Do you think 3d printers will become commonplace in homes?

[Cpus]

Battery is 3d printed

http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/19/...utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

 

[Cpus]

Makerbot has been bought out by Stratasys in a 600 million $ deal

 

[gorobei]

Makerbot has been bought out by Stratasys in a 600 million $ deal

not sure if this is a good or bad thing. there are enough competitors in the small consumer printer market that makerbot going corporate shouldnt affect the open source nature of the industry, but you have to wonder if thermoplastic extrusion resolution and size werent starting to impinge on Stratasys' lower mid end product line.

any word on how the rest of the makerbot community feels about this?

 

[ImpulsE69]

Battery is 3d printed

http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/19/...utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

That is insane. The future is going to be full of wonder as 3D printing takes off.

 

[Cpus]

not sure if this is a good or bad thing. there are enough competitors in the small consumer printer market that makerbot going corporate shouldnt affect the open source nature of the industry, but you have to wonder if thermoplastic extrusion resolution and size werent starting to impinge on Stratasys' lower mid end product line.

any word on how the rest of the makerbot community feels about this?

many are worried that thingiverse will be monetized

 

[gorobei]

many are worried that thingiverse will be monetized

there will probably have to be some work done on establishing something equivalent to GPL for 3d object designs and variations from a base object. obviously if someone wishes to share a design and make it freely available it shouldnt be hard to manage. but if someone takes an existing object and tweaks it there will be questions as to whether they should be allowed to claim some sort of copyrights and charge for the variant version. adding corporate lawyers seems like throwing gas on the fire.

 

[ImpulsE69]

there will probably have to be some work done on establishing something equivalent to GPL for 3d object designs and variations from a base object. obviously if someone wishes to share a design and make it freely available it shouldnt be hard to manage. but if someone takes an existing object and tweaks it there will be questions as to whether they should be allowed to claim some sort of copyrights and charge for the variant version. adding corporate lawyers seems like throwing gas on the fire.

Given the current sue happy state of the world on pretty much anything IP related, I don't see it going this way quietly. At some point companies are going to start lobbying for some sort of control and or take down notices of blueprints. It's not going to be pretty because the old guard still runs things and they will see 3D printing as something that can potentially eat into their cash cows. Wait until you can print your own undetectable counterfeit money. Yea, someone will step in at some point.

 

[phucheneh]

Not until they can make them as temperamental as regular printers.

It would be pretty awesome if malfunctions caused a 3D printer to make big piles of little squares, triangles, and random cryptic characters.

Also, there should be regular 'paper jam' messages.

 

[BoberFett]

Doubters can continue to doubt, but it's coming.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti..._buildings_in_one_day_from_recycled_materials

This is early tech. Imagine 5, 10, 20 years from now. Company shows up on your lot, sets up their machine, and in a few days your house is done.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Yes and shortly after I predict Lego losing a ton of revenue, many Napster like lawsuits from copyright holders and some crazy "adult novelties"

 

[Phoenix86]

Yes and shortly after I predict Lego losing a ton of revenue, many Napster like lawsuits from copyright holders and some crazy "adult novelties"

Yeah... Lego has to be shitting their collective pants over this market.

 

[DrPizza]

Doubters can continue to doubt, but it's coming.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti..._buildings_in_one_day_from_recycled_materials

This is early tech. Imagine 5, 10, 20 years from now. Company shows up on your lot, sets up their machine, and in a few days your house is done.

So, the words "3-D Printing" were attached to those buildings. But, if you read the article, all it did was basically pre-fabbed concrete walls. The walls and other pieces had to stay at the factory until hardened, then shipped to the job site, where they were assembled.

 

[Ruptga]

So, the words "3-D Printing" were attached to those buildings. But, if you read the article, all it did was basically pre-fabbed concrete walls. The walls and other pieces had to stay at the factory until hardened, then shipped to the job site, where they were assembled.

Yeah, baby steps. You won't find me running the streets naked yelling "THE FUTURE IS NOW", but we're getting there one decade at a time.

 

[BoberFett]

So, the words "3-D Printing" were attached to those buildings. But, if you read the article, all it did was basically pre-fabbed concrete walls. The walls and other pieces had to stay at the factory until hardened, then shipped to the job site, where they were assembled.

You surprise me on this one Dr P. You're usually quite astute, but you seem to be very quick to deny the ultimate endgame of JIT manufacturing.

 

[sdifox]

Doubters can continue to doubt, but it's coming.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti..._buildings_in_one_day_from_recycled_materials

This is early tech. Imagine 5, 10, 20 years from now. Company shows up on your lot, sets up their machine, and in a few days your house is done.

Yeah, no. Those things are great for protyping and that is about it.

PS pre formed concrete casting <> 3d printing.

 

[mmntech]

I don't think everyone will have a 3D printer. At least as long as it's cheaper to just buy goods in store. They're also pretty limited in terms of materials you can use.

Once the cost comes down, I do see them becoming popular with hobbyists and artists. Jay Leno did a thing on rapid prototyping where he used one of these machines to build a valve for a century old steam car. Pretty impressive.

 

[Phoenix86]

I think the plastic ones will make their way into homes, metal and more difficult materials will probably be in local stores. Go to Home Depot or wherever and have them print more complex things.

 

[BoberFett]

Yeah, no. Those things are great for protyping and that is about it.

PS pre formed concrete casting <> 3d printing.

You should invent a time machine and go tell Ford how nobody is gonna want one of those horseless carriages.

 

[holden j caufield]

this really interests me, how do I go about learning to create 3D models. I'm going back to school for a different subject but actually do have access to a 3D printer at the school and I think they can get the student edition of software pretty cheaply. Is 3ds or solidworks what everyone uses now?

 

[JBT]

Sure why not? They are cool, and clearly every other poster is mentioning some use for them. If they will be in everyone's house I don't know but they will continue to increase in popularity for the foreseeable future.

 

[ringtail]

No. Not common, but a scattered few people will have them, and they'll be at universities, hospitals, Kinko's-type businesses.

Main reason why not is that 3-D printers are a tool of the middle and upper classes, but the middle class is trending toward extinction in USA, and it won't be able to reestablish itself for at least for the next 20 years or longer. For the masses, the standard of living is heading downward.

 

[sdifox]

You should invent a time machine and go tell Ford how nobody is gonna want one of those horseless carriages.

Layers of material = low shear resistance. Not an issue with prototype, but for real products it's a no no.

And Ford's contribution is assembly line, not automobiles.

 

[Viper GTS]

But in reality...more cheap plastic shit is the last thing I need in my house.

This sums up my current thoughts on 3D printing. Yes the potential to make things you need at home would be great. But the things I want to make are not the kinds of things you make out of plastic filament. I have a desire to have a full metal + wood machine shop but nearly zero desire for a 3D printer.

Viper GTS

 

[Jeff7]

Yeah... Lego has to be shitting their collective pants over this market.

There's going to be room for mass-produced injection-molded parts for quite awhile. Those machines measure cycle time in seconds.

Bottlecaps, for instance: One mold can eject a few hundred caps each time it opens, and it's going to do that every few seconds. They'll have engineers work on ways to reduce that cycle time by 0.1 seconds, because that can save them millions of dollars a year.
Injection molding is cheap (in quantity), and it can be damn fast, and fairly accurate.

Here we go: 96 parts every 2.75 seconds.

Consumer-grade 3d printers could create something resembling a Lego brick. It probably won't give a good snap-fit though. And it'll probably take 15 minutes to print one brick.

 

[SZLiao214]

One of the coolest things I've seen with it is where a guy printed upgrades for his printer.