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3d printers

Chris Bardon

Well-Known Member
Nov 15, 2012
1,309
169
63
Mississauga, ON
Does anyone have any experience with 3d printers? These keep coming down in price and getting better capabilities-I wonder when they'll get to the point where you can print pinball parts with them? Just read about the CubeX that can print stuff the size of a basketball?

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I really wonder what the durability of the plastic out of these things would be, but even as-is you could probably do things like replacement boulders for whitewater, or even replacement clock parts for TZ. Plastics etc are probably too difficult to get the colours on, but those are probably easy enough to make in other ways. Still, for something that's expensive to mold, this could be a great alternative.
 

DRANO

Super Member
Nov 15, 2012
2,821
517
113
Mississauga
Guys like JPOP and Ben Hecks are already printing/prototyping custom pinball parts using this process.

The value is in being able to rapidly create a mold using the printed part. After that, you can cast parts with any number of resins and compounds.