3D Printing is for more than making brightly colored plastic pieces of crap

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/3DPrintingIsForSoMuchMoreThanJustMakingBrightlyColoredPlasticPiecesOfCrap.aspx

by ingve • 11 years ago

68 53 11 years ago

hanselman.com

vernie• 11 years ago

(All images were of brightly colored plastic pieces of crap)

tlarkworthy• 11 years ago

that were really expensive.

amalag2• 11 years ago

I've made dishes, vases, pieces of art for shelves, and geometric shapes for gifts this Christmas.

He is gifting his fancier plastic to others and they are now gifts.

collyw• 11 years ago

One thing I imagine them being useful for would be a repairs shop. When you break something, go to the shop, the guy can take measurements and print you a new part. (A hinged flap on an ex-girlfriends DVD player that I broke comes to mind - it cost almost as much for me to get he part replaced as buying a new one, as the shop had to get the part through official dealers.)

MCompeau• 11 years ago

I run a small company that specializes in digital fabrication technologies like 3D printing. We’ve been in business for about 3 years now with moderate success. During that time, the progress I’ve witnessed in 3D printing technologies has been extremely disappointing. Meanwhile, our studio’s laser cutters do 10x the business of our 3D printers.

When desktop 3D printing was hitting the mainstream media in a big way a couple of years ago, the message was about how the technology was revolutionary and you could construct anything you could imagine at the press of the button. The public ate this message up, while industry insiders knew it couldn’t be further from the truth - of course that didn’t stop them from riding the frothy crest of the hype wave, further fueling the public’s misconceptions about the technology.

In the intervening 2 or 3 years, consumer desktop 3D printing technology hasn’t improved in any meaningful way. Most desktop FDM printers (the kind you’ve mostly likely seen that extrude a thin bead of melted plastic), are no better than the early Makerbot Replicator launched in 2012. They’re still slow, fairly user hostile (require a great deal of maintenance/calibration to get consistent results) and have many limitations regarding the types of geometries they are able to print due to limitations in support material.

The machines available at the consumer scale just aren’t capable of making truly useful parts. This is why there is a glut of green Yoda heads, and machines collecting dust on the back shelves of trendy digital agencies. This isn’t to discredit the minority of scrappy makers who are willing to work within the limitations of the equipment for novel projects - but for the larger public there just isn’t a ‘killer app’ for this type of device, beyond plastic trinkets.

The industrial/commercial scale printers are certainly much more capable. But like other types of manufacturing equipment, the development of these technologies is slow, mired by patents and driven by stakeholders who have no interest in cannibalizing sales of their expensive product lines by offering affordable consumer versions at a fraction of the price.

There are amazing things happening at the frontiers of digital fabrication. Laser cutting and CNC machining technologies are becoming much more affordable and easier to use for a wide variety of designers and engineers. For most applications these types of machines are infinitely more useful than 3D printers. They are providing an avenue for prototyping, short run production and the mass-customization of products to segments of designers and entrepreneurs who could never have afforded them previously. It’s almost a shame that the crappy desktop 3D printer has become the poster child for a much more varied and robust ecosystem of digital manufacturing technology.

bsder• 11 years ago

CNC machining technologies are becoming much more affordable and easier to use

I disagree with this. The first level of decent CNC machines has been in the $7,000-$10,000 range for quite some time now. As they generally require 3-phase power and flood liquid (generally something which requires a non-trivial MSDS) over the part being cut, they require a dedicated space in a relatively dedicated shop. The "rent" to house the machine exceeds the cost of the machine very quickly.

I would rather have an affordable SLS machine which could print nylon.

sokoloff• 11 years ago

Rotary phase convertors or variable frequency drives can efficiently (enough) create 3-phase power from single-phase power, so that's no barrier to even serious home users. I know several people with CNC-converted mills/lathes in their garage/home shop.

marshray3• 11 years ago

I print nylon in my consumer grade FDM printer and the result is outstanding. Something about the way nylon fuses together gives it a really solid feel and nice surface finish.

jdietrich5• 11 years ago

In all seriousness, when did schools stop teaching shop class?

I'm not that old, but at school I learned to measure and mark, to drill and tap, to saw and file. If I want a quadcopter frame, I'll cut it from a sheet of aluminum or CFRP. I'll need nothing more than a hacksaw, a file and a hand drill. In less time than it takes for a 3D printer to warm up, I'll have a stiffer, stronger and lighter frame than could be produced by a consumer 3D printer.

