> nearly a decade of the "makerspace" has seemingly failed to produce any sort of meaningful Renaissance in small-scale US manufacturing.
I think the problem is the constant declaration of the end of manufacturing economies of scale. "Maker" culture should have been focused on rapid prototyping, instead of pretending that the expensive output of 3D printers is sturdy enough to be a final product. "Makers" should be educated about how normal manufacturing processes work, so they can translate their experiments into things that factories could easily and cheaply make.
For me it was a sign that when maker culture was arising, resources for independent engineers (who weren't making kits) actually started to disappear around the edges. The end of the Small Parts* catalog was the worst. Also, instead of using 25ยข micros, people were using $20 full Linux systems to do insignificant things. It seemed like everything was moving backwards.
> It seems to me the industry is very good at serving hobbyists and prototypers.
I don't think it's good for serving prototypers because prototypers should be ultimately thinking about manufacturing as a goal. I don't think that small scale manufacturing is being held back by anything, it's just not efficient and nothing has changed that would make it so.
I think the problem is the constant declaration of the end of manufacturing economies of scale. "Maker" culture should have been focused on rapid prototyping, instead of pretending that the expensive output of 3D printers is sturdy enough to be a final product. "Makers" should be educated about how normal manufacturing processes work, so they can translate their experiments into things that factories could easily and cheaply make.
For me it was a sign that when maker culture was arising, resources for independent engineers (who weren't making kits) actually started to disappear around the edges. The end of the Small Parts* catalog was the worst. Also, instead of using 25ยข micros, people were using $20 full Linux systems to do insignificant things. It seemed like everything was moving backwards.
> It seems to me the industry is very good at serving hobbyists and prototypers.
I don't think it's good for serving prototypers because prototypers should be ultimately thinking about manufacturing as a goal. I don't think that small scale manufacturing is being held back by anything, it's just not efficient and nothing has changed that would make it so.
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[*] https://web.archive.org/web/20190221190826/http://smallparts...