Your own Factory on Your Desktop – The 3-D Printer

Imagine this – You are sitting at your desk writing, and all of the sudden your pen breaks clean in half.  You fire up your printer, download the specifications for your pen from the Internet, load it into your printer, and about an hour later, you have a new case for your pen!  Or the handle on your favorite coffee mug breaks and you want to fix it.  Load it into your printer and an hour later, glue it right back on!  You didn’t even have to leave your house.  But what, might you ask, is this contraption? – a 3 dimensional printer.  Yes, I know the first thing that comes to your mind.  How in the world can you print 3-D objects?  The process is very simple.  Most industrial strength 3-D printers today use expensive lasers to heat up the plastic used to make an object.  The Desktop Factory uses a 5 dollar halogen bulb to heat it up.  The light heats up the plastic, and once it is pliable to work with, it is rolled onto a drum, cut to the specific shape, and then rolled over again onto the surface, where it is actually being built from the bottom up instead from side to side – layer by layer(each layer is about 1 millimeter).  Once it reaches the top, the plastic hardens and then you may paint it and add a glossy finish to it, if you want.  Depending on how big the object you are printing is, it will take about on hour on average. 

You can make virtually anything you want with this printer, with size as the only exception.  The maximum size right now you can make is a 5×5x5 inch object, but they are planning on making this bigger in the future.  Also, considering the price to other 3-D printers, the price is exceptionally low.  Other printers in use today can cost anywhere from 50 to 500 thousand dollars!  The Desktop Factory right now, costs only about five thousand dollars.  It is about the size of a microwave oven or a laser printer, and weighs about 90 pounds.  Plus, there isn’t a limit to what you can do with the things you make!  Keep it, give it away, or even sell it.  It’s your own factory sitting right on your desktop.  desktopfactory.com

Specifications:

Size:  25 x 20 x 20 inches(about the size of a microwave oven)

Weight: 90 pounds

Maximum print size:  5 x 5 x 5 inches

Price:  4995 dollars