3D Printing is going to be so freakin' huge. The applications for it are endless, and even today when we're just printing simple decorations, the demand for MakerBot stuff has spiked beyond all expectations. I'm very curious to see what this leads to in 20~ years time (and what kind of legal mess IP laws create with that kind of technology as certain businesses are threatened with extinction).
I can see it going two ways.
1. Corporate lawyers are slow, 3D printers become commonplace in every household before they realize what it means, people print stuff to their heart's delight, several businesses whose profits depend on otherwise simple plastic things being needlessly hard to get and expensive go bankrupt and no one misses them.
2. Corporate lawyers are fast, 3D printing is banned as terrorism (because terrorists could 3D print a bomb, what do we need to wait for another 9/11 before we ban this shit?), status quo is maintained, we all cry as corporations found yet another way to make our world an objectively worse place to live in for profit.
Alternatively, they become as common as regular printers are now and similarly the printer manufacturers collude to make printer cartridges stupidly expensive and proprietary.
There's no question in my mind that 3D printers will become as ubiquitous as today's standard inkjet/laser printers. I'm interested to know what people will mostly be making, but whatever it is, they'll sure be making it. Dinnerware? Drapes? Bulbs? Toys? Simple electronics? ...God forbid, complex electronics? Will people literally be printing-out their own desktop upgrades in 30~ years?
IP laws I think will almost certainly focus on licensing / controlling the templates. The ramifications of that are kind of troubling to me.
The floodgates would open fast. Even if they managed to finally lock down the Internet, you'd still have people passing around thumbdrives full of specification files.
My troubling thought about a future of 3D printing is that it could turn the global economy into one where the primary economic activity was resource extraction, in that the main global demand would be for raw materials for the printers. Resource extraction based economies tend to be almost universally corrupt and autocratic.
3D Printing is going to be so freakin' huge. The applications for it are endless, and even today when we're just printing simple decorations, the demand for MakerBot stuff has spiked beyond all expectations. I'm very curious to see what this leads to in 20~ years time (and what kind of legal mess IP laws create with that kind of technology as certain businesses are threatened with extinction).
I can see it going two ways.
1. Corporate lawyers are slow, 3D printers become commonplace in every household before they realize what it means, people print stuff to their heart's delight, several businesses whose profits depend on otherwise simple plastic things being needlessly hard to get and expensive go bankrupt and no one misses them.
2. Corporate lawyers are fast, 3D printing is banned as terrorism (because terrorists could 3D print a bomb, what do we need to wait for another 9/11 before we ban this shit?), status quo is maintained, we all cry as corporations found yet another way to make our world an objectively worse place to live in for profit.
Alternatively, they become as common as regular printers are now and similarly the printer manufacturers collude to make printer cartridges stupidly expensive and proprietary.
There's no question in my mind that 3D printers will become as ubiquitous as today's standard inkjet/laser printers. I'm interested to know what people will mostly be making, but whatever it is, they'll sure be making it. Dinnerware? Drapes? Bulbs? Toys? Simple electronics? ...God forbid, complex electronics? Will people literally be printing-out their own desktop upgrades in 30~ years?
IP laws I think will almost certainly focus on licensing / controlling the templates. The ramifications of that are kind of troubling to me.
The floodgates would open fast. Even if they managed to finally lock down the Internet, you'd still have people passing around thumbdrives full of specification files.
My troubling thought about a future of 3D printing is that it could turn the global economy into one where the primary economic activity was resource extraction, in that the main global demand would be for raw materials for the printers. Resource extraction based economies tend to be almost universally corrupt and autocratic.
...As opposed to the current economy, which is totally on the straight and narrow?
Bioengineer a plant that you can grow in your backyard that produces 3D printer usable material in large quantities.
Don't know how workable that is though.
Jephery on
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
3D Printing is going to be so freakin' huge. The applications for it are endless, and even today when we're just printing simple decorations, the demand for MakerBot stuff has spiked beyond all expectations. I'm very curious to see what this leads to in 20~ years time (and what kind of legal mess IP laws create with that kind of technology as certain businesses are threatened with extinction).
I can see it going two ways.
1. Corporate lawyers are slow, 3D printers become commonplace in every household before they realize what it means, people print stuff to their heart's delight, several businesses whose profits depend on otherwise simple plastic things being needlessly hard to get and expensive go bankrupt and no one misses them.
2. Corporate lawyers are fast, 3D printing is banned as terrorism (because terrorists could 3D print a bomb, what do we need to wait for another 9/11 before we ban this shit?), status quo is maintained, we all cry as corporations found yet another way to make our world an objectively worse place to live in for profit.
