I've decided I'm not ready to own a 3D printer just yet, but I did purchase a 3D printer pen. It's no maker bot, but it's pretty neat. I got mine for about $100 on ebay and it came with some sample filament. Mine uses 1.75mm ABS, which seems to be standard to all the models of 3D pens I have seen. It works like a standard 3D printer has it has a nozzle that melts plastic, but instead of using motorized controls to position the nozzle you free hand it.
Obviously you don't want to print something big, but small things, crafty things and even fixing flaws in 3D prints from printers this pen would be handy for.
Here is a video of the first things I did with my pen. I made a cover for a sonar sensor, fixed an old action figure I had and I made a great big mess with spaghetti plastic all over, but I had fun and learned a lot.
With a steady hand and hours of drawing you could manually 3d print something lol.
Thanks Justin....... Your video is very encouraging for the all the jobs you mentioned . Looking forward to any more applications!
Justin :-} Thanks for the video and explaining things about the 3D Printer Pen, I had looked at it before on Ebay and Amazon, I thought it was just for fixing mistakes on 3d prints from the 3d printers. I might actually buy one now, since a lot of things I need at times are smaller pieces, it would be very handy.
@jstarne1-XLRobots.com I was actually thinking you might find the 3d pen handy for fixing small errors in prints. For instance the little defects you mentioned in some parts you made for an Ironman finger.
Awesome review Justin! That video will be very handy.
So throw it on a few motors which move it in the x, y and z axis and you get yourself a cheap 3d printer which shouldn't be too difficult to program to print with (not as simple as a makerbot but a lot cheaper!)
I may have to pick one of them up just to have a play with it, I can think of load of things where it would come in handy just off the top of my head.
Wow! That looks sweet. I think I would like one of those, but at the same time, I'm worried my hand-eye coordination wouldn't be good enough to make anything I really wanted to use. I'd probably be better off with a normal, mini, 3d printer...
But rich, that idea sounds really awesome. I almost want to do that myself...
You know what would be funny? Give a robot the ability to print with a 3D pen. Sounds like a fun project.
Haha Chrissi! That sounds awesome. I would pay to see that! A robot printing other 3D robots... glorious.