A workshop is no better than the tools it houses and there are plenty of 3D printable tools on Thingiverse.
3D Printer Stocks and Investing
We've written a general overview to 3D printer stocks in 2013, which a good place to begin: Click here
Several companies which make 3D printers and 3D modeling software are publicly traded companies. The beauty of investing in 3D printer stocks now is that most of the world has yet to know what 3D printing is, let alone understand the future of this world-changing technology.
3D printer leaders like 3D Systems Technology (DDD) and Stratasys. Inc. (SSYS) are trade on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq, respectively. Two new smaller companies just recently went public: Arcam AB (AMAVF) and ExOne (XONE). Organovo (ONVO) is a pioneer in the 3D bioprinter area.
Some 3D modeling software (CAD) companies that allows the creation of the digital files that serve as input for the 3D printers, are also public. For example, the biggest player is AutoDesk (ADSK); another player, the creator of the massively popular Solidworks software, is a product of a public company in France named Dassault Systèmes, that you can buy on the Nasdaq (DASTY).
This 3D printer stocks archive page will keep you abreast of the latest happenings in 3D printing investment opportunities.
Thing of the Week: Featured Collections
Find new and exciting Things through browsing Thingiverse's Featured Collections.
BANG! The first fully 3D printed gun successfully fires its first shot
Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed has successfully fired the world’s first entirely 3D-printed gun for the very first time. Not just the lower receiver, but the whole gun.
Entrancing speakers 3D printed by a team at Autodesk
I never realized how boring my speakers are until I saw these trippy 3D printed speakers created at Autodesk.
Thing of the Week: 3D printed camera gadgets
Photography and filming equipment can be expensive, and a lot of it is plastic. So it makes sense that some frugal DIY directors have designed a few printable camera gadgets and uploaded them to Thingiverse.
The worlds first 3D printed tonearm for turntables
From records to tonearms, eventually the whole music experience will be 3D printable.
mUVe 1: DIY stereolithography 3D printer on indiegogo
The mUVe 1 is the third personal stereolithography printer to be crowdfunded, so I expect we’ll be seeing more of them.
Make drawings 3D printable with Doodle3D
Not everyone can 3D model, but anyone can doodle. So with Doodle3D, anyone can 3D print.
New open source printer on Kickstarter: Cyrus
The new 3D printer on Kickstarter called Cyrus is open source, and it has dual extrusion and a large build volume.
Filastruder: another filament extruder on Kickstarter
Filament for personal 3D printers can be expensive, but the plastic it’s made of is cheap. Save thousands of dollars by making your own filament out of plastic pellets with the Filastruder.
3D printed Steampunk cube has 28 gears
Before 3D printers, gears had to be carved or cast, so they were mostly reserved for their practical uses. Now people can print intricate gear toys, and that’s what Alexander Mound did.
MAKI: the 3D printable humanoid robot
3D printers are essentially robots, so why not print other robots with 3D printers?
The Photon: a truly affordable 3D scanner for anyone
3D scanning was once expensive even as a service. But now, desktop scanners like the Photon are bringing affordable, one-touch 3D scanning to your desktop.
Save hours of printing time with the 3D Refiner
Printing in high-quality resolution is extremely time consuming, but the 3D Refiner on Kickstarter can save hours of printing time by smoothing the layers of low-quality prints.
Thing of the Week: Dualstrusion
There aren’t too many 3D printers that can do dual extrusion, but they’re out there, so two-tone objects are on Thingiverse too.