3D printing plastic components for consoles?

So I recently purchased a Panasonic Q with a busted DVD drive and have been working on piecing the thing back together. I was thinking about this while working on it the other day - do you guys think it would be possible to print plastic components for video game consoles if we had a 3D scanner and printer? I say this because I recently discovered that we have a TechShop in my area and they have a 3D scanner and a 3D printer (according to their website). So I was thinking if I could get a 3D scan of a good component (DVD drive tray in my case) and printed the model of using a 3D printer, do you think it would work?

 

It should as long as the plastic is sturdy enough and you can provide the correct dimensions or a good tray they could scan.

 

I was also thinking about investing in a 3D printer. Imagine printing out Cartridge shells for cartridge based consoles. Or maybe printing out an entire console shell like the Sega Neptune

 

I have been checking that out too.

With quality and affordability of 3d printer quickly improving these days, I expect this to become a serious option for the hobbyist in the not too far future.

 

This would be pretty awesome

 

Sounds pretty interesting did you end up using the 3d printing service?

 

AutoDesk now also offer a free 3D modelling package that offers a mail order printing service.

I have it on my Mac (it's called 123 Design) but I've yet to use it, their prices are pretty reasonable though.

I guess the difficult part would be scanning what you need in the first place.

 

Typically for mechanical part, it's better to model the component from scratch on a 3D solid modeling program. Using 123 Design is a good start for free software. There is also Creo Elements, also a free software from PTC.