UV lamps shine on it on both sides.

David Feintrenie used a single nozzle piezo head (salvaged from an old wax printer) and made a printer that jets one line per swipe, so he only needs a low power focused laser to cure the resin. Specifically, a 405nm, 150mw DIY laser that he bought online.

The technology should be different enough from Stratasys' to sell safely, without danger of patent infringement wars.