“There have been no breakdowns and no service engineer out to repair it. I can see these machines becoming much more common in a couple of years. We also sell desktop printers from about €1,200 and up. They are great for affordable use, but they’re limited in the size and resolution of the objects they can produce,” said Deverell.
Consumer versus pro
The major difference between the current generation of consumer-orientated 3D printers and high end professional models lies in two areas — resolution and resiliency. Desktop models are most suitable for printing objects designed to be looked at but not much else according to Mark Rowan, projects manager for Inspire 3D.
For 3D printing you need a 3D file, and there are a lot more people using that kind of software now than used to be the case. It’s frequently only a matter of pressing ‘print’ to have a model in your hands. The technology used to produce the prints is extremely stable, Wesley Deverell, Hackett 3D
“The major application we see is from companies that have a product and want to do test prints of it before committing to the cost of paying for moulds to be made. It can cost from €7,500 to €10,000 to have a mould made but if there’s a problem with the objects that come out of that mould and they don’t form properly, you have to scrap that investment and start again,” he said. “We can print directly from the company’s files for around €150 and they can see exactly what their 3D file produces. It’s a lot cheaper to catch a problem at that point.”
Rowan says that there is a lot of hype in the media about what 3D printing can do, and that typically people expect it to be a lot cheaper than it really is.
Ricoh’s Parker believes that the opportunities that will most interest Irish companies in 3D printing are not yet available, and that it is a developing area that needs time to mature.
Prototyping plus
“Once you lift the bonnet and investigate outside the printing technology that’s out there today, I think businesses do have an opportunity to create some value from 3D. The market itself appears small compared to the conventional print market, but when you look at the cost of the technology that currently exists, it’s a lot more expensive,” he said. “But there are already hints that a number of vertical markets have started to do more than just trial 3D printing. There are enough cases of this happening for us to say that it’s more than just prototyping going on.”
As companies continue to look deeply into how they can become quicker to market and quicker with the decision making processes, Parker suggests priorities around 3D printing will change.
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