# Thing-O-Matic - Industry Changer?



## Jezlad (Oct 14, 2006)

I noticed this thing over on Warseer and wondered what you make of it?

Will this technology become main stream in the future and alter the future of our hobby?



> *Star Trek-style ‘replicator’ for bicycle parts on sale now*
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## Djinn24 (Jan 12, 2008)

You know how tempting it is to buy one. I wonder how minute you can get the details?

Holy shit... depending on the detail that this thing can do this can be a model makers worst nightmare. From what I am seeing you can just scan anything you want in and have the machine build it...

http://store.makerbot.com/makerbot-thing-o-matic.html

$1,225 us prices.


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## Angelus Censura (Oct 11, 2010)

Isn't the plastic used to make legos pretty hard? I'd imagine it would be tougher to cut and convert than the existing plastic GW models and resin FW ones.


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## Djinn24 (Jan 12, 2008)

When you can make the change to the model in C&C cam then that is where you do your conversions.


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## Unforgiven302 (Oct 20, 2008)

From what I have read up on and seen in person, the 3-D printing is rather limited when it comes to fine detail as it uses small pellets to make the actual piece. It doesn't melt the plastic and then mould the item, but rather layers it a fraction at a time and sprays a liquid to solidify it. It can make flat surfaces fairly decently or even round or tubular shapes but it doesn't get too detailed. that and the final piece is rather fragile to the touch. If you made an item you could then sand smooth and make a mould from it to then use resin to make final models. But I don't think it can make stuff on a really small scale and still be detailed.

I saw a 3-D printer at work about 3 weeks ago at a friends work. They design custom one off automotive racing parts and use a 3-D printer for unique items. They were making a pod to attach a instrument gauge, (a tachometer to be exact) to the dash of a car and have it look like it was original equipment. They took the 3-D mould and then made the actual piece for the car from a sheet of ABS plastic on a vacuum form table. The 3-D mould was then discarded. It was very brittle and I could crush it with not a lot of force. It kind of turned into wet sand.

I could be wrong though as the technology is constantly being refined and improved. They may have it where it is really detailed and the final piece not so fragile.


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## tu_shan82 (Mar 7, 2008)

I must admit I'm actually tempted to buy one of these.


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## Azkaellon (Jun 23, 2009)

What the fu......

So now we have a robot looking printer that can make little plastic men for us? Great...next thing we know we will be worshiping a Robot overlord that makes giant plastic minions to beat us with are own ipod headphones!


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

These have been around a few years and to the average hobbyist they are still going to cost far more to purchase and run than several armies, and as someone pointed out they are not at a point were fine fine detail is possible. This is one of those bits of technology that would be great to have in your work shop, like a saw table or router but would it be worth the cost?besides everyone knows printers are bastards,mine has the manners and attitude of a french cat.
I think one excellent use for it if it were big enough would be terrain,fairly simple to CAD easy to pull shapes and details from geometric shapes, i dont honestly think CAD sculpting bits for minis would be within the abilities of most people anyway, dont forget most of the stuff GW do rapid prototyping also has a 3up or 2up base model or prototype made before hand that is scanned into the computers as a starting point, and the CAD dudes add stuff and they mainly use the rapid prototype to lay out sprues and create endless space marine dreadnoughts.


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## admiraldick (Sep 9, 2008)

i'm a bit confused about what the question is.

GW already use a device like this to create mock-ups and masters of their digitally designed miniatures, so the technology already has changed the industry. but if you are asking specifically, how will a personal machine change the hobby, then its possible that if such devices were common enough then GW could sell digital copies of their miniatures, enabling hobbiest to 'print' the miniatures for themselves at home. there would be a lot of hurdles to overcome, like how to stop people from printing an infinite amount so that you don't have to charge an unfeasible amount. but these are problems the photography industry have faced and overcome, so i don't see why it can't be the case the GW and others could do the same. just as long as we don't end up in a digital monopoly that says you can't opperate your machine without settling for substandard software (like being forced to use iTunes).


