I see lots of small and very large 3D printing.

3D Printing
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1

I see lots of small and very large 3D printing. But is there a possibility to print at an affordable price an object like a chair (or the seize of it)?

2

It seems like most of the home 3D printer have a max building volume around 20cm x 20cm x 20cm. But you can assemble several prints together to create bigger objects.

Regarding the price, it’s mostly a matter of amount of plastic used to create the part, ie volume and fill percentage. Count around 30€ per kg of plastic, so you may end up with an object of a couple of kg, hence in the 50~100€ range.

3

This has been something that has interested me for a long time. The problem you will run into is just time… It takes a LONG time to print something that big with FFF (the type of printing the RepRap does for example). You can get around that somewhat by printing really large layer heights, but that sacrifces print quality, which for furniture is probably not OK.

Here is an example of one guy doing 3d printed chairs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FvRTHynk9KA#!

His is decidedly not home user friendly, using a giant robotic arm as the bot, but it is definitely interesting proof of concept.

4

There is a project with big industrial robot from China 3d-printing furniture made out of recycled plastic chips. But the prices of printouts are way too high… http://personalfactory.tumblr.com/post/21674828902/3d-printing-robot-produces-chairs-and-tables-from

5

This is much more “economical” project: http://personalfactory.tumblr.com/post/34771452618/3d-printed-ceramic-bricks-developed-for

6

If you have an open build area* and a larger nozzle you can print chairs.

  • I just made that term up. I remember a few years ago there was talk of needing RepRaps that printed outside their frames so that they could self replicate entirely in the distant future. I think this is the term that was being used. The only example I can come up with for such a device is an arm like that one or perhaps an extruder that can move around on wheels or something crazy like that.

edit: Also, that isn’t the video I thought it was. I saw one that was a lot prettier than that. Same chair model though so I assumed it was the same.

That video shows a much nicer large format printer.