A friend posted this link onto my McWire build log. Seems a movie studio has built the worlds largest 3d printer. It prints artificial sandstone. It can print a 3m x 3m x 3m object.

[gizmodo.com]



I think this is awesome. Imagine a printed house or the sculpture art that can be created with this machine. From the image they included it looks like they took care of the extreme angle overhang problems too.

My thoughts: WOW!
Reminds of giant CNC milling machines they use to make nuclear reactor containment vessels.

Wow! That is impressive.

There was an idea posted on CNET of a giant cartesian bot that could print a house (yes one you could live in) using a 3 axis bot and a concrete pump.

You mean this one?
[www.youtube.com]

A close of of the deposition head
[www.youtube.com]


In the item that I was watching they had also referenced repRap an Fab@Home, over a year a go, thats how I knew about RepRap being here

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2009 06:53PM by Grogyan.

I think extruding a cement paste mixed to set quite fast should be quite useful on small scale as well.

There's been some discussion about printing out wax for lost wax casting, but the parts are not reuseable. Cement possibly could be, you could use sand casting sand with casting sand binder to make shells, and then pour sand around to contain any outflow pressure, and so long as you design in clean release lines, the cement should last for several casts. Same deal with modeling clay. Wasps do something similiar, and bees with wax and honeycomb.