Hire and replicate a LF camera using this thing.

[kparratt]

<p>Dismantle a large format camera into it's main components, front and rear standards, rail, maybe lens board and some removable parts of each of these for accuracy, and use <a href="Dismantle a large format camera into main components, front and rear standards, rail, maybe lens board and some removable parts of each of these for accuracy, and use this to "><strong>this</strong></a> to "3D print" each of those components to within a 40 micron accuracy. Reassemble and attach bellows and lens to the new printed lens board, load your film and off you go.</p>

<p> </p>

[kparratt]

<p>Sorry ... thought I did that so carefully too.</p>

<p>Ok .. have tested this.<br>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZboxMsSz5Aw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZboxMsSz5Aw</a></p>

 

[kparratt]

<p>Of course the maths in the economy of scale equation would blow away feasibility for one-off items. But I can imagine a Far East pirate investing and reproducing all sorts of things. One of these 3D printers would cost way more than a brand new large format camera of any of the best makes, and fortunately so too. <br /> <br /> That said, I imagine the technical feasibility would also limit effective reproduction to lower precision items, such as the wooden cameras on the market, and at best the result would be an amateur's play thing.<br /> <br /> The makers and merchants of Linhof, Arca Swiss and the like need not lose any sleep. It is none the less a mind boggling development. <br /> <br /> And hey, if we think inkjet cartridges are expensive, and that's with world wide competition, I don't imagine the consumables in this baby will be give aways.</p>

[bob_salomon]

<p>Actually Rollei was having some of their parts made in the Praktika factory in Dresden a decade ago in a machine that made complex parts (including moving ones) from a resin with a laser from a CAD program. They were also making parts for Gossen there too while I was there.<br>

The parts I saw being made then were carved from a solid block of material rather then cast from a powder but it was making production parts at prices below other processes. Like Kevin pointed out though, the machine was expensive.<br>

I wonder if that 3-D copy machine had a tray large enough to make 4 wrenchs at a time in that tray? Are larger tray machines available? It looked like it took about 1.5 hours from scan to final product. How long does it actually take to make a metal adjustable wrench from raw metal to finished product? How many of those are made in a day?</p>

[bob_salomon]

<p>Time flies, it was much more then a decade ago. Closer to two decades ago. We stopped selling Rollei in 1996!</p>

[jim_landecker]

<p>Quite a bit of BS there. 3D printing or "rapid prototyping" was around long before the Z-printer. Processes such as SLS (selective laser sintering) can produce much tougher parts (glass reinforced nylon) than the Z-printer. There are also sintering processes that can build parts directly out of metal. In the video, it was only the scanning that was claimed to be 40 micron accuracy - most of these processes build in .003"-.010" layers (76 - 250 microns). The parts can look pretty rough out of the machine and usually need hand sanding to smooth them. When I looked at Z-printer parts several years ago, the powder was some kind of starch that was infiltrated with a weak binder from the printhead, just to hold the part together. After coming out of the machine, the part needed to be soaked in cyanoacrylate (crazy glue) to make it strong. The advantages of the Z-printer are mainly that it can print fast and in color, and the machine is relatively cheap because the layer printing is based on inkjet technology. No doubt there will be processes in the future which allow us to make strong and accurate parts economically - today you can pick 2 of the 3.</p>