HP 3D printer

Tuesday, February 2, 2010, 6:16
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The new 3D printer technology is still taking baby steps, but showing some off some promising aspects of what we can see in coming future. There are a few three dimensional printers available in market currently at comparatively higher prices to what we get our conventional laser printers for. But, when compared to rapid prototyping equipment which is used for mass printing, 3D printers are marginally cheaper than them. We can see a few printers from giants like HP, Epson and Canon this year as they try to get hold of the newest field in printing market.

HP recently announced their partnership deal with Stratsys which will lead to launch of their first 3D printer. HP spokesperson said that consumers can expect the printer by the end of this year. HP is not interested in attracting common people to use their newest 3D printer technology, but only technical people that may get a lot of help with this new technology. Architecture and component prototyping are the two main fields that will gain advantage from HP’s new product. Also, other fields such as Civil and Mechanical designs may get help from HP 3D printers.

With new features, HP is also expected to raise the price tag considerably. Market experts are expecting something like $20,000 for HP’s 3D printer which is certainly not what common people are expected to pay. Large scale companies and similar organizations may opt for HP’s 3D printer which will make use of special ink and other components instead of what we use in today’s printers. HP needs to get the release dates right as a little diversion from the optimum time could cost them a fortune.

Even if the market of 3D printing is still new, there is huge scope for improvement and one can expect these 3D printers to get introduced in mainstream market real soon.

Talking about technology, 3D printers will create accurate 3D models of prototypes from ABC plastic which is commonly used for creating small-scale units in injection-molded projects. Evaluation and different design tests could be performed on these 3D-printed models which can help in final creation of the actual project.