Oct.23, 2013
HP is working on developing 3D printing technology, announced HP CEO Meg Whitman at the Canalys Channels Forum in Bangkok. HP plans to enter the 3D printer market in the middle of 2014, said Whitman.
"We are excited about 3D printing,"Whitman said, "We want to lead this business. HP Labs is looking at it."
It seems pretty nature for HP to enter the 3D printing market. HP first ventured into the 3D printing space through a early partnership with Stratasys, which was created in 2010 to produce HP-branded 3D printers. The partnership ended in 2012. but HP's R&D team continues to explore the many possibilities of 3D printing.
As part of its ongoing RAGNAROK (Research on Advancing Glass & Non-organic Applications to Recreate Objects & Kinetics) project in 2012, HP Labs is looking at glass as a potential candidate for use in 3D printing. HP's paper says, "glass is easy to recycle and environmentally friendly. Glass is inexpensive but looks precious; it's pleasant to the touch and is so familiar that customers won't be disappointed by its fragility." Print transparent glass is still the challenge for current 3D printers and HP has been exploring the use of glass and several possible ways of printing it.
Whitman said HP's main focus in its 3D printing research would be the time and cost required to print. "To print a bottle can take eight to ten hours. That's all very interesting, but it is like watching ice melt," she said, "[HP is asking:] 'How do we commercialise to print faster, at lower price points? to enable service providers?"
Whitman added that she does not expect 3D printing to become a big business very quickly. "3D printing is in its infancy.""These businesses go along, get a little traction, go along, get a little more traction, then hit the knee of the curve." Whitman expects 3D printing to reach its inflection point in three years.
No further details about what kind of 3D printing product HP is developing were revealed, but Whitman said it will be a "new technology". And this new technology will be shown off in mid-2014.
Via: theregister
Posted in 3D Printing Company
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I expect that HP target the powder kind of additive manufacturing. Z corp is already using HP ink-jet technology in their 3d printer. There is also other open source project based on powder using HP ink-jet cartridge pwdr.github.io, P3P, diy_3d_printing_and_fabrication The process is close to existing inkjet paper printer. Some open project even use inkjet printer and transform it. The printer head move in x axis to drop liquid on the surface of the powder and solidify it. The motor dedicated to drive the paper is replaced by bigger ones and used to move the carriage on y axis. When the carriage hit the limit of the y axis a simple switch activate the repositioning of the carriage to the beginning and make the printer think there is a new page. The bucket full of powder move of a step and the carriage move again to add a new layer of powder and print the new page... Electronic is simple, keep the same printer controller and the same software. You have to slice the 3d part in a huge stack of jpeg image to print... In the future I guess that: What HP can do is patent this thing around and lock the market. They control the print head supply and they can abuse this position. What the open source community can do is to publish the most they can to prevent the patent lock. An independent print head and controller would be nice. A common supplier of open hardware print head would be nicer... I don't know if it already exist or not.
Chris@3dBotZ.com wrote at 10/24/2013 10:04:48 PM:
I'm sure we'll see a 3d printer for $99...and then forced to buy filament cartridges/consumables that are chipped and priced very, very high.
smartfriendz wrote at 10/24/2013 12:12:52 AM:
I hope we ( the makers, diyer's) can make enough com before big companies enter. I know it sounds like utopic, but the context is a little different than when they started 2d printers. Now there's this bigger and bigger diy wave and more and more people start to get it : those multimillions are just sucking us up with marketing tools. let me hope we can convert the most people we can before it's too late .. I know it won't be the majority, but the most the best :)
alidan wrote at 10/23/2013 10:11:56 PM:
HP may not have the best reputation in the consumer market, but damnit if they cant drive the price down if they want to, and if they see the printers as a loss leader where they make the money back from the filament, best case scenario for us, we will have a 3d printer sold to us at cost, and could probably reverse engineer it to work on a... more open platform, at the very worst, you could gut it and get use it for parts which again, at cost.
Bob wrote at 10/23/2013 7:20:46 PM:
buy original pla from HP 2000 EUR per kg coz only on original filament you can get best effects... and our printer will print you huge middle finger before your actual print to calibrate extruder just to make sure its hot enough!
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