Alternatively, they become as common as regular printers are now and similarly the printer manufacturers collude to make printer cartridges stupidly expensive and proprietary.
There's no question in my mind that 3D printers will become as ubiquitous as today's standard inkjet/laser printers. I'm interested to know what people will mostly be making, but whatever it is, they'll sure be making it. Dinnerware? Drapes? Bulbs? Toys? Simple electronics? ...God forbid, complex electronics? Will people literally be printing-out their own desktop upgrades in 30~ years?
IP laws I think will almost certainly focus on licensing / controlling the templates. The ramifications of that are kind of troubling to me.
The floodgates would open fast. Even if they managed to finally lock down the Internet, you'd still have people passing around thumbdrives full of specification files.
My troubling thought about a future of 3D printing is that it could turn the global economy into one where the primary economic activity was resource extraction, in that the main global demand would be for raw materials for the printers. Resource extraction based economies tend to be almost universally corrupt and autocratic.
Their only hope would be to restrict access to the physical portion of it. Locking down the designs would work about as well as locking down mp3s
3D Printing is going to be so freakin' huge. The applications for it are endless, and even today when we're just printing simple decorations, the demand for MakerBot stuff has spiked beyond all expectations. I'm very curious to see what this leads to in 20~ years time (and what kind of legal mess IP laws create with that kind of technology as certain businesses are threatened with extinction).
I can see it going two ways.
1. Corporate lawyers are slow, 3D printers become commonplace in every household before they realize what it means, people print stuff to their heart's delight, several businesses whose profits depend on otherwise simple plastic things being needlessly hard to get and expensive go bankrupt and no one misses them.
2. Corporate lawyers are fast, 3D printing is banned as terrorism (because terrorists could 3D print a bomb, what do we need to wait for another 9/11 before we ban this shit?), status quo is maintained, we all cry as corporations found yet another way to make our world an objectively worse place to live in for profit.
Alternatively, they become as common as regular printers are now and similarly the printer manufacturers collude to make printer cartridges stupidly expensive and proprietary.
There's no question in my mind that 3D printers will become as ubiquitous as today's standard inkjet/laser printers. I'm interested to know what people will mostly be making, but whatever it is, they'll sure be making it. Dinnerware? Drapes? Bulbs? Toys? Simple electronics? ...God forbid, complex electronics? Will people literally be printing-out their own desktop upgrades in 30~ years?
IP laws I think will almost certainly focus on licensing / controlling the templates. The ramifications of that are kind of troubling to me.
The floodgates would open fast. Even if they managed to finally lock down the Internet, you'd still have people passing around thumbdrives full of specification files.
My troubling thought about a future of 3D printing is that it could turn the global economy into one where the primary economic activity was resource extraction, in that the main global demand would be for raw materials for the printers. Resource extraction based economies tend to be almost universally corrupt and autocratic.
Funny enough, not a huge deal has changed technology-wise in terms of the 3D Printers within the limits of the purchasing power of the average consumer; printers have just simply gotten cheaper. It's going to take a little longer for printers to truly hit the level of a major consumer product for two main reasons:
1. Material limitations. Printers that can deposit many different materials or even a gradient of one material to another are very difficult to make and keep cost-effective. That means any item you're churning out has to be pretty simple in terms of its makeup, and limits the complexity of many assemblies.
2. CAD software. Current versions of design software are too simple, expensive, or difficult to use for the average consumer, so most people are limited to making very simple manipulations of existing files at most in terms of customization. This may change quickly if VR is cheap and effective, as it could provide a more intuitive interactive environment for the design of 3D objects.
If you can find a way to work around these, then it will be very simple for 3D printing to spread as a major consumer driven and run process for making products.
As far as the whole printer ink thing goes, that ship has sailed for consumer printers: most consumer filament and resin printers do not require chipped materials to run as the market for them is nearly perfectly elastic, and such functionality would be detrimental to the success of a consumer printer without an obvious benefit in terms of either ease of use or print quality. The same is proving true for the first forrays into consumer printers using powdered materials.
The average consumer isn't going to need / want the designer CAD software, though. They'll just want to plug-in an existing template that they bought and print out a thing.
3D Printing is going to be so freakin' huge. The applications for it are endless, and even today when we're just printing simple decorations, the demand for MakerBot stuff has spiked beyond all expectations. I'm very curious to see what this leads to in 20~ years time (and what kind of legal mess IP laws create with that kind of technology as certain businesses are threatened with extinction).
