Part of The definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009
3D printing – Open source hardware is now making things. Physical things you can print out, over the last few year 2-3 projects have really gained momentum and made some wonderful advances in low-cost desktop 3D printing. Projects include Fab@Home, MakerBot and RepRap. A new project was also added this year, s DIY open source construction set for experimental personal fabrication.
Contraptor
Contraptor is a DIY open source construction set for experimental personal fabrication, desktop manufacturing, prototyping and bootstrapping.
Price: See site
Visit project page
Fab@Home
Fab@Home is a project dedicated to making and using fabbers – machines that can make almost anything, right on your desktop. This website provides everything you need to know in order to build or buy your own simple fabber, and to use it to print three dimensional objects. The hardware designs and software on this website are free and open-source. Once you have your own fabber, you can also download and print various items, try out new materials, or upload and share your own projects. Advanced users can modify and improve the fabber itself
Price: $2,700 and up
Visit the project page
MakerBeam
MakerBeam is a project to build a toy and tool for the open source imagination. Based on Mini-T, a new open source standard, MakerBeam will develop a construction toy for our times: open source precision hardware equally at home doing desktop fabrication or serving as a drawbridged castle for action figures.
Price: See page for details
Visit the project page
MakerBot
MakerBot is an affordable, open source 3D printer. It makes almost anything up to 4″ x 4″ x 6″ using ABD plastic.
Price: $750 and up
Visit the project page
RepRap
RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid-prototyper. It is the practical self-copying 3D printer shown on the right – a self-replicating machine. This 3D printer builds the parts up in layers of plastic. This technology already exists, but the cheapest commercial machine would cost you about €30,000. And it isn’t even designed so that it can make itself. So what the RepRap team are doing is to develop and to give away the designs for a much cheaper machine with the novel capability of being able to self-copy (material costs are about €500). That way it’s accessible to small communities in the developing world as well as individuals in the developed world.
Price: Various
Visit the project page
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