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Comment by tdudhhu | Hacker News Reader

This almost sounds like what Carbon [1] is doing with their 'normal' resin printers. They project images through the bottom of a vat filled with resin. But a special membrane creates a small 'dead zone' where the resin does not cure. This makes continuous printing possible at an almost infinite z / height resolution. I believe they also use this for chemical properties because the small interface is full of oxygen.

[1] https://www.carbon3d.com/

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There’s a good reason for this: Joe DeSimone founded Carbon3D as well. He’s at the forefront in this field.

From my own perspective, the interesting part of the carbon3D thing was that apparently the real money was in dental and orthodontics - an area a lot of venture and 3D printing probably does not delve into all that often.

Admittedly, there's apparently an industry I had never looked at that's actually kind of interesting, with metal and resin printed dentures. [1]

Such as, the first company on that list, which I never read about on Tom's or Ars or other 3D printing sites, Zortrax [2], apparently makes a semi-cheap printer that does bioresin (can you get that for home use? RepRap bioresin spools?) for $2k. $2k seems cheap compared to the carbon3D ones, they're apparently $50k-100k. Could reasonably print my own dentures for $2k.

[1] https://all3dp.com/1/dental-3d-printing-a-guide-for-professi...

[2] https://zortrax.com/applications/digital-dentistry/

"which I never read about on Tom's or Ars"

Aren't those consumer websites?

The 3D printing industry is over 50 years old. And I believe metal printing has the biggest market. But those printers are super expensive. Not something an avarage consumer is going to buy.

By the way: I don't think you can buy a Carbon printer. You need a service contract so you can lease them.

Yeah, consumer websites, although already pretty far out in "consumer". Out of 8B humans, not sure how many read Tom's.

I might buy a $2000 printer. That's at least in the range I might think about. People buy those $1000 engravers. There's a whole market just around selling the wood supplies, designs, and final products [1] from them. Especially when you can turn your $1000 purchase into a engraving hustle business.

[1] https://www.etsy.com/market/glowforge_wood?explicit=1&ref=gu...

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