I can see it going two ways.
1. Corporate lawyers are slow, 3D printers become commonplace in every household before they realize what it means, people print stuff to their heart's delight, several businesses whose profits depend on otherwise simple plastic things being needlessly hard to get and expensive go bankrupt and no one misses them.
2. Corporate lawyers are fast, 3D printing is banned as terrorism (because terrorists could 3D print a bomb, what do we need to wait for another 9/11 before we ban this shit?), status quo is maintained, we all cry as corporations found yet another way to make our world an objectively worse place to live in for profit.
Alternatively, they become as common as regular printers are now and similarly the printer manufacturers collude to make printer cartridges stupidly expensive and proprietary.
There are two differences there:
- The nerds of the world don't care about having cheap printers, regular printers aren't cool
- 3D printers can be used to manufacture the parts for other 3D printers
Basically, as long as the raw materials are inexpensive, you will see people using the commercial printers to bootstrap their own printers
Bioengineer a plant that you can grow in your backyard that produces 3D printer usable material in large quantities.
Don't know how workable that is though.
yeah that's like
the plant has to get that stuff from somewhere, y'know
and cells aren't really the most efficient things out there
so like you'd need to make a plant that is, basically, a strip mine made out of plant
it would still have all the problems of a stripmine
except maybe worse because it'd likely be less efficient than an actual stripmine
the answer to this question and really all others it MINE ALL THE ASTEROIDS
The average consumer isn't going to need / want the designer CAD software, though. They'll just want to plug-in an existing template that they bought and print out a thing.
For some cases, that's true, but in many others you do need at the very least a heavily automated 3D scanning and CAD system (for replacement part generation or DIY 'adapt plug A to socket B' type solutions) or a much better 3D sculpting program (which could also benefit from some CAD features that would say, help you ensure a part fits to standard LEGO bricks). I'm talking something with the difficulty of minecraft rather than SolidWorks, but still with enough flexibility to not be dependent on a library of existing models.
This thing is just such a huge freaking deal. The moment it gets automated for stuff like missiles is going to solve a ton of concerns.
Yeah. You really need that anti-missile laser for shooting-up gangs with improvised bombs & carbines in the Persian Gulf.
....Though, snark aside, I'm curious about whether or not that could be mounted on a treaded armored vehicle? It looks small enough.
The problem is powering the thing, it's fine when you're on a ship with 24,000+ shp but you're going to run into issues on a land vehicle. And you never know, laser point defense could become the make or break factor when you want to park your rail-gun equipped navy a couple miles off an unfriendly coast and rain tungsten slugs on targets 100+ miles inland for orders of magnitude cheaper and far faster than with cruise missiles.
As for other future predictions, I hope everyone has their fingers crosses for commercial fusion power. Whether it turns out to be from inertial, magnetic or w/e confinement. Few things would change the world for the better more than economical, essentially limitless power with no long lived radioactive waste.
This thing is just such a huge freaking deal. The moment it gets automated for stuff like missiles is going to solve a ton of concerns.
Yeah. You really need that anti-missile laser for shooting-up gangs with improvised bombs & carbines in the Persian Gulf.
....Though, snark aside, I'm curious about whether or not that could be mounted on a treaded armored vehicle? It looks small enough.
I think similar systems can fit on the bed of an Oshkosh truck, it's mainly limited to system efficiency and power generation. The big benefits come from the fact that you no longer use projectiles for point defense. For example, you can't fire existing systems for land base defense without risking the missed projectiles continuing their ballistic arc and killing someone, where with these you're pretty much fine as long as you don't accidentally lase a passenger plane's cockpit. Plus, you get all the cost and space savings from not having to use actual bullets, just a bit more fuel.
One place I'll bet these types of systems could become quite high profile is Israel, provided nothing major changes between the Israelis and Palestinians for about another 10 years. This is the logical next step for point defense systems of a wide range of sizes, and could result in complete immunity from attack via small to medium-sized missiles or explosive shells.
This thing is just such a huge freaking deal. The moment it gets automated for stuff like missiles is going to solve a ton of concerns.
Yeah. You really need that anti-missile laser for shooting-up gangs with improvised bombs & carbines in the Persian Gulf.
....Though, snark aside, I'm curious about whether or not that could be mounted on a treaded armored vehicle? It looks small enough.
