Beer Monkey
Member
They can't make replacement Lego pieces, resolution too coarse.
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Why aren't 3D printers a huge deal right now?
- Thread starter Zibrahim
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I can't think of a use for one. When they start printing metal and the machines cost around $800, then maybe I'd consider getting one.
But I can't think of a use of a machine that prints brittle plastics at 3x the cost of just going to the dollar store to get something similar. It's basically for figurine collectors and industry usage.
But I can't think of a use of a machine that prints brittle plastics at 3x the cost of just going to the dollar store to get something similar. It's basically for figurine collectors and industry usage.
I have a rigidbot and found out that the main thing about owning a 3d printer is you have to be good at fixing things.They are hard to get working properly as there are lots of things that can go wrong and you need the ability to identify and fix all these problems.One you have it working properly though you can produce some cool stuff.I like to do cosplay and it's come in useful for alot of the props.
That did take me about 90 hours to print.
That did take me about 90 hours to print.
What will be the PS2 for 3D printers?
The next nintendo console will let you print Amiibos
Poodlestrike
Banned
The big industrial one at the company I worked at worked the same way. Real stupid stuff.
Ether_Snake
安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
They're not yet a consumer product, but a lot of hype was around that, so a lot of money poured in and was invested to that end without getting much results. So big allocations of R&D for the wrong end, now the companies stocks tanked massively due to overhype and to cut back.
It will come back eventually, but it's first and foremost about customization and being able to produce something that would otherwise be more expensive to buy premade and to ship (not many things).
One day it will be used for mass production, but not soon.
It will come back eventually, but it's first and foremost about customization and being able to produce something that would otherwise be more expensive to buy premade and to ship (not many things).
One day it will be used for mass production, but not soon.
Antonio Banderas
Banned
An average joe isn't gonna take advantage of the 3d printer because they find no use for it. Even if they do print something out, some post processing effort is needed to make the print look good. No average consumer wants to put in effort to do 3d modelling, tinkering and calibration the printer,troubleshooting and applying post processing. Always assume the average consumer is dumb and wants easy effortless convenience, a 3d printer offers none of those
CapNBritain
Member
This thread led me to discover heroforge.com and create minis for my entire D&D party. I really, really want to get them for the group but I'm scared of the quality. Still, it's pretty awesome.
I picked up a printrbot, for about $500,
The poor mans 3d printer.
(Mine was the laser cut wood one you assemble yourself, but have since added printed parts to it.)
I would not recommend it unless you can assemble the thing confidently, and don't mind always tweaking stuff. (of which i am ok with)
Otherwise it is cool little mostly novelty stuff, i have found some practical stuff to print out.
However creating stl files is not simple.
Configuring it to print properly is not simple.
Prints take sooooo many hours.
To properly finish a product you still need to polish and paint.
Coming home to an f'd up 8 hour print is not a happy thing.
The poor mans 3d printer.
(Mine was the laser cut wood one you assemble yourself, but have since added printed parts to it.)
I would not recommend it unless you can assemble the thing confidently, and don't mind always tweaking stuff. (of which i am ok with)
Otherwise it is cool little mostly novelty stuff, i have found some practical stuff to print out.
However creating stl files is not simple.
Configuring it to print properly is not simple.
Prints take sooooo many hours.
To properly finish a product you still need to polish and paint.
Coming home to an f'd up 8 hour print is not a happy thing.
Reverend Funk
Comfy Penetration
I can't wait to 3d print a computer and post on 3d printed neogaf.
Polioliolio
Member
They need to not produce a crusty ball of lines before I can really get interested.
johnFkennedy
Member
Until I can download schematics from Amazon directly to my 3D printer and have it "delivered" minutes later, then what's the point?
I use mine for rapid prototyping, it's great to be able to draw something up and print it to very accurate measurements. For a hobbiest designer it's a revelation.
I've done very little in the way of decorative pieces and have yet to try any of the post processing techniques like acetone vapouring for ABS. ABS is generally hard to print with anyway and stinks whilst printing so I tend to avoid it.
I've done very little in the way of decorative pieces and have yet to try any of the post processing techniques like acetone vapouring for ABS. ABS is generally hard to print with anyway and stinks whilst printing so I tend to avoid it.
Lol garbage.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I agree with everything you say up until the bolded. As an industrial designer they are revolutionary for product development. I can't imagine going back to not having rapid on demand prototyping inhouse. Its basically the one application where they are changing the face of things (note that I'm talking about actual decent printers here, not Makerbot garbage)
Pretty much this. We're a small engineering and manufacturing firm in the UK. We use it 3 or 4 times a week for rapid prototyping prior to production or to print jigs to aid in manufacture. We have a replicator 2 with a few mods and I have a few engineers to drive it.
MidgarBlowedUp
Member
They aren't a huge deal because my schlong hasn't been scanned in yet.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Well, sure; but my point is how does the average person interact with industrial designers and prototyping? Not really at all. Like, CAD tools were a massive boon to industrial designers for the same reason. But I wouldn't say CAD tools became a "huge deal" to society at large because the increased efficiency behind the scenes didn't really change what they got, it maybe just helped keep costs down or profits up.
Muppet of a Man
Member
Some of these have already been mentioned, but here is a list of limitations for current consumer model 3d printers:
-relatively expensive (barrier to purchase)
-difficult to program Computerized Numerical Control (CNC) machinery tool paths (i.e., not straightforward to take your 3d CAD or CAM design and translate it into a physical part; highly-manual, non-automated process to do so in most cases, especially for complex designs)
-consumer 3d printers are slow
-consumer 3d printers are low resolution
-consumer 3d printers can only create relatively small parts (i.e., small printing area)
-consumer 3d printers usually only print in 1 medium with poor mechanical and thermal properties (i.e., can't build parts out of different materials and materials used are of poor quality).