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## rawrgh (May 28, 2010)

Check out http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page

I have been considering for a while making one myself.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

Yeah, basically this is one of those 3D printers that have been around for a while now... though a rather low grade one. Your not going to get any sort of minute detail that you get one a GW miniture with one of those.

That said, in about 10 years when its affordable and noticably higher quality... everyone will have one, and you'll download your army to be printed out rather then going into store for them.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

Would it not be feasible to make a Rhino chassis with one of these? Granted, you don't get the fine detail, but frankly it's a box on tracks anyway. Do a few glue rivets, add some bits, and from 3 feet away I bet you couldn't tell the difference. Ditto Land Raider.


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## ohiocat110 (Sep 15, 2010)

Finally, I can model the bunny rabbit I've always wanted! :yahoo:

It's extremely cool but not economical from a gaming point of view. $1200 before you get your first model is still pretty cost prohibitive for most hobbyists. Not to mention the CAD skills and time required. Printing out your first squad of Marines would be awesome. Making changes for every new weapon, pose, or unit type could get pretty tedious unless you're really interested in that sort of thing.


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## Svartmetall (Jun 16, 2008)

admiraldick said:


> GW could sell digital copies of their miniatures, enabling hobbiest to 'print' the miniatures for themselves at home.


Eek...cue minefield.

"How did you get your new army so fast?"
"Oh I just torrented it!"


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

By the time its economically viable to do that though, they'll have some sort of retina security scanner built into your computer so only you can print those models.


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

Sethis said:


> Would it not be feasible to make a Rhino chassis with one of these? Granted, you don't get the fine detail, but frankly it's a box on tracks anyway. Do a few glue rivets, add some bits, and from 3 feet away I bet you couldn't tell the difference. Ditto Land Raider.


it would be feasible, but by the same token you could knock up a rhino out of cereal boxes and pva at a fraction of the cost and time.

Its a clever thing to be sure, but ultimately no one is ever gonna use this to produce model soldiers at home,you know, I know it, if i wanted to send a catalogue of bits to everyone of my registered customers i could in theory print them on my HP printer, but ultimately it would work out cheaper to get a printing company to do it, same is true for this, its not a money saving device for gamers its a clever machine that hasnt found its niche yet, someone said what if people could print in 3d? some else said lets do it!, no one said why do they need to ? 
Its been totaly possible to cast metal minis at home since someone invented them but how many of us do or have done it?its even possible to buy resin to do it these days,how many have done it or do it? the web is full of articles on scratch building models and sculpting, but more often than not people go into a GW store /Local game store/order on line and hand over cash for plastic crack. Thats the truth of it,and its hard enough to comprehend for most of us but most of GW's sales still go through GW own outlets??? 
Industry changer No, rich boys toy maybe?


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## Kinglopey (Sep 10, 2008)

bitsandkits said:


> it would be feasible, but by the same token you could knock up a rhino out of cereal boxes and pva at a fraction of the cost and time.
> 
> Its a clever thing to be sure, but ultimately no one is ever gonna use this to produce model soldiers at home,you know, I know it, if i wanted to send a catalogue of bits to everyone of my registered customers i could in theory print them on my HP printer, but ultimately it would work out cheaper to get a printing company to do it, same is true for this, its not a money saving device for gamers its a clever machine that hasnt found its niche yet, someone said what if people could print in 3d? some else said lets do it!, no one said why do they need to ?
> Its been totaly possible to cast metal minis at home since someone invented them but how many of us do or have done it?its even possible to buy resin to do it these days,how many have done it or do it? the web is full of articles on scratch building models and sculpting, but more often than not people go into a GW store /Local game store/order on line and hand over cash for plastic crack. Thats the truth of it,and its hard enough to comprehend for most of us but most of GW's sales still go through GW own outlets???
> Industry changer No, rich boys toy maybe?


You are right, I don't think that it would be cost effective for the average consumer, but if GW had on of those printers in each of their Battle Bunkers and sold "Ready Made Bits" I'm sure they'd get their money out of it.

I don't think it would be cost effective to switch spru production to something like this for big companies but other companies that produce custom bits may work.

still I'd probably order stuff from you if the shipping costs weren't so high across the pond.


