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3-D printers could bring manufacturing to your home office

When Ford wants to try out a new transmission part, an engineer sends a digital blueprint of the component to a computer, and what happens next once seemed like the stuff of science fiction.

Inside a device about the size of a microwave oven, a plastic, three-dimensional version of the component begins to take shape before your eyes. After scanning the design blueprint, the gadget fuses together a paper-thin layer of plastic powder. It repeats, putting another layer on top, and then thousands more, before binding the material together with lasers. A few hours later, out pops the auto part, ready to be tested.

The cost of such technology: about $1,500.

By Cecilia Kang

Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/3-d-printers-could-bring-manufacturing-to-your-home-office/2013/01/07/2b42bdb8-56be-11e2-a613-ec8d394535c6_story.html?wpisrc=nl_tech

(Thanks to David Nelson for sharing this)

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