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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LightPhoenix" data-source="post: 4523258" data-attributes="member: 115">Wow, I didn't think I'd have anything to contribute to this thread!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />While I don't work with polymers directly, several people in my (academic) department do, and we actually have a pretty famous polymer guy on staff.  One of the things that is being looked into is 3D printing, and I've had opportunity to talk with a lot of researchers on the topic.3D Printing is pretty easy to buy into - the positioning systems are relatively inexpensive, even for high-"resolution" ones.  Honestly, I don't think you'd need quite the same resolution on a mini as you would for some of the aspects they're being utilized for.The biggest hurdle for 3D printing would be the sheer numbers of inputs you would have.  I'm thinking it would probably be easier to do one nozzle per color.  Computers can handle multiple inputs pretty easily, but the increased number of inputs becomes a bear to manage; especially on the supply line.  Most stuff I've heard about or read only uses a couple of inputs.On the other hand, is this really economically feasible?  My gut instinct is to say not particularly.  It's much faster to injection mold miniatures in a base color, and have them painted by hand factory-style.  3D-printing is pretty slow, relative to injection molding.  You can't (that I know of) simply paint with 3D-printing; the process requires it to be built up in layers.I think 3D-printing, for the time being, would just raise prices.</blockquote>

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