I keep seeing articles like this and thinking "these people are thinking about this wrong".
3D printers aren't better at making mass produced injection moulded plastic objects than injection moulding. They can (more or less) replicate the sort of mass-produced thing you can buy on Amazon that's been sailed here in shipping container loads from China – but if you're going to make a few thousand of them (or better still, a few tens of millions), then "the industry" has got the efficiency of that manufacturing and supply chain down to a very fine art. (In the same way that it's very difficult to match McDonalds on a calorie-per-dollar metric.)
What I believe will really make 3D printers "go viral", is when enough people work out that there's different, newcategories of objects we can produce.
Things where only 50 or 100 people in the world are ever going to want - maybe a mount to fit an iPhone 4S with an extended battery case to the handlebars of a 2012 Vespa 125 Sport, or a bracket to hold an Arduino and a 2x40char LCD to the side of a pre 2005 Rancilio Silva espresso machine. I wonder how many things/objects get thought up, but discarded because "it'll got $x,000 to make a set of moulds, and there's only 100 people in the world who'd even consider buying this"?
I think there are also objects that right now don't exist because existing manufacturing techniques don't allow them to be (mass) produced - one of the cheaper 3D printers comes with a sample file of a Chess Rook (the "castle piece) with an internal spiral staircase inside it - a geometry that's physically impossible to create a mould you could extract the part from (without destroying the mould). I wonder how many things/objects get thought up then "discarded" because "you can't make that"?
I see people trying to print 3D plastic guns using more or less "traditional" gun shapes and designs. That's just wrong (though I have some grudging admiration for the people doing it for largely political/anarchist motivations). What we need is for people to start developing the knowledge and experience with 3D printing materials – so they've got the same sort of "gut feel" for sizes/configurations/suitability of various options to design parts, as "old school" welders have about what size/shape/configuration of steel stock and gussets/bracing is "strong enough" for your boat-trailer/golf-buggy/go-kart. People who can go "that might work, but how about we over-engineer that section a bit more, 'cause it seems a little close to the material limits". People who can go "Lets 3D scan that metal bracket, then adjust the thickness of those planes and increase the gusset radius along that intersection, and add some webbing around those holes, then it'll be 'strong enough' to replace the original metal part".
I look forward to that – and I suspect it'll start happening in a fairly short timeframe.
You're thinking along the right lines. I'd only emphasize that one should be on the lookout for things with a personalized component. Rings and bracelets that fit absolutely perfectly. Eyeglasses that are 95% standard parts off a shelf, but incorporate three printed parts that can be adjusted to make the glasses fit your face more perfectly than any others in their price range. That sort of thing.
Designs that only 100 people in the world want are a fine thing, but they will still require design, and that will make them expensive and hard to get right. Individualized things that only one person in the world wants, but which millions of people might want a tiny variation of, may be where the real money is.
While I agree that people need to look at 3D printing as it's own thing and not v.01 of a star treck replicator that allows you to avoid shopping for little plastic thing. There are still plenty of little plastic things that cost huge multiples of there mass produced manufactoring costs, aka a little plastic lever used in the trip odomitor of a 20 year old car the first 20 million of them sold out so now it's small batches pluss warehousing and shipping costs which can easily make such things cost 100+$.
Make sense. But then one of the item on his table is an orthopaedic insole, an item that is custom made for one's foot. I can totally see orthopaedist, dentist etc... have a 3D printer in their office to manufacture one-of-a-kind insole, dental cap, or even prescription lenses.
Invisalign braces and Vivera retainers are already 3D printed (using UV photopolymer and a laser). They just do it at a factory, because the 3D printer that can produce that level of detail/strength is terribly expensive.
Exactly. I need those orthotics and I'd love to be able to get a custom version for less than the pros charge now. I think both orthopedists and dentists already have pretty sophisticated 3D tools today, though.
So true. Most manufacturing engineers who have worked with injection molding have also worked with rapid prototyping techniques like 3d printing and know the differences in application very well. Journalists don't quite seem to grasp the difference yet.
The great contribution 3d printers will make is in small-scale production and I wish people would stop talking how 3d printing will "disrupt" this or that.
>I keep seeing articles like this and thinking "these people are thinking about this wrong".
Agreed. I thought this quote exemplified that "wrong thinking":
"Say you are in the camping supply business and you don't want to keep glow-in-the-dark tent stakes in stock," Pearce said. "Just keep glow-in-the-dark plastic on hand, and if somebody needs those tent stakes, you can print them."
So, rather than a pre-packaged, sku'd, retail product on your shelf, you're going to keep some glow in the dark plastic on hand and take the time and effort to pay someone to print them?
3D printers aren't better at making mass produced injection moulded plastic objects than injection moulding. They can (more or less) replicate the sort of mass-produced thing you can buy on Amazon that's been sailed here in shipping container loads from China – but if you're going to make a few thousand of them (or better still, a few tens of millions), then "the industry" has got the efficiency of that manufacturing and supply chain down to a very fine art. (In the same way that it's very difficult to match McDonalds on a calorie-per-dollar metric.)
What I believe will really make 3D printers "go viral", is when enough people work out that there's different, new categories of objects we can produce.
Things where only 50 or 100 people in the world are ever going to want - maybe a mount to fit an iPhone 4S with an extended battery case to the handlebars of a 2012 Vespa 125 Sport, or a bracket to hold an Arduino and a 2x40char LCD to the side of a pre 2005 Rancilio Silva espresso machine. I wonder how many things/objects get thought up, but discarded because "it'll got $x,000 to make a set of moulds, and there's only 100 people in the world who'd even consider buying this"?
I think there are also objects that right now don't exist because existing manufacturing techniques don't allow them to be (mass) produced - one of the cheaper 3D printers comes with a sample file of a Chess Rook (the "castle piece) with an internal spiral staircase inside it - a geometry that's physically impossible to create a mould you could extract the part from (without destroying the mould). I wonder how many things/objects get thought up then "discarded" because "you can't make that"?
I see people trying to print 3D plastic guns using more or less "traditional" gun shapes and designs. That's just wrong (though I have some grudging admiration for the people doing it for largely political/anarchist motivations). What we need is for people to start developing the knowledge and experience with 3D printing materials – so they've got the same sort of "gut feel" for sizes/configurations/suitability of various options to design parts, as "old school" welders have about what size/shape/configuration of steel stock and gussets/bracing is "strong enough" for your boat-trailer/golf-buggy/go-kart. People who can go "that might work, but how about we over-engineer that section a bit more, 'cause it seems a little close to the material limits". People who can go "Lets 3D scan that metal bracket, then adjust the thickness of those planes and increase the gusset radius along that intersection, and add some webbing around those holes, then it'll be 'strong enough' to replace the original metal part".
I look forward to that – and I suspect it'll start happening in a fairly short timeframe.