It has been quite a long time since I have updated this blog, but my trip up to the NEC in Birmingham yesterday for the TCT Show has encouraged me to redouble my efforts in moving the various little corners of the reprap project that I have been involved with forward.

This was my first visit to the TCT Show, and I was surprised to discover that it has been running for 18 years. This year was the first to include a reprap section to what is firmly targeted at the trade rather than consumers.

Reprap Zone

The first thing to strike me as we made our first circuit of the the show floor was just how much busier the reprap corner was to all of the other stands.

RepRapPro had a substantial presence in the reprap area. They had a live build of a 3d printer talking place as well as a small shop where I purchased a 0.3mm nozzle for a future upgrade to my RepRapPro Huxley.

After chatting with the fine people at RepRapPro I moved over to the fantastic little delta printer created by RichRap. the most interesting part of this is his colour mixing nozzle which, I have decided is going to have to be a part of my delta printer when I finally get around to making it.

Another thing I spoke to RichRap about was the way he was changing colours simply by feeding in short cut lengths of filament into a bowden tube, one after another. He tells me that the pressure is not too great to cause a problem. This is the same technique that caused me problems last year, but I think that with the thicker bowden tube I have recently acquired and if I can get a mixing hotend setup like RichRap’s I think I might just give it another go…

I have often advised people in the past to go to Fabadashery if they want to get reliable PLA with fantastic colours and I am not just saying that because Claire from Fabadashery very kindly gave me some samples of plastic to play with.

Commercial machines

Up till now, the decades old commercial side of the additive manufacturing industry was barely on my radar, so the opportunity to see the best of these machines and talk to experts about these devices was truly fascinating.

Two specific commercial machines really grabbed my attention.

The first from SolidScape are crazy high resolution printers that prints in wax. Their printers are used in the jewellery an dentistry areas where the wax models printed form positives in moulds for other materials such as precious metals.

One feature that jumped out at me about their printing process was the way that they prepare the surface of the model between layers with a blade to ensure a perfect surface before depositing the next 6 micron thick layer of wax.

The second printer that really caught my imagination was completely different to any other 3d printer I had seem before. The paper 3d printers from Mcor are fantastic. Starting with several reams of plain paper this printer cuts each sheet of paper with a drag knife before gluing the next sheet on top. This process results in a really solid 3d model which can be full colour simply by running the sheets of paper through an inkjet printer prior to cutting and sticking.

No materials

One area that I felt was somewhat lacking in the show was any sort of presence from material suppliers. Fabadashery were present with their huge range of pla, and a chinese supplier eSun was present. I had expected to be able to compare the finishes between PLA, ABS, Nylon etc.

Conclusion

my trip up to TCT Show yeaterday has been really informative and great fun.

One thing I have taken away from the show is that there is far more to this industry than the little corner I have inhabited thus far, and despite the massive prices of these machines  it is often possible to find people offering printing services so the excellent quality is available to the likes of me.

Right, now to start designing my new delta 3d printer with a mixing print head…