3D printing on a budget

RepRap 'Mendel' 3D printer

Everyone seems to be talking about 3D printing.  Some good, some bad.  Lawmakers seem convinced that we are going to see unenforceable national borders and the bad buys 'printing' out weapons and making the next generation of illicit drugs.  Barack Obama waxed lyrical about 3D printing but worries about its potential misuse too.  The US is amending its Undetectable Firearms Act to prepare for these new gizmos.

Funnily enough some of us have little interest in the drug trade or preparing for the next Waco style siege.  What could you do instead that's fun and cheap?

For a start, you can source some building materials for next to nothing by feeding your empty plastic milk bottles into an extruding machine like the Filabot or the Filamaker. These gadgets will shred the plastics and produce filaments that serve as a base material for 3D printing.

Perhaps you want to build yourself a 3D printer like the RepRap 'Mendel' shown in the picture above.  RepRap is a community based project popular with people all over the world.

Filabot filament maker

Check out these projects for what you might do next to actually print something once you have the raw material.

Some home 3D printing links

3D printing basics

3D printer for the home (Smartplanet)

Personal portable 3D printer

Stepping up a notch or two

Another kind of home project in 3D is happening but this one is on an entirely different scale.  

Dutch architect, Janjaap Ruijssenaars of Universal Architecture, is working with inventor and roboticist, Enrico Dini, to build a 1,100 square metre townhouse in the Netherlands.  The entire structure will be fabricated using Dini's revolutionary D-Shape 3D printer technology.

The Landscape House - a 3D printed building

The printed house (Wired)

D Shaped 3D Printer (Gizmag)