I every conversation I've had lately when I tell people what I do, they mention 3D printing. I have to gently tell people that I don't do 3D printing yet as products generally fall into one of two categories:
1. Inexpensive and low quality.
2. Expensive and high quality.
My current plan is to go after market #2 in a year or two when I can raise the capital to get a really good machine.
I started with, and plan to continue, waterjet and laser cutting as the limitations of these technologies are easy for most designers to understand. What you enter as a CAD file is pretty much exactly what you get out as a final piece.
As an aside, it's amazing that using a robot to blast away raw material into a finished part using an ultra high pressure stream of water and garnet or a frikken laser beam is considered "traditional" machining.
Traditional machining in the sense that you need industrial space where you can make a mess and a lot of noise as opposed to something you can conceivably use in normal home/office space. Waterjet cutters need special FLOORS because of the weight of the tank. Laser-based SLS and SLM emit both nasty fumes and spread dust everywhere. This is why the tech is not sexy, not because it's less advanced.
My current plan is to go after market #2 in a year or two when I can raise the capital to get a really good machine.
I started with, and plan to continue, waterjet and laser cutting as the limitations of these technologies are easy for most designers to understand. What you enter as a CAD file is pretty much exactly what you get out as a final piece.
As an aside, it's amazing that using a robot to blast away raw material into a finished part using an ultra high pressure stream of water and garnet or a frikken laser beam is considered "traditional" machining.