Yes, this is real! A Make Magazine reader posted pictures and description of this Dimension printer found at Toronto’s Umbra Concept Store. Evidently visitors can drop by to see the printer creating objects for Umbra’s designers – who are occasionally present to answer questions.
I’m not sure how successful this concept would be for drop-in customer prints, like Kinko’s does for 2D print; customers would need some chairs to sit in while awaiting their objects for eight or ten hours. Or maybe even some sleeping bags…
The Make posting’s most amusing bit was the comment from Jimmy Smits, who said:
meh! That is a worthless Dimension model fused deposition modeling 3-d printer using plasticine .01 mm orb shaped media with a melt temp of a mere 376.77 celcius and a final cool temp hardness of only 5 DPH on the Vickers Hardness Test. I made a better one last summer out of a modified Legos Mindstorms kit, an Epson 800 inkjet printer, my 1,00,000,000 volt telsa coil’s flyback transformer, and using liquid titanium as media. I’m also tired of these capitalist corporations trying to make a buck and using the latest technology to stay at the cutting edge. What do they think this is, a free country.
Sure, Jimmy, we wish!
It’s not the Kinko’s scenario as described by Jackie Fenn of Gartner yet, but it’s getting a lot closer to reality.
Via Make Magazine