I think similar systems can fit on the bed of an Oshkosh truck, it's mainly limited to system efficiency and power generation. The big benefits come from the fact that you no longer use projectiles for point defense. For example, you can't fire existing systems for land base defense without risking the missed projectiles continuing their ballistic arc and killing someone, where with these you're pretty much fine as long as you don't accidentally lase a passenger plane's cockpit. Plus, you get all the cost and space savings from not having to use actual bullets, just a bit more fuel.
One place I'll bet these types of systems could become quite high profile is Israel, provided nothing major changes between the Israelis and Palestinians for about another 10 years. This is the logical next step for point defense systems of a wide range of sizes, and could result in complete immunity from attack via small to medium-sized missiles or explosive shells.
I was just thinking if you could mount it on a tank, you basically solve the problem of needing a crew for things like reloading the gun - so you could then create 'gun' platform that's entirely telepresent (and much more robust, in theory, than airborne drones).
...I am not really enthused about this sort of thing being used to further escalate the apartheid in Gaza.
What happens when the bad guys put mirrors on their weapons?
They realize their weapons just got a lot heavier, have to be kept clean room spotless and may or may not reflect a specific wavelength. Better bet is an ablative layer of carbon.
What happens when the bad guys put mirrors on their weapons?
They realize their weapons just got a lot heavier, have to be kept clean room spotless and may or may not reflect a specific wavelength. Better bet is an ablative layer of carbon.
Speaking of cool 3D Printing applications, an incredible artist has posted two projects recently on Reddit:
A T80U Tank and a Spider Tank model from the Ghost in the Shell movie, both made on a MakerBot Replicator 2. Side note, if anyone wants to look into buying a 3D Printer I highly recommend thorough investigation into reviews and the recently released guides from MAKE Magazine & 3D Hubs.
Yet more proof that at least for modelling hobbyists - be it for tabletop gaming, replicas, RC aircraft/DIY Drones, or costuming - 3D printers are already potent new tools in their arsenal.
What happens when the bad guys put mirrors on their weapons?
They realize their weapons just got a lot heavier, have to be kept clean room spotless and may or may not reflect a specific wavelength. Better bet is an ablative layer of carbon.
Or just some smoke canisters.
It's on an IR wavelength. Smoke isn't really that opaque to it. But it's not really an anti-ship weapon. It's a replacement for close in weapons systems. Anti-missile, anti-drone, and small boats. All of which aren't going to be able to use various methods to disrupt the heat from the beam. And the laser really isn't the interesting part of that that system. It's the tracking and lock-on aspects.
Speaking of cool 3D Printing applications, an incredible artist has posted two projects recently on Reddit:
A T80U Tank and a Spider Tank model from the Ghost in the Shell movie, both made on a MakerBot Replicator 2. Side note, if anyone wants to look into buying a 3D Printer I highly recommend thorough investigation into reviews and the recently released guides from MAKE Magazine & 3D Hubs.
Yet more proof that at least for modelling hobbyists - be it for tabletop gaming, replicas, RC aircraft/DIY Drones, or costuming - 3D printers are already potent new tools in their arsenal.
Which is a niche market, to be honest. And that illustrates the sort of problem that 3D printing has.
I have sitting on my desk a 3D printed object - a frame for a small set of drawers (the local library has a 3D printer available to the public.) I never completed the project for two reasons:
One, I found that the size was too small for any real use, and
Two, it cost me $5 for the frame. The drawers would most likely have cost another $5. To make a small plastic drawer set that, if mass manufactured, would cost maybe $5 retail. Not to mention that if it was mass produced, it would be injection molded, which would create a final product that would be much more durable.
Yes, that spider tank model is cool, but it should be noted all the additional work the builder added to get it finished. Not just assembly, but all the finishing work as well - how much Bondo did he use?
3D printing isn't going to replace mass manufacture anytime soon - while it excels for rapid prototyping and creating bespoke pieces, TCO on mass production style items is just horrid. And that's just looking at ABS extrusion systems - the more advanced systems, like resin or sintered metal are even worse.
I will be completely honest with 3D Printing: a not insignificant portion of my interest in it is seeing what happens to GunPla and other modeling communities because of it.
Imagining folks being able to create their own custom pieces with 3D Modeling [or sculpting by hand and then scanning the pieces in] and being able to share those pieces to mod/customize kits among modelers across the globe is kind of a super awesome while totally mundane application for me
EDIT: Sorta similar of a path to what hedgie was talking about, these are kind of a modeling hobbyists dream come true [albeit, probably, a potential nightmare for manufacturers if you can print out decent quality runners or individual pieces]
EDIT2: I should probably note that's for consumer-grade 3D Printing. Industrial and Medical on the other hand have some pretty fantastic applications coming out of them
Yeah, the last time 3d printers came up I mentally sweeped through my house and thought "what do I own that is polymer, how often do I buy stuff like that, and do I need any more" and I just came up mostly empty.
