Hi,
I wanted to  share some worryings i have  (and expectations).
In my presentation, Warren said :
"Resin casting is growing in popularity especially as people see the results that can be had relatively cheaply at the DIY level."
It is true, but i can't help thinking : will 3D printing be more profitable than casting in resin and if yes, when ? I hope to start a business next year, casting scenery for miniature games.
If 3D printing is  more profitable within 10 years (as technology develops quickly and 3D printers are more and more cheaper, faster, and gain in quality), It seems iam doomed
What you professionals do think about that issue ?
Thanks !

3D printing has not really "come of age" yet. Sure its hitting the head lines as it gets used for more mainstream things or obscure high tech things but its still a way off being used routinely in high volume production - assuming it ever is. 

Low volume, prototyping etc is where it will initially flourish.  The DIY relatively low cost units need to work a lot quicker and produce higher quality components than they do presently.

It may well eventually replace resin casting for some hobbyist type things but that is still a while off yet.


Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant

Its hard to tell.  Certainly not something I would be qualified to predict that far ahead.

That far ahead I would expect  renewable sources for replacing a lot of oil based plastics would be a major factor too and that might have a major impact on manufacturing methods needed.

If you think currently,  a lot of plastic parts are injection moulded.  The tool cost is relatively high but will produce 10's of thousands of parts.  The modern injection moulding machines  and tooling generally tends to work on a batch basis producing many items in each shot and multiple runs per mould per hour meaning thousands of the parts can be made in a day.  

Current 3D printing and near sight projections of where the tech will be is still nowhere near having the volume capacity that current plastics systems have.


Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant

Yep, DiY, next level rotative castings (hope that one day...), next level injection plastics.
I understand that it's difficult to predict that far. I hope There will be a future for DIY casting, hope there will exist less poluating products to cast in the future too !

I'm sure there will always be a market for it, just as there is still a market for manual wood/metal working despite the rise of CNC methods. Obviously a lot will depend on your products and how they are priced compared to other other similar products.

3D printers still feel very much like a prototyping solution to me, I haven't seen any that look great for production (though I'm more into milling than printing so I haven't looked that hard either!). 20 years is a bloody long time for technology though, look at the tech we had 20 years ago and you couldn't imagine how we got to where we are now.

Thanks for the reply Hanaldo. I think you're right, it depends on the products, inventivity, price, web site...Many things to explore.
Anyway i won't stop now. Time will tell !

I'd say it isn't necessary to think that far ahead in the first place as resin casting equipment is cheap anyway, so you wouldn't lose an insane amount of money if 3D printing were to have a sudden major breakthrough (I am not holding my breath though). There are certain technologies I despise utilizing, injection molding being one of them. But there are different reasons for that, and for others it might still be the best solution. I think skilled resin casters can beat injection molded parts in quality. So it really depends on what you are shooting for (e.g. cost leadership vs. quality leadership). For example, you are designing very very small parts and lots of them, then injection molding might be particularly interesting cost-wise (small parts scale very well when injetcion molded) as you'd only need access to a smaller-ish injection moulding machine that works with sub-insane pressure-levels. But since you likely won't beat the big players cost function either way, you might as well shoot for parts that beat your competition in quality.

So I guess my advice would be to go ahead with resin casting, but don't buy injection molding machines. They are truly expensive and they will be the first to suffer when/if 3D printing succeeds.

Thanks. You're right, resincasting can reach a quality that is superior to plastic injection. Anyway plastic injection machines are soooo expansive (and often very large in size).