So that makes about $0.4 per piece. The LEGO set that was shown today costs about $0.12 per piece.
-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Don't 3D printers pose a threat to LEGO?
- Thread starter Sectorseven
- Start date
- Status
I think the only thing 3D printers are going to be dangerous for are things not in mass production. LEGO has no threat for that.
Costs would decrease as things are mass produced, so creating a single brick at home takes a long time and isn't going to be as cost productive as just going to the store and buying them.
Costs would decrease as things are mass produced, so creating a single brick at home takes a long time and isn't going to be as cost productive as just going to the store and buying them.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Topical: a test print I ran to make sure the printer we have will work for my class this summer
Topical: a test print I ran to make sure the printer we have will work for my class this summer
The FBI are on their way.
BattleMonkey
Member
Its not worth the time. 3d printing takes a good while and to prints out blocks to do anything? Nope not worth it.
Orbis Tabula
Member
Topical: a test print I ran to make sure the printer we have will work for my class this summer
Aw, man, that's so cool. Now build a 3D printer out of Lego Bricks that can print other Lego Bricks. Make it self-assembling, too, please!
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
They link up just fine, although the walls are a bit flimsy and flexible, but that's to be expected
hipbabboom
Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
Topical: a test print I ran to make sure the printer we have will work for my class this summer
You dirty communist! You trying to steal the food out of the Lego family children's mouths? I hope you think about what you need for the next 10 year's in prison!
This is pretty cool 
Do you have any pictures of the under-side? how rigid was it with the material you used... was it comparable to standard Lego plastic?
Do you have any pictures of the under-side? how rigid was it with the material you used... was it comparable to standard Lego plastic?smokeandmirrors
Banned
Topical: a test print I ran to make sure the printer we have will work for my class this summer
yo this is awesome. i really really really want a 3d printer because of reasons
Pai Pai Master
Banned
3d printing poses a threat to our economy and society as we know it. whether that's a good thing or not depends on your perspective.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
You dirty communist! You trying to steal the food out of the Lego family children's mouths? I hope you think about what you need for the next 10 year's in prison!
This is pretty cool
The walls are flexible, but that's just kind of inevitable given how thin they are and the printing technique
plasmawave
Banned
It's like Apple. People want the Lego brand.
itwasTuesday
He wasn't alone.
You wouldn't download a lego?
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Now I just need to figure out the best way to teach 10 year olds how to model this
sixteen-bit
Member
I'm curious if it will facilitate piracy of expensive, out of print sets. I mean, if the ROI is high, then the investment in printing the fakes would be nbd.
I can now download a car. Screw you Australian anti-piracy ads!
I know you are joking, but didn't the Lego patent run out a few years back, making this perfectly legal?
HammerOfThor
Member
If cheap 3rd party knockoff don't pose a threat, and if high quality 3rd party blocks don't pose a threat, 3D printing sure as hell wont.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I'm not even sure how that would work. No law is ever going to exist that would stop you from, say, milling out a piece of plastic as a LEGO for your own personal use. They might be able to stop people from distributing actual 3D designs, but then where do schematics like this fall?
This is the diagram that I worked from, and its 5-10 minutes of work to convert this into a 3D model if you know what you're doing
burnside13
Member
It will probably impact Lego sales quite a bit but cheap lego hasn't overtaken legos sales and would be a far cost effective alternative than printing each piece individually. 3d Printed lego would be a different type of plastic and poorer quality. 3D printer might be able to recreate a close replication of the lego shape but the factory quality lego is much higher quality.
I'd go with this. Printing and molding LEGO has gotten really impressive recently. Compare 2001 Bionicle
to 2015 Bionicle
Almost (read: almost) worth the price.
EDIT: though Kopaka's mask redesign is Terra Bull
This is exactly the limiting factor. The tolerances achieved by Lego over the years would make even some aerospace companies jealous, and the consistency in those tolerances mean that old pieces work as well as new ones. 3D printers just don't have the resolution necessary to make pieces to the required tolerance. Will they someday? Certainly, but we're talking years from now.
BobTheFork
Member
Can you build a 3d printer FROM Lego blocks?
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
A very crude one maybe.
The current problem with the "printer that makes itself" is that there are certain electronic components necessary for all 3D printing techniques at the moment. You can print an enclosure or a shaft or a gear but not a working servomotor
- Status