Some food prep items and the stuff in my boardgames stack.
I spend my money on food, entertainment, clothes and electronics, none of which would obviously benefit from 3d printing.
Yeah, the last time 3d printers came up I mentally sweeped through my house and thought "what do I own that is polymer, how often do I buy stuff like that, and do I need any more" and I just came up mostly empty.
Some food prep items and the stuff in my boardgames stack.
I spend my money on food, entertainment, clothes and electronics, none of which would obviously benefit from 3d printing.
I'd say the biggest single market I can think of for 3D printing will be auto parts. Once it gets to the point where a local auto parts store can run off a part for any vehicle ever made, a whole lot of industries are going to go bye-bye.
Yeah, the last time 3d printers came up I mentally sweeped through my house and thought "what do I own that is polymer, how often do I buy stuff like that, and do I need any more" and I just came up mostly empty.
Some food prep items and the stuff in my boardgames stack.
I spend my money on food, entertainment, clothes and electronics, none of which would obviously benefit from 3d printing.
I'd say the biggest single market I can think of for 3D printing will be auto parts. Once it gets to the point where a local auto parts store can run off a part for any vehicle ever made, a whole lot of industries are going to go bye-bye.
I completely agree. In fact, one of the biggest sweet-spots in my mind for the technology right now are one-off molds that take very little skill to produce good results from. For example, resin material companies have developed lines of inexpensive, clean-burning resins that can be used to produce inexpensive one-off castings. In terms of maintaining or restoring any mechanical object out of current manufacture, this is an incredible boon.
But of course, at the moment it is restricted to being a sub-interest to many other modelling hobbies. That's why I always like to keep a weather eye out for new applications and technologies that could allow for a breakout from its current limits.
Yeah, the last time 3d printers came up I mentally sweeped through my house and thought "what do I own that is polymer, how often do I buy stuff like that, and do I need any more" and I just came up mostly empty.
Some food prep items and the stuff in my boardgames stack.
I spend my money on food, entertainment, clothes and electronics, none of which would obviously benefit from 3d printing.
I'd say the biggest single market I can think of for 3D printing will be auto parts. Once it gets to the point where a local auto parts store can run off a part for any vehicle ever made, a whole lot of industries are going to go bye-bye.
Nope, and for one very simple reason - liability. You think that a cost-effective printer will be able to produce ASE-certified parts?
Yeah, the last time 3d printers came up I mentally sweeped through my house and thought "what do I own that is polymer, how often do I buy stuff like that, and do I need any more" and I just came up mostly empty.
Some food prep items and the stuff in my boardgames stack.
I spend my money on food, entertainment, clothes and electronics, none of which would obviously benefit from 3d printing.
I'd say the biggest single market I can think of for 3D printing will be auto parts. Once it gets to the point where a local auto parts store can run off a part for any vehicle ever made, a whole lot of industries are going to go bye-bye.
Nope, and for one very simple reason - liability. You think that a cost-effective printer will be able to produce ASE-certified parts?
Yeah, the last time 3d printers came up I mentally sweeped through my house and thought "what do I own that is polymer, how often do I buy stuff like that, and do I need any more" and I just came up mostly empty.
Some food prep items and the stuff in my boardgames stack.
I spend my money on food, entertainment, clothes and electronics, none of which would obviously benefit from 3d printing.
I'd say the biggest single market I can think of for 3D printing will be auto parts. Once it gets to the point where a local auto parts store can run off a part for any vehicle ever made, a whole lot of industries are going to go bye-bye.
Nope, and for one very simple reason - liability. You think that a cost-effective printer will be able to produce ASE-certified parts?
In my mind, this is more important for classic cars: those that you can't easily get new parts for. Since what I've described involves casting (which for auto parts almost always requires some finishing steps to machine the part to spec), it's not unfeasible to produce high-quality components as long as your scan and match of the alloy used are accurate enough.
Yeah, the last time 3d printers came up I mentally sweeped through my house and thought "what do I own that is polymer, how often do I buy stuff like that, and do I need any more" and I just came up mostly empty.
Some food prep items and the stuff in my boardgames stack.
