"Dremel has a new 3D printer!" Topic

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Okay, so at a 100 micron resolution and FDM printing, it isn't quite adequate for small-scale minis, but it would work fine for some hobby uses (Warmaster castles, for example). Mostly, I'm excited to see that a major hobby-tool brand has taken the plunge and is getting into the 3D printing market! This can only help lead to bigger and better things – cheaper printers with higher resolution.

Thought I'd share!
-jav98

Agree completely Jav but even Shapeways whom I assume offer the best resolution out there at a marginally decent print cost do not produce the best of miniatures. I know quite a few gamers who wont bother with 3D because of the resolution. It may be a long while yet before truly fine resolution printing becomes available at a reasonable price.

It's a rebadge of an existing model from China, but it's an important first big brand cheap printer. Keep an eye out for a similar priced line from HP next year.

Yea, I keep hearing about HP coming out with one, and also with Home Depot and/or UPS carrying them in their stores, and offering printing services to customers.

I wish someone local would offer printing services, of high quality, at a reasonable price. That would be a game-changer.

I'd say that 100 microns would be fine for 15mm vehicles, or even figures. the trick is getting the limbs thick enough to keep from breaking

The cost of materials is an equal price pressure, don't forget that!

100 micron resolution is pretty crude, even for 28mm figures, I doubt that many people would put up with that on a regular basis.

Man I want one of these to play with!

Let's see here. A typical human hair is about 90 microns thick. It will take about 254 100 micron layers to equal 1". A 28mm figure (assuming 28mm from top of base to eye level then adding another 2 mm to account from eye level to top of head and then another 2 mm for base thickness for a total height of 32mm from table top to top of head for a figure standing at attention) would take 320 layers. The result is not going to be a smooth surface and is more likely to have a slightly ridged surface somewhat comparable to a coarse optical diffraction grating.

Another way of thinking about this is that for a 1/285 scale model (C-in-C microarmor scale), a 100 micron thick layer would represent slightly over an inch on the full scale item being modeled in 1/285 scale. Assuming 1/54 scale as being close to 28mm, then a 100 micron layer would represent about 0.2 inches on the full scale item. And for a 1/2400 scale ship, a 100 micron layer would represent between 9-10 inches on the full scale item (off the top of my head – haven't done the math) or larger than 5" gun barrels.

Or one can think of it as printing at 254 DPI. 300 DPI is deemed OK for most home use and 600 DPI is preferred for professional looking documents with pictures.

So to avoid being labeled as "crude resolution for a 28mm figure," it looks like having layers around 40 microns might be OK if one uses the 600 DPI comparison.

Is this what previous commenters have in mind for a good resolution on a 3D printer?

It blows the Makerbot printers out of the water on price, at least. It's got the same resolution as the Replicator, but not quite the build area, and at a third the price.

I've held Replicator products, and you can definitely feel the layers on certain faces -- my thought has always been that you'd want to base coat with a thick primer to smooth the valleys.

Probably best for larger, but less detailed, figures. I'm thinking 28mm Wild West, and not Napoleonics.

40µ would be good, 25µ would be even better. I think one of the guys I designed some stuff for got his masters made at 16µ!

However, for home use, 100µ isn't bad; it's about on par with the detail plastics from Shapeways.