I haven't figured out what 3-D printing is really good for. Their stock is kind of all over the place, so maybe I'm not the only one who can't figure out whether I should be excited. I don't have a printer, but I do have ViaCad, so I sketched up a quick headphone cable wrap thingie [.stl file] (I drew it from scratch, but it's inspired by this one by joechung on thingiverse).
Then I created accounts at a bunch of 3-D printing shops. Here are their prices for one of the thing in the cheapest plastic. My daughter requested pink, so I'll use that if it's available.
- Shapeways — $16.06
- Sculpteo — $25.31
- Ponoko — $25.44 (pink isn't available)
- iMaterialize — €15.81 (about $21.34 at the moment)
I ordered one from Shapeways. I'll post again when I see how it looks.