If you want to make stuff, I urge you not to waste your time with 3D printing. Learn the basic skills of woodwork or metalwork. It isn't hard and the tools aren't expensive. Despite endless pleas to the contrary, FDM machines will only ever produce tchotchkes.

If cheap DMLS machines ever hit the market then I'll be first in line. Until then, no amount of clever technology will overcome the basic materials science that prevents FDM machines from being useful.

blackguardx• 11 years ago

I wholeheartedly agree. I think part of it has to do with the "everyone must go to college" movement that looks down upon manual labor and blue collar jobs. People have that yearning to build (or "make") something but don't even think of using hand tools.

marshray3• 11 years ago

Realistically it takes my 3D printer about 90 seconds to warm up and while it's printing I can be doing other things.

I, too, love manual subtractive fabrication. But while the tools are not necessarily that expensive, they do take up far more space on the shop bench. While I'm temporarily an apartment dweller, I just don't have the space to set up my lathe or a mill.

The technologies are perfectly complementary. For example, often I'll 3D print something with undersized holes and then drill and tap them to size.

manyxcxi• 11 years ago

To a degree this is true, but a perfect example I just ran into today is this: I've got 3 sonar range finders to mount on my robot chassis which has been made from aluminum- I could painstakingly hand craft three holders out of wood or metal, spending at least an hour or two per holder, or I can find a model on the Internet, modify it to fit my application and print all three at once in under 90 minutes. You shouldn't be 3D printing everything, but it is INCREDIBLY useful for small part fabrication.

snarfy• 11 years ago

At the end of the day, a 3D printer is just another tool in the shop. It has its place like all the other tools, but it doesn't replace them. Some objects are more appropriate in plastic and easier to design and print than machine. I use my 3d printer all the time, for useful objects I design.

Fordrus3• 11 years ago

I took shop class, I made a chess board that I remain proud of to this day, and I used a metal lathe CNC to make chess pieces- also, a really lovely decorative shelf.

And I just can't disagree with you strongly enough.

Just recently, using the MakerBot2 at my university library, I was able to replace this: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1nePU5mz8Z4/maxresdefault.jpg. (The large, central gear that overlaps the metal framework close to the screwdriver). (I got this Jumping Sumo Drone for free in a broken state, and 3D printed the central gear for less than 4 dollars, and that's with a 300% markup on materials to use the school's 3D printer)

Now, I know that it'd be hard to merely repair the damage, or remake that gear from scratch because I spent several weeks and a lot of spare time trying. The 3D printed gear has stood up repeatedly to the same behavior the originally broke the central gear (attempting a jump on a soft surface), and is still going strong despite my having let my nieces and nephews run the battery down half a dozen times over Thanksgiving break (I want them to be excited to robotics, programming, etc.- I figured if they broke the free Sumo I had fixed, it would be a worthy sacrifice- incidentally, I didn't actually mean to test the jump on a soft surface again and specifically warned them against it, but- ah- well- they average age 9 right now, I knew shenanigans would ensue when I set out! :) )

Some parts are really hard to make, 3D printers help a lot. Don't you cheapen that, jdietrich, 3D printing is a fantastic stride for makers everywhere, and the materials science is an obstacle made of tissue paper- as in, we're already blowing through it handily. I don't know what you're printing with, but I'm already making more than tchotchkies, and I am dang glad I didn't encounter your sentiment before I tried it myself.

jdietrich5• 11 years ago

I might have been too negative, but only by a hair. FDM printers do have their uses, but it's a very niche technology that is difficult and time-consuming to learn. Lots of really cheap and easy fabrication methods are almost totally ignored by the maker community, while 3D printing is put forward as the glimmering future of manufacturing.

Your story is very positive, but it falls a long way short of justifying the purchase of an expensive machine and the investment of many days of effort in learning how to use it. How many people have a burning need to produce hundreds of dollars worth of spare parts for toys?

the materials science is an obstacle made of tissue paper- as in, we're already blowing through it handily. I don't know what you're printing with

I've seen test results from the absolute best case scenario - professionally designed parts printed on a $200k Stratasys machine using ULTEM 1010. The material properties just about match injection molded ABS. Parts made on consumer machines using ABS or PLA filament are generally an order of magnitude worse.

