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I would guess the 3-D printed version is a lot less durable. Also a lot of the cost of prosthetics is the customisation to the individual, which I'm not sure th
by magnapop 13y ago
I would guess the 3-D printed version is a lot less durable. Also a lot of the cost of prosthetics is the customisation to the individual, which I'm not sure the printer software could handle.
- smrtinsert 13y agoWhy not - plenty of people could learn an open source tool like blender and produce another model can't they? As far as durability, I think that's fine for everyday tasks and might even make it a positive, easy to replace, customize for usage type etc.
- magnapop 13y agoOh I agree! I was just thinking about the barrier to entry modifying CAD files. One thing I didn't immediately think of is if you screw up a dimension, you can just print out another to try again...I guess you could argue with the ability to keep improving it over time, the 3D version could have a better fit.
- mcherm 13y agoDurability isn't so much of a problem. At $10 each for materials, I can buy a new one for every single day for the next 5 years and it will still only cost about a quarter of what the fancy prosthetic costs.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoDepends. The price of laser sintering CNC machines is coming down quickly, as they're just CO2 lasers (depending on the metal you're fusing together). I can create objects from titanium powder, which as you can imagine is pretty durable. EDIT: Open source laser sintering [http://makezine.com/2012/02/01/an-open-source-laser-sintering-3d-printer/ http://makezine.com/2012/02/01/an-open-source-laser-sinterin...]