I spend my money on food, entertainment, clothes and electronics, none of which would obviously benefit from 3d printing.
I'd say the biggest single market I can think of for 3D printing will be auto parts. Once it gets to the point where a local auto parts store can run off a part for any vehicle ever made, a whole lot of industries are going to go bye-bye.
Nope, and for one very simple reason - liability. You think that a cost-effective printer will be able to produce ASE-certified parts?
Boeing 3d sinters jet engine parts.
I could see in 100 years similar methods being cost effective, coupled with sort of continuous scan 3d visible light computer tomography for QA, being useful for some parts.
You could do some pretty fancy designs for single piece intakes that are otherwise very complicated to fabricate.
And stuff like older cars where things don't exist anymore.
Mostly I am interested in multimedia 3d printing. If you can print structural plastic, condutors, semi-condutors, insulators, contact matetial andthermal conductive electrical insulators, you can start doing circuits imbeded within things, print 3d circuit boardlike things with simple logic. When you need real compute, just drop in IC chips(and maybe heatpipes) part way through and keep building around them.
The end result could be really dense, totally shock, water, and whatever else resistant you need. You would be pretty unconstrained with regard to form, and maintain function. ...and the resulting units would be totally unserviceable. Possibly quite hard to recycle.
And we can already do pretty much all those things independently of each other now.
Yeah, the last time 3d printers came up I mentally sweeped through my house and thought "what do I own that is polymer, how often do I buy stuff like that, and do I need any more" and I just came up mostly empty.
Some food prep items and the stuff in my boardgames stack.
I spend my money on food, entertainment, clothes and electronics, none of which would obviously benefit from 3d printing.
I'd say the biggest single market I can think of for 3D printing will be auto parts. Once it gets to the point where a local auto parts store can run off a part for any vehicle ever made, a whole lot of industries are going to go bye-bye.
Nope, and for one very simple reason - liability. You think that a cost-effective printer will be able to produce ASE-certified parts?
In my mind, this is more important for classic cars: those that you can't easily get new parts for. Since what I've described involves casting (which for auto parts almost always requires some finishing steps to machine the part to spec), it's not unfeasible to produce high-quality components as long as your scan and match of the alloy used are accurate enough.
Actually, they've already incorporated 3D printing into casting - there are 3D printers that can create wax models for lost wax casting.
Yeah, the last time 3d printers came up I mentally sweeped through my house and thought "what do I own that is polymer, how often do I buy stuff like that, and do I need any more" and I just came up mostly empty.
Some food prep items and the stuff in my boardgames stack.
I spend my money on food, entertainment, clothes and electronics, none of which would obviously benefit from 3d printing.
I'd say the biggest single market I can think of for 3D printing will be auto parts. Once it gets to the point where a local auto parts store can run off a part for any vehicle ever made, a whole lot of industries are going to go bye-bye.
Nope, and for one very simple reason - liability. You think that a cost-effective printer will be able to produce ASE-certified parts?
In my mind, this is more important for classic cars: those that you can't easily get new parts for. Since what I've described involves casting (which for auto parts almost always requires some finishing steps to machine the part to spec), it's not unfeasible to produce high-quality components as long as your scan and match of the alloy used are accurate enough.
Actually, they've already incorporated 3D printing into casting - there are 3D printers that can create wax models for lost wax casting.
More than even you're aware of actually: one of my senior year college professors invented both Metal SLS [his PhD adviser invented plastic sintering] and the new LAMP process. Now, not only are there those that were made simply for jewelry and small-scale manufacturing, but for the creation of jet turbine blades made from superalloys (which are, truth be told, primarily dependent on really, really well-controlled furnaces more than anything else). At any rate, dropping the time from having a CAD model of a turbine blade to having a prototype blade from one year to two weeks is a truly significant development.
Yeah, the last time 3d printers came up I mentally sweeped through my house and thought "what do I own that is polymer, how often do I buy stuff like that, and do I need any more" and I just came up mostly empty.
Some food prep items and the stuff in my boardgames stack.
I spend my money on food, entertainment, clothes and electronics, none of which would obviously benefit from 3d printing.
I'd say the biggest single market I can think of for 3D printing will be auto parts. Once it gets to the point where a local auto parts store can run off a part for any vehicle ever made, a whole lot of industries are going to go bye-bye.
I'm pretty sure the salvage industry will survive if the 3D printers hit the point where it's practical to print out pieces. There's a fair bit of stuff that I can see in a car, where it's just not going to be practical to print out the part any time soon (even if it's a wax mold to make a model part), when an unwanted vehicle can be gutted for the part. It'll probably force the salvage industry to lower the prices on parts, that could be printed out with a 3D printer.