Tepix• 11 years ago

Nice, did you put the 3d model of the gear on Thingiverse? To me, the access to a large database of useful 3d objects that you can print easily is another huge advantage of 3d printers.

lmm• 11 years ago

I'm thinking if I want to spend a bit of money on a computer-controlled making gadget I'd probably do better with a laser cutter. That covers a lot of cases (e.g. a gear should be just as easy on one of those as with a 3D printer, right?), and my impression is that the people I know with those tend to make more useful things than those with 3D printers, largely because of the material flexibility. Am I missing something?

mcslick12• 11 years ago

You can't drill a curved hole.

schwap• 11 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_mill ?

jdietrich5• 11 years ago

It's trivial to drill gently curved holes in wood using a Forstner bit or a suitably shaped spade bit. You can cut the workpiece in half, rout or mill a curved channel in both halves and fasten the two halves back together. You can use a curved electrode with electrochemical or electrical discharge machining. Of course, the best option is to design the part without a curved hole in the first place.

njharman2• 11 years ago

To me that sounds like I should do math and figure things out on paper instead of writing a program to do it for me. Fuck that noise.

I'm no artist, have no skill, little manual dexterity. I basically suck in every physical way. But I am powerful because I know how to get machines to do my bidding.

jdietrich5• 11 years ago

This sort of comment is exactly why I rag on 3D printing. A 3D printer isn't a magical tchotchke machine, it's a shop tool. You need knowledge and skill to design a part and successfully print it.

You can learn an awful lot of practical making skills in the time it takes to get to the 3D printing equivalent of "hello world".

hippich• 11 years ago

It took me at least 6 prototypes to get everything right and get this as a result - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B019JK8AQM

And by prototype I am not saying just slightly different positions of pieces, but rather different designs. I would be dead tired at the time i am working on 3rd prototype using "drill, tap, saw and file" :) And I would certainly not be able to share design online or sell it.

There is place for these tools, and there is place for 3D printer tool.

Htsthbjig2• 11 years ago

Do you have a 3d printer? If you don't have, your urging advice is pointless.

I know how to measure, drill and tap, saw and file. Everything you said I do, and do well, and probably much better than you do.

I have also lots of 3d printers, I volunteer to teach children the basic making techniques and also 3d printers.

One of the best thing of 3d printers is printing tools. I can print a vice accessory so I could adapt a 6 euro vice to aluminium plates.

Doing so with only metal will take 8 times the work and time. I could design a piece and multiply it by 100, and not spend 100x the time doing it, the 3d printer as a robot does it.

My professional jigsaw machine's motor died, so I replaced it with the entire assembly of a hand drill tool that I bought for 1/10 the price the original manufacturer asked me. I designed and 3d printed the support-adapter to the saw in ABS and aluminium. It took me 2 hours cutting and reusing the old axis in the new machine. The original motor had to be imported and was very expensive to transport because f the volume and weight.

Now the machine works much better, as the motor weights 6 times less, is smaller, is inverter, with variable velocity, and more powerful.

I 3d print my own 3d presses and my own CNC machine: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:724999

I also use 3d printers for prototyping parts in plastic before they are in metal. I only cut small pieces myself, it takes a lot of time to do it manually,and I have great tools.

I send it to laser or water cutting, but the design must be perfect before sending and 3d printers are great tools for that.

"Until then, no amount of clever technology will overcome the basic materials science that prevents FDM machines from being useful."

Until then, your prejudices will blind you.

Lots of the great things of 3d printers have nothing to do with technology, but with people.

I teach children, and every one of them could create as I do. I teach them the jigsaw hack and the next week they surprise me with their own hacks, inspired by me but done entirely by them.

Not only that, but I can download their designs and replicate it with zero effort, I just press "print" and go take a nap, when I wake up, the thing is done.

Is an incredible tool for collaboration.

sklogic2• 11 years ago

3D printing is great for molds (lost plastic / lost wax process), for the things you won't be able to make with your simple tools. It is also great for making and adapting tools.

theCodeStig• 11 years ago

Brightly colored pieces of crap echoes my sentiments exactly. Eventually they'll end up in the trash; only take up space in a landfill, or end up in an ocean gyre. I don't doubt the utility of some of the "exotic filaments", but these are even less recyclable (or biodegradable compared to PLA). The only useful example he gives is a quadcopter. The majority will just print stainless steel Yoda heads, and fractal vases, that sea life will choke on.

ipsin• 11 years ago

It's hard for me to see the case for owning your own 3D printer, unless that's the hobby.

