As ID'ers we're privy to technologies that seem mundane to us through familiarity, but it's interesting to see how people that have never heard of RP react when it's demonstrated for them. That goes for people as highly educated as the theoretical physicist David Kaplan, featured in this NatGeo video, who travels to Z Corporation to see if they can scan and 3D-print a working model of his crescent wrench.
It's kind of cool to watch Kaplan pull the finished part out of the powder. I know most of us have already seen things similar to this, but you get the sense Kaplan's head would explode if he looked inside your average industrial design department.
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The 3D printer that blows my mind is the one with resin that gets melted together with a laser. You do need to construct a fragile honeycomb structure for pieces that are 'floating', so takes some extra work. Then you just tear that out and you have a super slick plastic-like material. I find it weird that it's mostly the powder ones you hear about though...
Even then, there's no way that wrench could take significant force without failing, and it would be useless on smaller nuts.
Whether you call it prudent editing or cheeky marketing, misinformation like this can lead to disappointed customers when 3D printing fails to meet their high expectations.
That said, there is an undeniable wow factor in holding your first 3D print, which they captured pretty well here :)
For ID evaluation, nothing beats a CNC mill in my opinion, for ME evaluation, you can go for SLA parts but Z-corp is soo 2002. 10 years ago it was a breakthrough I have to add. Plus they are rather cheap compared to the others.
great sweater though.