I could see this lowering storage costs for an auto parts dealer though, once they get the costs down. If you can print out a part that meets the standards for a similar price, of what it costs now to make such a part without 3D, it seems more cost effective to print parts that customers order. Auto parts certainly are an area where there is enough variance and where demand is in such a state, that cost effective 3D printing, would be a huge game changer. Though I could see how that model might add on time because I'm pretty sure your generic walk-in auto parts store is only going to be willing to print out parts made of certain materials, while parts made out of other materials, mostly certain metals, would require having the part made at a specific site because it requires printing the wax mold, filling it in with model and then possible further machine refinement (which might make going to salvage yard more appealing).
Really, as far as consumer stuff goes, 3D printers will probably mostly help people properly maintain older equipment. It won't matter if no one carries spare parts on hand, if it's just as cost effective to use a 3D printer to acquire those parts. Downside is that it'll make it harder to get people to part with old items, that have some nasty negatives (particularly things that are very environmentally friendly be that a vehicle with nasty exhaust or a machine that is terrible at energy efficiency).
I don't really see 3D printers taking off for home use. I mean, on top of having something that could be printed, you also have to factor in how often it would need to be printed or reprinted. Assuming you don't throw out perfectly good items, once something is made barring it getting broken, made obsolete or needing a new items for some other use, you aren't printing another item. I see it being more of being an item, once costs are brought down, that stores would want to have because it means they spend less money on shipping and storing inventory. Just have a costumer show up and place their order for something that isn't kept in stock, but can be printed out.
Yeah, the last time 3d printers came up I mentally sweeped through my house and thought "what do I own that is polymer, how often do I buy stuff like that, and do I need any more" and I just came up mostly empty.
Some food prep items and the stuff in my boardgames stack.
I spend my money on food, entertainment, clothes and electronics, none of which would obviously benefit from 3d printing.
I'd say the biggest single market I can think of for 3D printing will be auto parts. Once it gets to the point where a local auto parts store can run off a part for any vehicle ever made, a whole lot of industries are going to go bye-bye.
Nope, and for one very simple reason - liability. You think that a cost-effective printer will be able to produce ASE-certified parts?
In my mind, this is more important for classic cars: those that you can't easily get new parts for. Since what I've described involves casting (which for auto parts almost always requires some finishing steps to machine the part to spec), it's not unfeasible to produce high-quality components as long as your scan and match of the alloy used are accurate enough.
Actually, they've already incorporated 3D printing into casting - there are 3D printers that can create wax models for lost wax casting.
More than even you're aware of actually: one of my senior year college professors invented both Metal SLS [his PhD adviser invented plastic sintering] and the new LAMP process. Now, not only are there those that were made simply for jewelry and small-scale manufacturing, but for the creation of jet turbine blades made from superalloys (which are, truth be told, primarily dependent on really, really well-controlled furnaces more than anything else). At any rate, dropping the time from having a CAD model of a turbine blade to having a prototype blade from one year to two weeks is a truly significant development.
Which is where the actual benefit of 3D printing in commercial manufacture is going to be seen - in both rapid prototyping, and in the manufacture of items where there is small volume and the need to be flexible in manufacture. Which, don't get me wrong, is a huge step forward!
But everyone keeps on saying that this is going to be something that replaces a large amount of traditional manufacturing. To which I have to point out that no, it's not going to happen because 3D printing can't compete with traditional manufacturing techniques on cost when it comes to volume. It's like the old saying "never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with tape backups" - there's more to manufacturing than just the actual "making stuff" bit - it also has to be done in the most cost effective manner possible. And in many cases, that's going to be traditional methods.
Yeah, I'm really skeptical that we'll see costs go down enough, that it becomes practical to print out plastic eating utensils (an abomination IMO, since it's wasteful), straws, toy army men and the myriad of other stuff that could be printed, but is consumed in massive quantities.
It's going to be for items where there isn't enough demand to make stores want to have it in stock or barely enough to justify having it in stock now. Advances and reductions in 3D printing will probably change the metrics for what is considered enough demand to justify having it in stock though.
We already see this model taking shape with some of the media industry. Last I check though, we haven't see any of the big players realize they could still make money off some books, series, movies, music and games, where the demand isn't high enough to justify having copies on store shelves, but where people would pay good money to be able to buy a physical copy. It's just the industries in question would have to realize they have the means to do such custom ordering, but they at least have started making use of digital distribution.
