Printer Giant HP Slated to Announce 3D Printer Line

[C855B]

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/03/hp-3d-printers-expected-in-june/

[wcfn100]

Looks just like a laptop. 

Jason

[wazzou]

Me too.  Odd that they chose that photo rather than one from there vast line of printers and scanners.

[C855B]

Here's another piece on it: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/19/us-hp-3dprinting-idUSBREA2I29P20140319?feedType=RSS

[sirenwerks]

I'd rather they concentrate on a printer that will print white.

[peteski]

I'd rather they concentrate on a printer that will print white.

You mean a consumer-grade and consumer-priced unit?
It has been available for over 15 years, but unfortunately it is no longer made and it has almost reached its end of supported life.  But some people acquired a stash of inks and spare printers for many more years of printing.

If you have the money, there are many industrial-grade printers which can print white (MT owns such a printer and they decorate more and more cars that way).

[engineshop]

The picture of the notebook does not really give the size of what HP has in mind.

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/smart-takes/with-hp-designjet-3d-printer-designers-and-engineers-can-prototype-from-their-desks/6179

[GaryHinshaw]

I'm guessing the editor of the article said "get me a picture of a shiny object with the HP logo on it."  It will be interesting to see what they are up to.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

The printer will cost $50, but the "ink" will be $10,000.

[conrail98]

The printer will cost $50, but the "ink" will be $10,000.

+1

[Chris333]

Cool it has a lint trap. 

[sirenwerks]

You mean a consumer-grade and consumer-priced unit? 

Of course...

It has been available for over 15 years, but unfortunately it is no longer made and it has almost reached its end of supported life.  But some people acquired a stash of inks and spare printers for many more years of printing.

(Sarcastically) Really?  (Seriously) Please tell me something I don't know.  I didn't jump at an ALPS because I didn't want to be an early adapter on that one.

If you have the money, there are many industrial-grade printers which can print white (MT owns such a printer and they decorate more and more cars that way).

Um, no.  But I'm surprised the consumer-priced tech isn't there considering the growing deluge of hipster DIY publishers and suburb-dwelling scrapboogers with buying power.

[peteski]

Alps MD printers (and their user community) is still thriving. I only jumped on the bandwagon around 2004 myself (not an early adopter). 

As far as a consumer printer that prints white goes (and of course which is capable to overlay printing), I suspect that there aren't many consumers who would need that functionality.   I suspect less than 10,000 worldwide.  Way too small of an audience for any company to produce and support a whole new printer.

Alps was a anomaly. It was designed to be a consumer color printer but because of its oddball features, found a fringe following with hobbyists and cottage industry decal manufacturers.  Alps had no idea that this would happen.  They could still continue to produce these, but again, IMO the target market is way too small to make this a viable venture.

Alps is a incredible (and very frustrating) printer.  It can produce very sharp small lettering (much better than  the expensive ink jet Micro Trains uses for decorating many of their cars). This is because the thermal transfer printing by design produces sharp dots. Inkjet suffer from a spatter effect where th ink dots spatter on the substrate, causing a fuzzy edges.  But ink jet printers deal much better with halftone colors. Again, because of the sharp printing (and resolution limit) Alps' halftones are rather coarse looking where ink jet printed colors look much smoother.

It would be nice if a replacement for Alps would come to the consumer market, but I won't hold my breath.

[wcfn100]

It would be nice if a replacement for Alps would come to the consumer market, but I won't hold my breath.

Wasn't the Kodak First Check the replacement?

Jason

[peteski]

Wasn't the Kodak First Check the replacement?

Jason

No, that printer  has also been discontinued.  It was actually a re-badge of OKI DP-7000 (along with a certain model of the Kimosetter printer).  DP-7000 was a wide-format printer based on the Alps MicroDry printing technology (same as the Alps MD series of printers).  These were quite a bit more expensive than the Alps MD printers, targeting commercial graphic studios.

The same printing technology was also used on certain Roland DG  vinyl printers/cutters, like PC-60 (also all discontinued).  There were also few other re-badged versions of Alps MicroDry printers - all discontinued.