Until these problems are solved, your Jetson's future will just have to wait.
-relatively expensive (barrier to purchase)
-difficult to program Computerized Numerical Control (CNC) machinery tool paths (i.e., not straightforward to take your 3d CAD or CAM design and translate it into a physical part; highly-manual, non-automated process to do so in most cases, especially for complex designs)
-consumer 3d printers are slow
-consumer 3d printers are low resolution
-consumer 3d printers can only create relatively small parts (i.e., small printing area)
-consumer 3d printers usually only print in 1 medium with poor mechanical and thermal properties (i.e., can't build parts out of different materials and materials used are of poor quality).
Until these problems are solved, your Jetson's future will just have to wait.
the idea behind them is amazing and the future of the tech will be something to see but honestly at the consumer level right now the applications are just not all that interesting. Until I can print something useful to my daily life, who cares? Honestly the only thing I can think of to print right now would be shitty amiibo/figurine replicas or expensive specialty LEGO pieces
Pagusas
Elden Member
Great chart, this line of thought works so well with tech.
I want one, but I don't? Only thing I can think of that i'd PERSONALLY use them for is to print cool video game figurines. And even then, the tech isn't good enough to print at an acceptable quality at a price I can afford. Maybe one day. They ARE neat, just not neat enough yet. Commercial/industrial applications are way better than household, imo.
Print time was ~8 hours at 50 micron layer height. The fact that it's tall hurts a lot here. I could print shorter parts of similar volume much faster.
Material cost was IDK, maybe about $10 including supports?
Just curious, is it possible to print it laying down?
Admiral Woofington
Member
I remember watching a video of a guy who 3d printed a working gun. He put metal pieces on it so it would still be detectable but the thought of this becoming affordable to the general population to that degree of quality, and finding the instructions for 3d printing and assembling your gun is terrifying.
Onlinehero
Member
I know a guy that built his own printer in 2012. Back then his most impressive feat was a stand to hold his phone so he could watch porn.
My machine's build volume it taller than it is wide, I don't know that it would print laying down.
But I printed it in a pretty close to upright orientation for reasons having to do with the support structure. For many geometries parts printed on SLA machines require a support scaffolding that looks like this:
Where the ball is the actual model being printed and the supports are everything else. At the locations where the supports connect you'll end up with a bit of an imperfection when you remove the support, which you may which to sand off or otherwise hide with post printing finishing work.
In the case of the Samus figurine I printed it in a near upright position, that I could connect most of the supports to the bottom of the base and then the rest of the model would get most of it's support from the layers below them. This minimizes the number of supports connecting to locations that would actually be visible when displayed.
Jeronimo Jones
Member
What would the average person even be making with this expensive advanced technology? Lopsided coasters?
The Shadow
Member
In my field (healthcare education), they're great for scanning someone's brain or heart or whatever and printing it out to get an idea of what's wrong with that organ. On the IT side, I could see it being useful for printing custom adapters. There's been a few times I've cracked or someone cracked a small plastic casing to some electronic bit, and a 3D printer could just print a new casing.
But relatively speaking, they're just not going to be that big of a deal for the average person. Yes, people could design their own keychains or lanyards or whatever (ignoring the 3D design aspect entirely, which is time consuming and error-prone), but given the cost of the printers and medium, plus the time it takes to print even the simplest thing, means that there just isn't any use outside of the workplace right now.
But relatively speaking, they're just not going to be that big of a deal for the average person. Yes, people could design their own keychains or lanyards or whatever (ignoring the 3D design aspect entirely, which is time consuming and error-prone), but given the cost of the printers and medium, plus the time it takes to print even the simplest thing, means that there just isn't any use outside of the workplace right now.
Ecto311
Member
Searched and found very little. Can't believe there isn't a dedicated 3d printing thread on here or that I could find.
Got a maker select from amazon a few days ago and this thing is amazing. I am printing all kinds of shit and it all looks decent. Not skylander detail or quality but can be closer with some mods. The printer was $350 on amazon. There are mods to print to make it even better. Considering the comments in this post it isn't that long ago this thread was made and even the monoprice maker mini is $199 (smaller print area) but works great out of the box judging by the forums and reviews. The maker select is a rebrand by monoprice of the Prusa i3. It's like the honda of printers. Decent out of the box but with mods does some fantastic work.
Tons of online resources to print things for free or modify other objects to fit your needs. Even my 6yr old is designing things in tinkercad and wanting to make a 3d print of her self with the 123d app on her iPad.
Got a maker select from amazon a few days ago and this thing is amazing. I am printing all kinds of shit and it all looks decent. Not skylander detail or quality but can be closer with some mods. The printer was $350 on amazon. There are mods to print to make it even better. Considering the comments in this post it isn't that long ago this thread was made and even the monoprice maker mini is $199 (smaller print area) but works great out of the box judging by the forums and reviews. The maker select is a rebrand by monoprice of the Prusa i3. It's like the honda of printers. Decent out of the box but with mods does some fantastic work.
Tons of online resources to print things for free or modify other objects to fit your needs. Even my 6yr old is designing things in tinkercad and wanting to make a 3d print of her self with the 123d app on her iPad.
beat
Member
If I had a 10 year old kid and a middle-class-ish finite amount of money, I prob wouldn't spend a chunk of that on a makerbot type 3D printer. There are probably better arguments for buying them sculpy clay, or sugru, or classes, or a Cintiq, even. Or a handful of arduinos and LEDs.
killer rin
Member
Because while the technology is absolutely amazing, it is still in its infancy what with it being incredibly expensive for the layman and all.
Give it 5 more years.
Give it 5 more years.
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