I'm confused-it's a cool machine but as far as I can see it just duplicates the original part in plastic. What good does that do? You still have to reverse-engineer the part before you can manufacture a new one. If the macine gave you a print of the original or sent a tool path to a CNC machine I could understand the excitement. Am I missing something?
From what I understand the machine scan the part with number and send the printer the number to make the part the same number can be sent to the CNC mill or lathe to make the part,So their are number to build by. This printer was at SEMA in 07 but it was like $18,000.00 it went way down.I did not see the next engine machine.
All info from the scanner should carry over to any design program, the plastic printer is just a way of checking to make sure it is exactly what you want before you spend the time machining expensive materials.