Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

ced1106 wrote:
The early days:

Inkjet printers:

Spoiler:

Smartphones:

Spoiler:

GPS:

Spoiler:

Porn:

Spoiler:

I just don't see the scope of personal 3D printing for it to take off like those other things.

You can print knick knacks at home, yay? I don't really see a big scope for it outside of miniatures and I don't think the miniature market is big enough to drive the price down to levels where people would rather buy a printer vs just buying some cast models.

Where I see 3D printing being useful is more in industry, where it serves a purpose alongside other forms of rapid prototyping and specialised manufacture.

It will be both, Skink. I used my printer for the predator bust "knick knack" () and this weekend I'm using it to print some fixtures for work. Doesn't have to be one or the other

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
You can print knick knacks at home, yay? I don't really see a big scope for it outside of miniatures and I don't think the miniature market is big enough to drive the price down to levels where people would rather buy a printer vs just buying some cast models.

Where I see 3D printing being useful is more in industry, where it serves a purpose alongside other forms of rapid prototyping and specialised manufacture.

I said earlier that technology goes through three phases: Enthusiast, Business, and Consumer.

You've just identified the first two. We haven't reached the third yet.

Anyone remember the Apple Newton Personal Digital Assistant? Although pitched for business use, it was too expensive and not practical enough. The handwriting recognition ended up being an "Eat up Martha" Simpsons joke. But a certain audience bought it -- the Apple Enthusiasts. While the Newton disappeared, you may have noticed those portable electronic things the UPS man has which captures your signature. Or know someone who used a Blackberry for work? That's the business version of the PDA. And now we have smartphones, affordable enough for the Consumer to use.

Oh, and now laser printers are finally affordable enough and small enough for Consumers. Here's the Business version from only forty years ago.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

ced1106 wrote:
The early days:

Inkjet printers:

Spoiler:

Smartphones:

Spoiler:

GPS:

Spoiler:

Porn:

Spoiler:

I just don't see the scope of personal 3D printing for it to take off like those other things.

You can print knick knacks at home, yay? I don't really see a big scope for it outside of miniatures and I don't think the miniature market is big enough to drive the price down to levels where people would rather buy a printer vs just buying some cast models.

Where I see 3D printing being useful is more in industry, where it serves a purpose alongside other forms of rapid prototyping and specialised manufacture.

Other industries are also very enthusiastic about it. The medical field alone will revolutionize it.

 prowla wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:

Its the material/ supply issue that makes it expensive. I have it on very good authority that 3D printing is well and truly here. Prices are up there, but the things I've seen have put the originals to shame.

Whoever controls the supply controls the 3D spice.

3D printing has been here for a while, for several decades to be exact. It's called 'rapid prototyping'. One interesting question is that as rapid prototyping patents are pretty old, and they are going to become public domain at some point in near future. Potentially, this might mean cheaper high-resolution machines, when multiple manufacturers can jump the ship.

What '3d printing' has been able to do, is public awareness and creation of different consumer services like Shapeways. So the ecosystem is there, when the machine prices start to drop.. Then again, remember, this kind of 'revolution' has already happened with print shops etc. - and it's still cheaper to buy a generic t-shirt or a poster from a commercial source, rather than get your own printed.

On printing speed - 3d printing machines rely on similar servo motors etc. than regular printers, and those have been in use for decades. Just like you don't have a inkjet printer that churns out 1 page per second, you won't have a 3d printer that prints a model per minute. That's why serial production will still be done using casting machines.

There was an article in Analog, back in the nineties, I believe, written by Jerry Pournelle - about the brand new and exciting concept of Solid Freeform Fabrication, and how it was already being used by Bell labs to create prototypes. He then detailed the various sorts, from resin squirted out of a 3d plotter to laser sintered metalic powders.

It has indeed been around for a while.

The Auld Grump

ced1106 wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
You can print knick knacks at home, yay? I don't really see a big scope for it outside of miniatures and I don't think the miniature market is big enough to drive the price down to levels where people would rather buy a printer vs just buying some cast models.

Where I see 3D printing being useful is more in industry, where it serves a purpose alongside other forms of rapid prototyping and specialised manufacture.

