We have access to 3D printers that work fine for printing FED, but I wanted to explore commercial solutions for this.  These may be of interest for people who don't have a 3D printer or who want to print multiple FEDs quickly.  So I ordered a complete FED from Shapeways and it arrived today.

Quick price comparison: We estimate 1 complete FED costs about $8 in PLA filament for us to print, while printing a FED in the same material with Shapeways cost $100.41.  So it's a lot more $$, but they do nice work and it's very convenient.  The Shapeways FED parts look excellent, a bit nicer than what we print in our lab.

Also, uploading parts to Shapeways allowed us to answer the question of how much it costs to print FED in different materials:

Nylon? $253.32  

Steel?  $728.57  

14K Gold????  $71,746.13!  (Please send me photos if you go for the gold!)