Yeah, absolutely, for custom pieces and prototyping, 3d printing is more or less essential these days.
I'm concerned about the hype that it gets though "download a car!" and the lack of understanding in the industry at the low end (among people who make 3d printers, investors and consumers) about what it is exactly that they do and how they work. There's a kind of weird hype that they're basically Star Trek replicators:
1) feed in plastic
2) download model from internet
3) print an entire household of goods for next to nothing
But with some very rare exceptions, usually in the very expensive SLS levels, final items aren't being produced and the quality, durability and complexity of what gets produced is not yet at what a normal consumer would expect.
Even among crap Chinese plastics junk I have all over my house, there's precious few items that a 3d printer can produce end-to-end -- even if I have to do some minor assembly. Nearly every item has some kind of metal spring or screw or lens or circuit board or something in it. There's no way for anybody right now to download a new remote control model and have it print off ready for batteries to go in.
The very large number of low-end 3d printer makers and the excited investors makes me think that people don't fundamentally understand these limitations yet.
The upside of this of course is that it's very hard for anti-piracy groups to make any kind of reasonable claim that 3d printing is going to put anybody out of business since a half hour looking into the technology reveals the limitations pretty quickly.
I actually believe the same happened with personal computers.
You bought an Apple, Spectrum, Amiga or Atari and it was basically a toy. Nothing compared with the real thing with 200 MB tape.
People got a job at IBM because it was "safe" while they joked about the capabilities of those toys.
And they were truly toys. My parents bought home those computers and my brothers and sisters used them basically for gaming, "wasting" time with them.
But suddenly along the way things change, and it become really useful to have a personal computer and it gave my brothers and sisters an edge over everybody else. And those toys started being smaller, cheaper and faster as they were manufactured in the millions.
The same people who got the job at IBM were fired as personal computers took the world by storm with Window95. And that was before tablets, before any grandpa could use a computer.
Some applications like 3D prosthetics are really life changing for lots of people, like people without legs,hands,or the blind, or just old people that will be able to print something that supports them walking instead of living on a chair (with all the associated health problems, we humans are not designed to live on a chair).
Most 3D printers makers use Metric3mm,or M4 steel screws and nuts for most projects. You could even embed them in your plastic pieces using a soldering iron.
It is ironic that we have 10 years old children print remote controls with an Arduino,a led and some batteries.
But yes, this is the equivalent of our experience playing the Amiga.
I don't think this is the future of 3D printing. They are not nearly as general-purpose as computers. They can be put to excellent use in certain applications in all sorts of industries, but these are all fairly niche. The general-purpose tools required to make art, to fix things, and to make new things, have existed for centuries.
They are simple, inexpensive, versatile hand tools. Files, hammers, chisels, knives, saws, drills, etc. But still, many people have only a meager collection of tools, stashed in a drawer in their kitchen. They don't want to spend them time to mend or create things. They buy replacement parts, they can hire someone to do the work for them, they can buy brand new things, and they can stick with what they know.
3D printers can't win there. They're finicky, they're expensive, their build size is limited, their materials are limited. Barring absolutely monumental improvements in versatility, cost, and usability, 3D printers aren't going to bring anything more than fleeting novelty to the average home.
For the most part, I agree. I think 3D printers have and will continue to revolutionize industrial design.
But what might come next is if industrial designers flip the script and, instead of using 3D printers to make poor prototypes of injection molded parts, they come up with products designed to 3D printers' strengths? Those are few now, but will grow in a feedback loop between manufacturers and designers.
>They are not nearly as general-purpose as computers
Any one 3D printer is not general purpose as the computer, but all 3D printer types combined are. 3D printers are the first general purpose robots that most people will own, and all of the attachments and use cases of the gantry system make it very versatile.
Using the same extrusion system you can make a liver, a cookie, a sweater, a circuit board, or a house. How is that not general purpose? The gantry system lets us program 3D space however we want it, and that is remarkable.
But the 'good' applications (printing dashboards, prosthetics, ...) aren't done on Makerbot type printers. I was at a major 3d printing house a few weeks ago, where they print e.g. prosthetics. They print metal (!), huge components for cars, a bunch of things - but the technology is very different from a Makerbot type printer; something that can never be in regular people's houses, it takes too much specialist framing etc. I mean, nobody says 'with the advent of CNC, people will make their own break grips!'. No they won't, they'll order them from somebody who CNC's it for them - just like 3d printing factories will print stuff for people.
Well maybe some people would print a gun here or there...
but the technology is very different from a Makerbot type printer; something that can never be in regular people's houses, it takes too much specialist framing etc.
When you say "the technology" do you mean some commercial product or ad-hoc assembled equipment?
Could they be more accesible dropping some "very pro" requirements?
For example, one printer I saw used laser sintering (sp?) Basically you have a big box of powder which is shot at by a laser, solidifying the powder at the locations the laser hits it. Afterwards the remaining powder is sucked out and the object remains. The results is a much more solid construction than what you get with 'shooting' small blobs of molten plastic like a makerbot does. But the process is a lot more messy, and a lot more dangerous too.
Well I'm not sure if 'a lot' of prosthetics are being printed on Makerbots, but I did indeed misspoke (if you're talking about 'external' replacement limbs) - what I was referring to were 3d printed implanted replacement parts, like hip bones etc. Language mixup - we use the same word in Dutch for both.
If you're saying that people are printing implants with Makerbot-type printers, that's new to me - I'd love to read about how they do it and I'd appreciate a link.
Visicalc made computers to useful to people who moved lots of money and numbers around.
What can 3-D printers do for people who move lots of money and numbers around.. can they help predict? can they simulate? can they help people compete?
I hope so... the big thing many people miss with 3d printers is that they're excellent for making molds for better materials.
Sorry but the Amiga was much more than a toy. You had Deluxe paint, multitrackers, accessible programming languages, and an OS that was 5 years ahead of anthing else you had on the market.
I'm concerned about the hype that it gets though "download a car!" and the lack of understanding in the industry at the low end (among people who make 3d printers, investors and consumers) about what it is exactly that they do and how they work. There's a kind of weird hype that they're basically Star Trek replicators:
1) feed in plastic
2) download model from internet
3) print an entire household of goods for next to nothing
But with some very rare exceptions, usually in the very expensive SLS levels, final items aren't being produced and the quality, durability and complexity of what gets produced is not yet at what a normal consumer would expect.
Even among crap Chinese plastics junk I have all over my house, there's precious few items that a 3d printer can produce end-to-end -- even if I have to do some minor assembly. Nearly every item has some kind of metal spring or screw or lens or circuit board or something in it. There's no way for anybody right now to download a new remote control model and have it print off ready for batteries to go in.
The very large number of low-end 3d printer makers and the excited investors makes me think that people don't fundamentally understand these limitations yet.
The upside of this of course is that it's very hard for anti-piracy groups to make any kind of reasonable claim that 3d printing is going to put anybody out of business since a half hour looking into the technology reveals the limitations pretty quickly.