Probably one of the most complained about aspects with today’s desktop 3D printers is the fact that they are slow. No, let me correct myself. They aren’t just slow! When it comes to mass manufacturing of goods, if traditional methods were to be compared to an F-16 fighter jet, 3D printing would probably be best compared to your 95-year-old grandfather trying to get out of bed in the morning. Desktop 3D printing, while a tremendous asset for creating quickly produced prototypes, or a single item, just doesn’t quite yet cut it when it comes to mass production.
This may all be about to change though, if a Canadian company called Magic Maker has anything to say about it. Coming to Kickstarter sometime early next year, their product, called the revo, is a “revocaster which allows a person to make a 3D part using a resin based mold system, very quickly and cost effectively.”
The revo is a rotational casting device which, when combined with 3D printed molds, can create new objects in as little as 10 minutes. Probably half of you reading this article are wondering just how they are supposed to design and print molds for objects. Relax, a mold is just a “negative” of your object. They can quickly and easily be create simply by inverting a design.
Once the mold is 3D printed, it can be filled with a material of your choice, ranging from plastics to wax, chocolate, amber resins, and more. These molds are then placed in the revo, along with other molds if desired, and the revo will then rotate them in order to ensure that the material is pulled into every nook and cranny by force of gravity.
Using multiple molds at the same time can allow for the quick fabrication of many objects at once in just 10 minutes or so of you time. Of course this wouldn’t be needed if you simply want to create one object, but if you intend to create multiples, this allows you to simply print one mold and then create as many as you want in much less time than it would take to 3D print each one.
No word yet on the price of the revo, but we should hear more soon. What do you think? Would you consider buying a device like this to more quickly create objects in the future? Discuss in the revo forum thread on 3DPB.com.