There's no point in having the printer until I have something I want to print, if I want to print something, there are commercial services that can do it for me.

If I understand the pricing, I'd have to print a lot of pieces before a printer paid for itself.

efnx• 11 years ago

Sometimes it's a matter of time, not money. If you're prototyping a complicated set of parts you'll quickly find that ordering parts from a service results in a days long development cycle instead of minutes. I print many small pieces each day and my designs change fast enough that ordering from a service just doesn't make sense.

vdewillem2• 11 years ago

If your ROI is very important, than letting someone print is probably the best way.

Most 3d print owners print for other people and ask a small fee. Enough so they can buy materials in more colours etc. I make about 200$ revenue like that a year.

kbob• 11 years ago

From the comments here, it looks like 3D printing has hit the trough of the hype cycle.

Nonetheless, I'm a fan.

I've designed and printed about a dozen objects in the last week. None of them are world changing, all of them could have been made some other way, and none of them are high strength or high precision. Some of them had to be postprocessed with an X-Acto knife. (-: But it's darned convenient to spend a few minutes drawing CAD, then an hour (or two hours) later have a part good enough to solve my immediate problem.

pen2l• 11 years ago

We've reached the trough of the hype cycle for FDM 3d-printing. A new hype cycle is for different branches of 3d-printing will happen soon (CLIP, multi-color printing, etc.). Plateau of productivity is like ~8 years away I think, when someone finally comes out with a nice machine that makes it all possible elegantly in one machine.

evanscottgray• 11 years ago

The USAF currently has planes flying with 3D printed parts that serve an important purpose!

rasz_pl• 11 years ago

lesson 1: 3d printing is about ... upgrading your printer?

The best use case for personal 3d printing I found is RPG board gaming. Custom D&D miniatures, battle maps, even crazy fancy dice (sometimes weighted to annoy friends).

ChuckMcM• 11 years ago

Interesting discussion. Reminds me of the "why would I ever want a computer?" discussion I got from folks back when I was in High School when I showed them a computer I had assembled from a kit.

And realistically they didn't need a computer ever, they needed a smart phone. Although for a while they used a computer and complained bitterly that it required too much maintenance and had a steep learning curve.

So here we are in the 3D printer 'nadir', the period of time between hype and wide spread adoption. The thing is, 3D printers have gotten much better since the first rep raps were trying to print their own parts. And with that has come more applications, and with that more fun. A 3D printer is the ultimate expression of a Lego set these days.

Once I had internalized what I could do, which I could not do before, the number of things I started printing went up dramatically. And so much has been learned and developed in terms of how to best fabricate things in this way that what used to be hit or miss can now be rock solid. For example I doubt I will ever buy a project case for a gizmo ever again. Holders, jigs, struts and braces, all are "need one? print one" these days. But if you aren't a maker, if you didn't write any code on any laptop you owned, if you really just want someone else to do the fabrication, then yes they are not for you at this time, you'll still use a service. But that will change, I hope a bit faster than it has, the first 10 years have not moved along as fast I would have liked.

onion2k• 11 years ago

A 3D printer is the ultimate expression of a Lego set these days.

That's a good analogy, but I believe it's why 3D printing won't be mainstream. The explosion in the popularity of Lego models recently is in the brilliant professional designs with commercial licensing that Lego come up with. Designing and making your own Lego models is popular among kids as it always has been, but adults don't do it. For an adult a Lego set is a 3D jigsaw puzzle. There's zero interest in making your own ideas.

Animats• 11 years ago

There is progress. I see the 3D printers at TechShop making useful stuff now. TechShop has had filament-type 3D printers around for about five years, but few people got beyond the Yoda head. Now the newer units are producing useful parts. They also have access to services with better 3D printers.

sklogic2• 11 years ago

The real game-changer is yet to happen. The missing bits of technology are printing the circuits (embedding the wiring, ideally with something more conductive than a paste or conductive ink) and combining a robotic, CV-guided pick and place with 3D-printing for adding non-printable components to the designs.