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

Kinglopey said:


> still I'd probably order stuff from you if the shipping costs weren't so high across the pond.


hmmm,is $2.90 maximum considered high? (or free if you spend over $35.60)


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## EmbraCraig (Jan 19, 2009)

3D printing is generally used at the moment for knocking up product prototypes - they're one off's, so it'd be expensive to set up a full blown manufacturing run for it and it's a helluva lot cheaper to get a 3rd party company who specialise in it to knock out a prototype on a 3D printer. A lot of companies have been doing things this way for a few years when designing new phones, cars, parts... loads of stuff.

It'll be a while before it's viable for producing parts at home for wargaming - give it a couple of years and it might be an interesting option for small conversion bits or scenery companies rather than moulding and pouring, though.


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## Firefighter X (Apr 21, 2010)

I'm inclined to agree with B&K this thing has great potential in the area of terrain production, particularly industrial scenes for Necromunda, City Fight and whatnot.
As for revolutionizing the industry home to home. I'd speculate we're a good 5+ years off from the ability to work in fine detail miniatures.

FFX


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

I think this might be useful 1 step above the standard consumer. If its a matter of investment and return a gaming shop or a hobby group might find one of these useful.

They could set themselves up as a war games print shop. Players bring in their flash drives and print our their new hatch covers or a whole yard of scale oil drums or fortifications.

A gaming club could get donations from members for scenery or parts reasons. Everyone pitches in $50-100 and the group invests in one to make things better for the group.

Of course, the materials failure needs to be over come first. The results are much less useful if they are either fragile or lumpy (though lumpy might matter less in scenery).

Cheers,
Kreuger


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

Firefighter X said:


> I'd speculate we're a good 5+ years off from the ability to work in fine detail miniatures.
> 
> FFX


And even in 5 years time , you would still need the skill and money to operate it.
Think about how expensive a mass produced mass market print head costs now for a very very competitive market in home office printer ink, now think how expensive a office low yield laser printer cartridge costs? 

How much do you think a Print cartridge for a 3d printer will cost? far more than gaming groups,home users and small businesses are going to want to shell out.


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## Eleven (Nov 6, 2008)

bitsandkits said:


> How much do you think a Print cartridge for a 3d printer will cost? far more than gaming groups,home users and small businesses are going to want to shell out.


well, I just did a bit of research and found out the answer to this. A 1 pound coil of plastic for this thing will cost 15 bucks.

1 pound of plastic is about 26.38 square inches of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene.

So for 15 dollars, you could produce....I'd guess about 6-7 squads of space marines if it used it very efficiently.

So....you would have to produce, IMMENSE, amounts of plastic soldiers to justify owning this.

If you made them hollow (I don't know if the machine could even pull this off), then you could probably make alot more.

A funny thing is, of all the people that could make a profit off of owning this thing, you are probably one of the biggest.

Think of how much money could be made selling missile launchers for people to make long fangs with. On another note, please don't do this as alot of the time I refuse to play people with proxy long fangs and I don't want them to be able to have them cheaply.

::editted as I had originally used the wrong kind of plastic to make equations::


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## rasolyo (Dec 22, 2009)

Thread necromancy, but I'd rather post on an existing discussion about this:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/388966/june-08-2011/bre-pettis

Makerbot founder Bre Pettis appeared on the Colbert Report on Wednesday, showing off the Thing-O-Matic's abilities. The part that sparked my interest was the bit where they used a Kinect sensor to scan Colbert's head to print his bust.

Now this has been discussed thoroughly already, but once the resolution on these things get fine enough to print an indiscernible replica and the costs of these machines get low enough...

...I shall wait for that day.


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## Khargoth (Aug 5, 2010)

It's already available. The Thing-O-Matic's technology is practically ancient.

GW's 3D printing for prototypes uses a bath of liquid resin, which is shot with a laser (I am not making this up), causing it to solidify at that point. The laser draws out the design layer by layer in the same manner as the older 3D printing, but the 'resoloution' is much, much higher. Speaking of things that are much, much higher, so are the material costs, running costs and initial outlay to actually build one of these machines.


