New York, NY – Technology experts are predicting that in the next ten years, every home will have a 3-D printer in it. According to an article from the Monday edition of the London Evening Standard and Science and Technology editor Mark Prigg, 3-D printers may be a closer reality than one might expect.
For home use, the design is roughly considered to be very similar to a microwave oven. Instead of ink, the cartridges inside the machine are filled with plastic. It will be possible to either design something yourself, or to download a pre-existing design from the web. Either way, the object will transform from the beginning as each successive layer is covered. While the lower-end printers will only use plastic, the more expensive models will be able to design objects in glass or metal.
As with any new technology of this sort, it is currently priced prohibitively, though they are beginning to surface in parts of London, says Prigg. One establishment, called Hackspace, bought the device called a MakerBot for £600 from a U.S. manufacturer. However, people who purchase this machine must also be able to put it together themselves. A co-founder of Hackspace, Jonty Wareing, said that the machine itself was easy to set up, but the software was more challenging.
As we reported a few weeks back, HP has already released their 3-D printer in Europe which was aimed at architects and designers and costs close to £16,000. Prigg says that smaller and less expensive units are under development and may be out as soon a few months.
For those that already own a 3-D printer, a company based out of the Netherlands, Shapeways, currently allows people to upload designs for sale or buy pre-made objects from the site.
