"It will be awesome if they don't screw it up."

White paper on 3D printing.

I have seen footage of some of these in use, and if you think about the potential for a little while, you may start drooling. I've not personally used one of these, and though I have used a computer lathe and seen a 3D CAD lathe, the medium those work with aren't robust. At ~$1000 a pop, that's certainly not beyond the reach of shadetree programmers.

Yes, it's a long read. Don't whine.|||Shades of Star Trek replicators.


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The next great technological disruption is brewing just out of sight. In small workshops, and faceless office parks, and garages, and basements, revolutionaries are tinkering with machines that can turn digital bits into physical atoms. The machines can download plans for a wrench from the Internet and print out a real, working wrench. Users design their own jewelry, gears, brackets, and toys with a computer program, and use their machines to create real jewelry, gears, brackets, and toys.




The article seems more invested in the legalities of copyright/patent infringement than the technology itself. I don't understand where the raw material comes from for the 'printing', but dang if this isn't intriguing.|||Wake me up when it can print my dinner.|||Quote:








I don't understand where the raw material comes from for the 'printing', but dang if this isn't intriguing.




It appears that most 3D printers use liquid polymer. I don't know if there are other materials, though...

I doubt a wrench made out of liquid polymer would be of much use...

EDIT: There's also a powder based solution, it seems:

|||Personally I found that an enjoyable read and one that pertains to me quite well. I work as a drafter, and have gotten Autodesk Inventor 2011 LT at home. I can see both good and bad things coming from making your own things with this if the following claim becomes true:


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So what is 3D printing? Essentially, a 3D printer is a machine that can turn a blueprint into a physical object. Feed it a design for a wrench, and it produces a physical, working wrench. Scan a coffee mug with a 3D scanner, send the file to the printer, and produce thousands of identical mugs.




Some early pitfalls being quality of materials (not to mention cost). EDIT: What others have said basically sums this up, definitely not making a workable wrench or mug with the current technology. Whether this will ever be able to make items from metal is yet to be seen... I need to do some research.

Anyway, once the usable material issue is addressed, there is still the cost of said material. Which is generally more expensive when bought in small quantities, so larger businesses are still ahead of the little guys. I also fear cheap knock-offs becoming more popular if this does one day become workable, what is the tolerancing that 3D printers can generate atm, and what might they be possible of in the future? Will they ever be able to produce a good finish? Like I said before, I'm going to have to research this, thank you for bringing it to my attention, also going to check out Thingiverse.com which got a mention in the article.

Sorry if you wanted more a conversation on the legal issues with this, I don't get psyched about that as much as I do about the technology. My biggest fear is not about getting sued for violating a copyright/patent/trademark as it is that someone will start using it one day (definitely not in the near future though) to make guns or other illegal items.

Funny story, the company I work at once had a disgruntled ex-employee tell the cops we were making silencers for shotguns or something odd like that. I wasn't there at the time, but apparently there was an investigation, but it was eventually found to be a lie.

EDIT: Thanks Leonora for the youtube link, I looked at the video from printo3d.com and that impressed me a bit more than the other ones as the bearings actually did work. Went to the website and found a place where they mentioned tolerancing, which is on average +/-.005 and an expected tolerance of +/-.01 which well... it's ok for some things, but it isn't great. Hopefully they can work on this and get it down to an average of +/-.001 with an expected of .002. I could see it having a market if it was able to do that. It sounds like the surface finish still needs some work too, but no specifics were mentioned there so idk for sure.|||These things are pretty cool. Once you built one, it can print all the plastic parts for the next one. It can also be modded to embed wire.

I came across this a few days ago: http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2...ly-3d-printing|||That car that B.E. cited is cool too, but again the tensile limits of the media are going to remain a concern for a while. Still, when you think about the strengths of polymers, it certainly seems like the potential exists.


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Sorry if you wanted more a conversation on the legal issues with this, I don't get psyched about that as much as I do about the technology.




Oh, I didn't intend for this thread to go anywhere in particular; I'm just fascinated by the potential and at the same time find myself in league with the Pirate Party regarding the legal aspects.

Another fascinating field along these lines is the concept of limited nanotech or bio-engineering. The sort of concept where you put some worms in your feedstock of contaminated dirt and come back to a low wall, or drop some on a particular stone you want removed and it turns to dust in a couple of days.|||Jay Leno has been using 3D printers for years now to get the parts for his custom cars which are no longer in production.

I watched a documentary on it last festive season. Some pretty snazzy things they can do now.

I remember when I met my wife in 2001 I was showing her a piece ZDNet UK had on the potential for 3d printers - how it'd be handy for cutlery and making spare copies of keys.

It's gone WAY beyond that now into practical linked models - bizarre!

-Art|||I wonder if we'll see 3D piracy now as well. Because if you can for example print your own action figures, why would you still buy them? All you need is a 3D scan of an object and you can print anything.|||The material used would set it apart. Craftsmanship would be another distinguishing characteristic. We've been able to scan and print the Mona Lisa with perfect fidelity for quite some time now, and it hasn't devalued the original.