your thoughts on 3-D printing?

[missilemaster]

  Hey guys, I was watching something the other day about what they can do with 3-D printing now: metals, plastics, rubbers even food(if you want to call it that). I know the guys on here are craftsman and a few of you have jobs in manufacturing. I was just wondering how you viewed this sort of technology. Good, bad, job creating, job reducing?

[Danzn Bar]

Cody,
If your talking about it at the home/hobbyist level......I think it's going to make the true craftmans work rarer and more expensive.

As far as, industrial......I know gun manufactures are using it now and its like everything else, it will have it's place.  Everyone, back when the laser cutting was new thought it was the best, now there is water jetting, which cuts just about everything from, plastics to 6" thk steel.

Only time and the correct application will tell.
JIMO......DBar

[Pat B]

I heard a story on NPR the other day about NASA studying the use of 3D printers to build spare parts for spaceships while in space. With their work leaning towards Mars parts will have to be manufactured on site because of the distance from earth. I can see practical uses for 3D printers on earth also.

[TRACY]

A friend that works at GE in Louisville uses one daily to fab parts for research appliances. He told that a training he went to they spoke about making artificial hearts alongside spare car parts! Time will tell.

[neuse]

I wish I had money to invest in this new technology.

[JoJoDapyro]

There has also been a few stories of people buying one, and printing another and taking the first back. I would love to have one, but I already have a bunch of tools/toys I don't use. My vinyl cutter being the most unused.

[Peacebow_Coos]

Don't like it 

[Del the cat]

Its a great way of getting an actual part in your hands.
All this CAD and simulation is fine, but you can't beat having the part in your hand.
There are all the Bullshine quality initiatives like "Right first time" that's just hogwash.
I created my own spoof version "WAQAP" !
"Wrong As Quick As Possible"... it's deliberately contentious but there is a big element of truth... that why we've always made prototypes. Especially in these days of vast production quantities... you can't just go straight into production.

I work in electronics (semi retired) and I hate surface mount components with a passion 'cos you have to order large quantities of boards to be cost effective... so It goes like this.
I design and lay out a board.
I want a couple of prototypes for proving, but the manufacturer will charge a fortune and says it's as cheap to build 100 as to build 2.
So we order 100....
So there's a couple of minor errors and I get it in the neck because we have to re-work or scrap 100 boards .
Is rapid prototyping a good idea?
You bet!
Sorry I rambled on there... you can see why I'll be retiring next year and why I prefer making bows!

Heck while I'm rambling I'll tell you my pet mechanical design hate.
Plastic injection molded parts with spring fingers that are not tapered ...
The designers wonder why they snap off at the root. They have no taper, no fade...
These guys have never made a bow!
Del

[Parnell]

I understand they are already printing working hearts using stem cells.  I wonder when they will be able to print me a new eye!

I think about how stunning prosthetic devices will continue to become.  More human than human...

[RBLusthaus]

did I read somewhere that they are now able to print metal free, aka metal detector invisible, guns?

[Danzn Bar]

Hey Cody,
Got to know, why you asked.......
DBar

[JacksonCash]

I created my own spoof version "WAQAP" !
"Wrong As Quick As Possible"... it's deliberately contentious but there is a big element of truth... that why we've always made prototypes. Especially in these days of vast production quantities... you can't just go straight into production.

I really like this. We had a saying where I used to work - if you are going to fail, do it quickly.

did I read somewhere that they are now able to print metal free, aka metal detector invisible, guns?

There was a gun that was created by some folks in Texas. The plans are there - still needed a metal firing pin. Honestly, the parts could have been made by standard plastics molding machines - it would just cost a heck of a lot more. An Australian(I believe) police department tried making one to assess it, and it failed quite quickly.


At my last job we had been using 3D printing for about a year before I left. We were making tooling for robots to pack freshly molded pharmecutical bottles into cases to be shipped to the pharma companies to be filled up. They had very strict rules on contamination. Well, we'd pick 4 to 15 bottles at a time - this meant a lot of hardware. Figure two fastners per side of the gripper per bottle: 4x30=120 pieces of hardware that have a possibility of falling into the bottles. Thats with threaded holes. Add nuts and you get 240. We contracted a company that used a powder sintering process instead of the extruded stuff consumer printers do. We could make the same gripper in two pieces, at a third of our cost and we actually got it faster from across the country than we got the old style from our machine shop. This made any changes the customer required due to their customer's demands much easier to implement, and cheaper for everyone all around.

This company could give us nylon, glass filled nylon(very very stiff), a variety of plastics and rubbers, and stainless steel.

I really think these machines have some great capabilities, but they aren't simple plug and play machines yet. There are a lot of different technologies under the banner of 3D printing, extruded plastic being the most common, sintering, and some crazy UV curing liquid that a guy made a printer to use - made the printer out of some mirrors, uv laser, servos and the soundcard on his laptop. I think it was called peach printer?

There has also been a few stories of people buying one, and printing another and taking the first back. I would love to have one, but I already have a bunch of tools/toys I don't use. My vinyl cutter being the most unused.

There is a 3d printer known as RepRap that was designed to replicate most of it's own parts. The idea being that anyone who owned one could become a distributor. It is interesting, A friend of mine built one. He said by the time he got the bugs out and got a decent print he was above the cost of the low-end industry leading printers. A very interesting open source project though.

Oh boy, all that and I don't even own one of the beasts.

[caveman2533]

I work in a foundry and we have used it for making actual patterns not just prototypes. I believe in the future it will be the standard manufacturing process.