How does a Model 1 compare to a commercial RP machine?
See ” Can I use…” above. Most commercial machines can build larger objects, faster, and with smoother surfaces and finer details. Several commercial machines also can build with materials such as ABS, Nylon, and polycarbonate – tough engineering thermoplastics, although parts must be made entirely of one material, so you cannot have different portions of the same part made of different materials. Commercial machines are 10 to 100 times as expensive as a Fab@Home, the materials are proprietary and expensive, and you typically cannot modify the machines, materals, or software to suit your own needs. The Fab@Home Model 1 allows you to use your own, low-cost materials, and to build objects that contain multiple materials. The Fab@Home Project is trying to popularize rapid prototyping/fabbing technology, to make it open source, and to make it inexpensive, all to get as many people as possible to use and experiment with fabbers. We believe that fabbing will be a revolutionary technology, p