Once we're there, an entire design and production process can be heavily automated.

fit2rule• 11 years ago

The missing technology is the ability to grind the old plastic junk into re-usable filament and re-use the material for new plastic junk. Give me a 3D printer that has a funnel on top for pouring in the old crap, and you've got a customer ..

jakeogh• 11 years ago

These exist: http://www.filabot.com/collections/filabot-core

vdewillem2• 11 years ago

I've been 3d printing for over 5 years now and launching a 3d printing education site http://start-to-print.com. Here are some of the pain points we hear a lot.

3d printing is expensive

- You can have something 3d printed the size of a tennis ball for 5-10 euro's at 3dhubs.com. You save 10 euro on shipment compared to shapeways and you'll have your object in 2 days rather tan 2 weeks.

It's complicated

- Well the first thing I 3d printed wasn't something I designed myself but was something I found online. Chances are that somebody already created the thing you were looking for. - Even after 200 models I still curse when I try a new (supposed super easy) modelling tool. But hey they are free now and you can find lots of video tutorials. Like me you're probably a fast learner. It's more taking the first step to spend an evening on it.

Desktop 3d printers suck

- Until 2 weeks even I had that impression, but since I bought my 3rd: a 2,000 dollar Zortrax M200 I changed my mind. I'm all into open-source but this thing is really plug and play and take away a lot of the hazzle I had before. Even my wife can start a print now. So far it's been printing for 50 hours and 25 model with zero print failures. I't no longer kickstarterish.

There are better alternatives

- Yes. But 3d printing it's just a good fit for me. I'm a software engineer, I just like to work digital and I'm very lazy. Often I can just download it and print.

The 3d printing hype is over

- Yes, but 500k-1M free 3d models on thingiverse.com is REAL. My 2000 Zortrax printer really works well and is what I was hoping 3d printing would be like.

laughinghan• 11 years ago

Summary:

"OK, how many brightly colored plastic pieces of crap do I really need in my life?"

I've learned three things.

Lesson 1 - You can print upgrades to your 3D printer

Lesson 2 - You can print brightly colored non-plastic pieces of crap

Lesson 3 - You can print and then assemble brightly colored plastic pieces of crap

beyti• 11 years ago

Exactly what I get from the read, eventhough I'm a hanselman fan, couldn't find anything usefull here.

legulere• 11 years ago

So instead of brightly colored plastic pieces of crap you can also make dark coloured plastic pieces of crap?

I see very few things in my life where plastic makes sense, except because it's cheap when mass-manufactured. I actually would like to reduce the amount of plastic in my life.

One advantage of 3D printers is that you can repair parts that have broken down and can't be bought again. But with plastics you can usually only repair broken plastic parts - maybe you shouldn't have bought a cheap plastic thing that breaks down fast in the first place.

3D printers are a tool with very limited use cases where they make sense.

Htsthbjig2• 11 years ago

"But with plastics you can usually only repair broken plastic parts - maybe you shouldn't have bought a cheap plastic thing that breaks down fast in the first place."

That's what I believed when I started. But you can "print" a CNC machine and make pieces in aluminum, copper or bronze.

I do it routinely. The CNC uses very similar components to the 3d printer.

In fact, you are not printing lots of metal components, like the steel bars. But those things are commodities and incredibly inexpensive.

The best thing you can do is find a maker community so you don't need to have all the tools yourself, but can share it. My CNC is not in my house, but in a maker space. I only use it for like 5% of the time. Giving it away I can use other's people tools(and expertise) for free.

loup-vaillant• 11 years ago

I currently work for a company that makes small drones (quad-copters and flying wings), and they use 3D printing for many parts. This makes small-scale fabrication and prototyping much cheaper. The drones themselves take photos for various purposes. Mostly inspections and measurements.

Prior to this, I didn't know 3D printing had actual industrial applications.

draw_down• 11 years ago

I must say, I don't think the author made his point very well here. That stuff all looks like crap to me. That's ok, it just means it's still early days.

wlll• 11 years ago

I thought the same about 3d printing, I lazily didn't look past the trinkets and crap that was on show.

When I finally thought about the possibilities I realised there was probably a whole lot more potential, did some experimenting and ended up printing a robot (scroll down for the best pictures):

http://blog.willj.net/category/ping-pong-robot/

That's not the final design, I really need to update the site with the latest, but it shows what's possible.

amalag2• 11 years ago

I've made dishes, vases, pieces of art for shelves, and geometric shapes for gifts this Christmas.

So they are not crap, they are now gifts for others.

3D Printing is for more than making brightly colored plastic pieces of crap

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