Steve Bong's 3D printing special Xmas showcase 2012 has been the year of 3D printing. It's what happens "when DIY meets Web 2.0", says Chris Anderson - and it's going to be the next industrial revolution - the biggest disruption since the last big disruption, only bigger. We're as amazed as you are by the quality of today's additive printing technologies. So here's a …
Andrew, the last time I came across some uncooked pastry, it was trimmings from a pie my brother was making.
I managed to form the letters T, N, C and U, and arrange them creatively on the surface of said pie.
To say he was impressed when he removed it from the oven would be an understatement.
Steven R
(I would supply a pic of said pie, but I suspect it would fall foul of the house rules)
>Industrial quality 3D printing is useful for prototypes
And sometimes for end-use parts, too. Choosing between any manufacturing processes usually depends on how many you want to make.
Generally, aerospace and some high-end motorsport parts aren't made in large quantities, so are a candidate for 'additive manufacturing'. With processes such as Selective Laser Sintering (for materials including titanium), you can make parts with 'property gradients', should you choose.
I agree though- there is a lot of hype. How many people do you know own a 'Dremel' -like tool? A few, maybe, but not household. I can't think of a 'killer application' that would require everyone to own a 3D printer, though the wider availability of 3D scanning (or its pseudo cousin: clever software tricks on a series of 2D photos) by 'Kinect'-like devices might open it up to a wider group of people.
Dave 126: "How many people do you know own a 'Dremel' -like tool?"
I found your post sensible, but I don't think this is a valid comparison. I know dozens of people who own rotary tools (Dremel or other brands) - I have three of them myself. They're cheap and useful in a wide range of applications, in construction and machining and craft-making. 3D printers are considerably more expensive and, I'd argue, actually more limited in the breadth of household activities they lend themselves to.
In many kinds of craft-making, for example, much of the interest is in taking found materials and/or purchased components and working them to figure out how they can be assembled. Making parts to order removes the element of discovery and the pleasure of working under the constraints of the components.
They look like 3D printings of original models that were playdough, chewed by a four year old, then swallowed, then regurgitated, then stamped into submission by a really angry two year old during a tantrum.
If you're going to make a 3D duplicate, the original should be made of Plasticine, it's a little more oily, and so holds up better after being thrown up. It doesn't taste as nice, but in this case, modelling capability is more important.
As soon as it can print one Domino to order it can also print the other twenty seven (it should be fairly trivial to write software to handle the dot combinations). The printer won't be arrange them in a neat line ready for toppling, however you can easily build your own Lego robot to do that.
That wingnut shows all too clearly the peril awaiting us! If you look closely you'll see it is conventionally threaded, but as we all know the right-hand-slap rule for magnetic fields shows that reverse threading is required to avoid your tokomak spontaneously dismantling. With his refreshing enthusiasm for the future Mr Bong sees a people empowered to make things but here I can only see their imperillificationness to make mistakes!
I can think of no reasonable alternative for the gummint but the immediate formation of HM Printer Inspectorate. They'll need to be added to the RIPA snoop list immediately, even if that means delaying access for traffic wardens. Because the UK is a peace-loving society tasers should suffice, but that aspect should really be left to ministerial discretion: the defense of democracy is far too important to be left in the hands of parliament! Though I hesitate to usurp the prerogatives of the new Minister for Goodprint (Theresa May) might I hope that her first act is to commission a suitable mission statement from Bong! Ventures?
Not exactly hard hitting journalism but made me giggle, thank you. This is why theregister is where I go for technical news, it has a wild and teasing side, not one big love in from non technical journalists who can't appraise the news objectively with an eye to making you smile and question.
With millions of goods and component manufacturers on the planet, global availabilty thro international procurement and shipping everything is already available to everyone. Goods cost pennies from China, shipping en masse is affordable - what's the solution home-printing goods is supposed to solve?
a) The cost of shipping stuff is likely to rise.
b) We already have a shortage of some very specific things which would be easy to print. One example are spare parts. Others are custom mechanical parts, for example mobile device cases.
We are at the very start of something. It's like the home computer scene in the early 1970s. We now have early pre-made printers. They are still absolute shit, but so were home computers of that time. You couldn't write a letter on a Kenbak-1. It'll need time, probably at least a decade, then those printers will suddenly become useful.
The cost of shipping stuff is likely to rise.
If shipping costs rise substantially faster than inflation, we'll have far more interesting problems than whether we can print spare parts with our home 3D printers. 3D printing (and other computer-controlled small-scale manufacturing technologies) may eventually be useful for things like producing spare parts, but only if something like the current regime of global trade remains, including the relative cost of shipping (in constant terms).
I agree that, barring calamities, we're likely to see more practical use of 3D printing; that the technology will continue to improve, making it feasible for more applications; and that while it's currently overhyped by professional hype artists like Chris "Long Tail" Anderson, that doesn't mean it's a passing fad. Even Wired editors can't always be completely wrong. But the shipping-costs argument isn't persuasive.
So the samples shown aren't by any means representative of what the tech can do. Haha.
But moving beyond that, it has a ways to go to be a truly disruptive technology. It needs to be much faster than it currently is. It needs to do fairly large parts: think breadbox. It needs to be equipped with a rock solid 3d scanner. Finally it needs to ability to download new designs without depending upon the owner to know CAD.
With those problems solved you can then start imagining the reasons to have one. Need a new shaving razor? Print it up. Want a new hot wheel for your child? Print it. Need some eating utensils? What about a phone case?
The disruption will be to those industries that depend upon us buying massive amounts of small items that can be easily replaced. Printing shaving kit alone would cause large problems for Gillette. Doing small toys would impact Mattell, their chinese suppliers and toy stores.
The final items would be cost and reliability. It has to be sub $800US and just simply work without tinkering. At that point you will see middle income households buying it. Which would be a revolution.
There are so many things we buy whose manufacturing cost is orders of magnitude lower than the purchase price.. This type of technology would change the face of that. To survive those companies would have to focus on items that printers couldn't do; which I'm sure would be a constant game of cat and mouse.
Of course, IP rights to designs will also become much more important. And I certainly see a market arising similar to app stores for phones where designers publish their designs and people pay a few bucks to be able to print unlimited quantities of them. I, for one, am excited about having my own replicator.
The next generation of "virtual" enlargement. You thought photoshopping models to be skinny was bad, wait until you see the "send your date a 'lifesize' replica" craze.
"Oops, I've just got to pop out to the chemist for a condom (rubber for our American friends)"
"No need, I have a bedside printer"
Where will it end?
> Where will it end?
In a pool of, er, tears.
I can see a downside to sending a "lifesize" replica. Finding it is left as an exercise for the reader.
What we need is a laser scanner to go with this. Then you can replicate all your "OO" gauge men for your crowd scene. Also, while manufacture and shipping may be cheap, Lego may not be so impressed if you start printing your own pieces. There's a fairly hefty premium on those bits of plastic.
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