It’s coming! 3d printing is the cat’s meow for the next generation of hone shop tinkerers. We can all get a CNC machine up and running thanks to folks making kits and plans available. The only other piece of he puzzle is to add an injection nozzle, abs roll and software to control it. TurboCNC Dakeng to the rescue? Rep Rap’s there!

We think that this new slew of companies launching a cheap solution will grow the industry and change how we think of manufacturing. We’ve seen a handful of small shops opening up their solution, some even being funded by crowd-sourced funding. Don’t know what that jibber jabber’s all about? Think of it as all of us pitching in a nickel to help some company develop a product they’ve promised to deliver to us once their target funding is reached.

Want to build a Tormach CNC machine or similar? Let’s say we need $10,000 to start but have only the lint in our pockets to keep us warm for the winter. In comes the internet! We tell people about this product we want to build and find people who believe in our vision (but who also want the darn thing!), we chip in what we can, the company raises $10,000 and off they go! If not, well, you get your money back, and we all go back to the drawing board. Cool concept, but somewhat newfangled, we suppose.

Anyway, back to 3D printing. The only thing that truly makes this not a wide-spread tinker’s tool is that there are still some pieces of the puzzle to integrate. What’s needed is the Tormach PC 770, 1000, 1100-series equivalent and a company to prop it up with support. Next thing you know, we’ll all have a network of these machines making things and doodads for us and everyone else.

The extrusions and mechanical components are fairly easy to obtain in this day and age. We just need reliable and easy to use CAM software for it and a steady source of heating nozzles and filament and we’re off! More later… We have some keen observations from our travels about this and we’ll post up a chart of the who’s who and what’s what