Beating the High Cost of 3D Printing
If traditional inkjet printers have taught us anything, it's that the true expense of a printer is in the ink. Its cost per unit volume surpasses that of gold, oil, perfume and even human blood in most cases, making it the most expensive liquid many of us will ever purchase.
In the case of 3D printing, pricey ink cartridges are replaced by spools of plastic filament. The plastic itself is not expensive, but the spools cost far more than pellets made from the same material. According to Zach Kaplan, CEO of 3D printing supplier Inventables, “It's like a 10x difference.”
With so many 3D printers well out of hobbyists' price ranges, the cost of plastic 'ink' may be easy to overlook, but that doesn't mean additive manufacturers aren't faced with a similar problem. And as prices lower, more and more people will be able to buy a desktop 3D printer, making the issue all the more pressing.
To tackle this problem, Kaplan and the Pocket Factory's Bilal Ghalib turned to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to help give the Inventables community incentive to solve this problem.
The contest, named the Desktop Factory Competition, began in May 2012 via iStart.org, an entrepreneurial contest platform owned by Kauffman. Thanks to an Inventables sponsorship, Kauffmen and the Maker Education Initiative offered $40,000 alongside other hardware prizes, such as a 3D printer from Inventables, to the first person or team who submitted plans for an open-source machine capable of turning plastic pellets into filament.
But not any machine could win – after all, the goal is to create a product to help lower the cost of 3D printing. As a result, the rules stipulated that the device's parts could total no more than $250 in cost.
Although it took 10 months for the first person to meet all the contest's requirements, the victory came as no surprise – after all, the “maker movement” is full of inventive enthusiasts with a knack for problem solving. What wasn't expected, however, was that the victor of a contest centered around a cutting-edge technology would be in his 80's.
The enterprising inventor in question is 83-year-old Hugh Lyman, who retired 17 years ago from his scientific cabinetry manufacturers, Ly Line Products. After his retirement, Lyman turned to 3D printing to help manufacture parts for his inventions, as well as novelties such as jewelry and sculptures.
As a result of his hobby, he was very much aware of the high cost of plastic filament.
“Every time I buy a couple pounds of filament, it costs me forty to fifty bucks,” said Lyman. “I was burning through it pretty fast.”
Lyman had a breakthrough design with the Lyman Filament Extruder, but because he did not account for the cost of the components that he himself manufactured, the device failed to come in under the $250 cost maximum. After some tinkering, however, Lyman submitted his Filament Extruder II, which the judges declared to be the first successful entry and winner of the competition.
Both Lyman Extruders work by filling a hopper with plastic pellets and switching on a heater. The pellets are then melted and the molten plastic is squeezed through a nozzle and takes filament form as it coils out of the machine.
By purchasing pellets in bulk rather than plastic spools, those with access to a Lyman Extruder have demonstrated its ability to reduce the materials cost of 3D printing down by up to 80 percent, with the potential to lower the cost even further.
And this isn't the only way in which Lyman's device has demonstrated its impact. Over 12,000 across the globe have downloaded the Lyman Filament Extruder II schematics. Some have offered design improvements while others hope to contribute by offering pre-assembled versions down the road.
But Lyman's winnings certainly haven't changed his priorities. Of his $40,000 windfall Lyman said, “I'm going to give half of it to the wife, and tinker with the other half.”
Full story at Time