I said earlier that technology goes through three phases: Enthusiast, Business, and Consumer.

You've just identified the first two. We haven't reached the third yet.

Anyone remember the Apple Newton Personal Digital Assistant? Although pitched for business use, it was too expensive and not practical enough. The handwriting recognition ended up being an "Eat up Martha" Simpsons joke. But a certain audience bought it -- the Apple Enthusiasts. While the Newton disappeared, you may have noticed those portable electronic things the UPS man has which captures your signature. Or know someone who used a Blackberry for work? That's the business version of the PDA. And now we have smartphones, affordable enough for the Consumer to use.

Oh, and now laser printers are finally affordable enough and small enough for Consumers. Here's the Business version from only forty years ago.

Spoiler:

I think you're missing my point. It's not "things don't become cheaper and widespread for consumers". It's "if consumers find a need for a product (or can have a need impressed upon them) then things get cheaper and widespread"

You can talk about personal computing devices. The need/want is communication and organisation, that's why they become widespread.

You talk about GPS, the need was there in that people need to know where they're going. You could argue that printed maps would have remained dominant, but the need was still there.

You can talk about 2D printing, there was a need to have written text in print form, so 2D printers became mainstream. Oddly enough, these days that need is diminished with our lives increasingly moving to digital anyway and I think a lot of people don't have 2D printers or have 2D printers they don't use anymore. Despite printers becoming mainstream and cheap it's still more practical for the majority to get photos printed at a place that specialises in it. Though printer manufacturers did make a good effort to push the whole "print your own photos at home!" thing, the only people I know who actually print their own photos are enthusiast or professional photographers who need a fast turn around, and even they go to dedicated printers when they need to have lots of copies and/or a large library printed.

That's my problem with consumer level 3D printing... where is the need? You can print knick knacks. We can see a need in miniatures, but to me that's kind of like 2D printing photography, it's still going to be cheaper to go to a place that does casting for mass production. There will be people who do their own 3D models but IMO they will be few and far between. Even in the grim darkness of the far future, mass produced models are going to be cheaper than buying a printer and the material to print your own.

I'm just not seeing where the driving force for consumer level 3D printing is coming from, that's why I'm very skeptical. I've actually used 3D printing and other forms of rapid prototyping at work to create masters for fibre reinforced polymer parts.

If "in 20 years time people will want 3D printers for blah and will be willing to pay several hundred dollars to have one in the home" and there was a hint of what "blah" was, I would be less skeptical.

Every time I think of what I could use a 3D printer for (and there are things, not denying that) they're always very specialised things that 98% of the population wouldn't give a damn about.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Every time I think of what I could use a 3D printer for (and there are things, not denying that) they're always very specialised things that 98% of the population wouldn't give a damn about.

"The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end."
-- Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, first Commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office, died 1858.

"In my opinion, all previous advances in the various lines of invention will appear totally insignificant when compared with those which the present century will witness. I almost wish that I might live my life over again to see the wonders which are at the threshold."
-- Charles Holland Duell, commissioner of the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 1898 to 1901, died 1920.

I think refrigerators that talk with your grocery store are stupid, so don't bother with coming up with examples of future "killer app" technology. I *will* say we presently have marketing departments which have convinced consumers that they should have 200+ different brands of toothpaste, a new model car every year, boob support, and other sh*t we don't need. Meanwhile, technology -- heck, KickStarter -- continually removes the "guardians" that determine what products we can and cannot have. 3D printing will further remove these barriers.

You don't have to look further than your own prototypes for "the need". Business interests drive "the need" for a new technology, have the money for it, and eventually drive it into mass production, lowering costs. *Then* the technology enters the Consumer phase. Medical applications have the "need" of custom one-off parts -- which prototypes are -- and consumers who are willing to pay the cost, thanks to insurance plans.

You say "the need", but I say, "the want". The products companies make are limited in manufacturing overhead costs, distributions, and middle men. So what if we cut them out? Sure, much of the stuff will be "knick knacks", but, even as KS shows us, there's an immense consumer want for miniatures, coolers, and other product designs.