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## rasolyo (Dec 22, 2009)

Khargoth said:


> It's already available. The Thing-O-Matic's technology is practically ancient.
> 
> GW's 3D printing for prototypes uses a bath of liquid resin, which is shot with a laser (I am not making this up), causing it to solidify at that point. The laser draws out the design layer by layer in the same manner as the older 3D printing, but the 'resoloution' is much, much higher. Speaking of things that are much, much higher, so are the material costs, running costs and initial outlay to actually build one of these machines.


And I shall continue to wait.
Stereolithography is still mind-blowingly expensive. icknose:


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## Rathios1337 (Jul 2, 2010)

Azkaellon said:


> What the fu......
> 
> So now we have a robot looking printer that can make little plastic men for us? Great...next thing we know we will be worshiping a Robot overlord that makes giant plastic minions to beat us with are own ipod headphones!


http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/373f6f0353/the-what-next-brigade


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## VeronaKid (Jan 7, 2010)

Hmmm. One thing that noone has mentioned yet- this would put a serious dent in the "collectable" miniature market. I mean, I for one don't care if I have an original Citadel version of some of the older, impossible-to-get-without-paying-through-the-nose-or-getting-really-lucky minis off of eBay, or if I have a plastic copy. As long as it will be detailed enough to look good when painted.

Bring on the replicator, I say. I have a whole list of stuff I want cheap.


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## Commissar Ploss (Feb 29, 2008)

yay maker-bot! saw this on the Colbert Report last night.  Now to upload my Hive Tyrant and print them out! (not)

CP

(although the quality isn't even up to par with say Warlord games... it just tends to look like a runny, melted, mess. I've seen some of the things it makes.)


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

Not even near to being viable for the average consumer, but it's nice to see the progress that is coming in technology. Hopefully there will be one that does fine-detail for a few hundred bucks in a few years.


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## Commissar Ploss (Feb 29, 2008)

it's only about 1200USD


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## Khargoth (Aug 5, 2010)

Masked Jackal said:


> Not even near to being viable for the average consumer, but it's nice to see the progress that is coming in technology. Hopefully there will be one that does fine-detail for a few hundred bucks in a few years.


ZBuilder Ultra has a cross-section resoloution of about 138 microns (or 0.138mm), which is fine enough to do minis in this scale. It uses a resin that hardens when exposed to a certain kind of light. It could in fact be better; it seems to use an LCD screen to 'stencil' each layer in the resin, which means it's limited by the resolution of the LCD screen. But it's simple and functional, the LCD stencils a layer, the light hardens the resin, and the item recedes into the resin bath slightly to produce another layer. GW's version seems to be similar, except it uses a laser to produce that particular light, and traces the layers, which is probably more accurate.

The real cutting-edge of 3D prototyping is 2-photon photopolymerization. Basically they have a gel substance that only solidifies at the focal point of a laser. At any other point the laser passes clear through the gel, meaning you can 'carve' a solid object out of a block of this stuff, without any of the inherent inaccuracies of trying to move the subject item about during printing. The laser just traces the layer, then adjusts it's focal length by a few microns, and traces another!

The absolutely nutty part of that process is the accuracy: the laser can produce a pixel less than 100 _micrometers_ wide. That means it can 'print' a human hair with ease.


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## deathwatch27 (Dec 30, 2009)

Khargoth said:


> The real cutting-edge of 3D prototyping is 2-photon photopolymerization. Basically they have a gel substance that only solidifies at the focal point of a laser. At any other point the laser passes clear through the gel, meaning you can 'carve' a solid object out of a block of this stuff, without any of the inherent inaccuracies of trying to move the subject item about during printing. The laser just traces the layer, then adjusts it's focal length by a few microns, and traces another!
> 
> The absolutely nutty part of that process is the accuracy: the laser can produce a pixel less than 100 _micrometers_ wide. That means it can 'print' a human hair with ease.


So how many millions of pennys are we talking for that?


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