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May 18, 2011

The World’s Smallest 3D Printer Is Only a Little Bigger Than a Milk Carton

3D printers are typically behemoth-type machines that can spit out crazy things like houses, cars and titanium balls. The world's smallest 3D printer is too puny to do any of that but it could be more useful than any other 3D printer.

The 3D printer was built by engineers from the Vienna Institute of Technology and it's much lighter and cheaper than previous 3D printers. The idea is to make this 3D printer the one that people could actually use, instead of being another tall tale and fable that we've heard 3D printers do. Priced at about $1,700, it's still ridiculously expensive but it could possibly be cheaper if there ever is a mass demand for such a device.

The engineers are using the same technology behind typical 3D printers: a synthetic resin that hardens when a beam hits it but this runty 3D printer uses "light beams are just a twentieth of a millimeter thick" which gives it the ability to print things in better detail.
 
 

16 comments:

kxxthanxx said...

how much do they cost?

phosports said...

that is so cool, i should get one

Jack of Diamonds said...

DAYME!

Zombie said...

Can I haz one?

Blogging Skater said...

one day, ill be able to afford this

CandleintheDark said...

I want as a giiiift.

Anonymous said...

oh man thats alot of pixel... imagine 1600x1600x1600

//Love said...

Holy crap how cool isn't that?

Athanasian Complexio said...

Oh my gosh. I would love to make a ton of things with this. You could make so many cool projects using this!

VersionDouble said...

thats pretty awesome, following

Dave said...

That looks totally fantastic.

Holly said...

my mind = blown. I want a whole stack of them... awesome

Dejch said...

is it expencive? and yes you reminded me.. my printer is out of ink

Waef Grindley said...

Is this the one they were demoing at CES earlier this year?

Kropah said...

i want it! D:

Anonymous said...

when i first saw a 3d printer i thought that it was seriously cool. it's amazing they've made it smaller but i agree, the price is a bit steep.