[randomdata]

Is there a technology that is as versatile and cost effective for small scale batches, but slower to finalize the product? The promise of 3D printing is appealing to me because it means I can start making things out of materials that I have thought to be previously out of my budget's reach.

Time is less of a concern from my point of view. If someone can create my one-off plastic model using, say, injection moulding for tens of dollars but it takes a month to get back to me, I'm cool with that. Does such a thing even exist though?

[DanielStraight]

Not quite one-off, but you can get small runs of injected molded parts from Protomold:

http://www.protomold.com/

They also do machined parts on a smaller scale:

http://www.firstcut.com/

[randomdata]

Though your fisrt link says it starts at $1495, compared to the $2 that some 3D printing services start at. You can build some pretty impressive things for under $100 with 3D tech. I'm not sure it is the same league. The second link might be a little closer though.

[kapkapkap]

They two links are for the same company. The first link is for an injection MOLD. The mold can produce a few thousand parts at ~$1-$3/each. For 1,000-10,000 parts, ProtoMold is an great option.

[randomdata]

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear in the original post. I'm interested in one-off pieces that I can design to solve problems around the house and if it takes a month to wait for that, no big deal. I don't need thousands of pieces.

The parent to my original post suggested there was something akin to 3D printing out there in terms of cost and versatility that was just slower to produce. Something designed for mass production certainly isn't it.

[001sky]

I'm interested in one-off pieces that I can design to solve problems around the house and if it takes a month to wait for that, no big deal

This does not seem like a big market, though. Exlcuding perhaps interior decoration. The engineering properties of 3d printed items for DIY are still TBD (lots of plastic cracking complaints, glued paper doesn't seem much better in terms of field-use). Also, in practice waiting 30 days for a DIY prototype is unlikely to be acceptable (serial project workflows & all that). small batch CNC will get you access to metal. Access to ABS does not seem all that special. Is there something in mind you have (like a project?) or is this all just theoretical?

[randomdata]

Like I said, I was just interested to know what other technologies are directly competing with 3D for one-off builds that can produce the same result (in terms of cost, function, etc.), but have the downside of being slower to produce as suggested by the poster before me.