I agree with the person who posted earlier about the environmental crunch forcing the direction of technological progress. The way I see it one of two things will happen. Either we will continue to deny climate change until we are devastated on a global level. Or we will invent new technologies to help us cope. Personally I hope we continue to see advancements in space exploration and travel. Lots of free natural resources just floating around out there in gigantic rocks.
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The floodgates would open fast. Even if they managed to finally lock down the Internet, you'd still have people passing around thumbdrives full of specification files.
My troubling thought about a future of 3D printing is that it could turn the global economy into one where the primary economic activity was resource extraction, in that the main global demand would be for raw materials for the printers. Resource extraction based economies tend to be almost universally corrupt and autocratic.
...As opposed to the current economy, which is totally on the straight and narrow?
Don't know how workable that is though.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Their only hope would be to restrict access to the physical portion of it. Locking down the designs would work about as well as locking down mp3s
Funny enough, not a huge deal has changed technology-wise in terms of the 3D Printers within the limits of the purchasing power of the average consumer; printers have just simply gotten cheaper. It's going to take a little longer for printers to truly hit the level of a major consumer product for two main reasons:
1. Material limitations. Printers that can deposit many different materials or even a gradient of one material to another are very difficult to make and keep cost-effective. That means any item you're churning out has to be pretty simple in terms of its makeup, and limits the complexity of many assemblies.
2. CAD software. Current versions of design software are too simple, expensive, or difficult to use for the average consumer, so most people are limited to making very simple manipulations of existing files at most in terms of customization. This may change quickly if VR is cheap and effective, as it could provide a more intuitive interactive environment for the design of 3D objects.
If you can find a way to work around these, then it will be very simple for 3D printing to spread as a major consumer driven and run process for making products.
As far as the whole printer ink thing goes, that ship has sailed for consumer printers: most consumer filament and resin printers do not require chipped materials to run as the market for them is nearly perfectly elastic, and such functionality would be detrimental to the success of a consumer printer without an obvious benefit in terms of either ease of use or print quality. The same is proving true for the first forrays into consumer printers using powdered materials.
This thing is just such a huge freaking deal. The moment it gets automated for stuff like missiles is going to solve a ton of concerns.
There are two differences there:
- The nerds of the world don't care about having cheap printers, regular printers aren't cool
- 3D printers can be used to manufacture the parts for other 3D printers
Basically, as long as the raw materials are inexpensive, you will see people using the commercial printers to bootstrap their own printers
Yeah. You really need that anti-missile laser for shooting-up gangs with improvised bombs & carbines in the Persian Gulf.
....Though, snark aside, I'm curious about whether or not that could be mounted on a treaded armored vehicle? It looks small enough.
the plant has to get that stuff from somewhere, y'know
and cells aren't really the most efficient things out there
so like you'd need to make a plant that is, basically, a strip mine made out of plant
it would still have all the problems of a stripmine
except maybe worse because it'd likely be less efficient than an actual stripmine
the answer to this question and really all others it MINE ALL THE ASTEROIDS
For some cases, that's true, but in many others you do need at the very least a heavily automated 3D scanning and CAD system (for replacement part generation or DIY 'adapt plug A to socket B' type solutions) or a much better 3D sculpting program (which could also benefit from some CAD features that would say, help you ensure a part fits to standard LEGO bricks). I'm talking something with the difficulty of minecraft rather than SolidWorks, but still with enough flexibility to not be dependent on a library of existing models.
As for other future predictions, I hope everyone has their fingers crosses for commercial fusion power. Whether it turns out to be from inertial, magnetic or w/e confinement. Few things would change the world for the better more than economical, essentially limitless power with no long lived radioactive waste.
I think similar systems can fit on the bed of an Oshkosh truck, it's mainly limited to system efficiency and power generation. The big benefits come from the fact that you no longer use projectiles for point defense. For example, you can't fire existing systems for land base defense without risking the missed projectiles continuing their ballistic arc and killing someone, where with these you're pretty much fine as long as you don't accidentally lase a passenger plane's cockpit. Plus, you get all the cost and space savings from not having to use actual bullets, just a bit more fuel.
One place I'll bet these types of systems could become quite high profile is Israel, provided nothing major changes between the Israelis and Palestinians for about another 10 years. This is the logical next step for point defense systems of a wide range of sizes, and could result in complete immunity from attack via small to medium-sized missiles or explosive shells.
I was just thinking if you could mount it on a tank, you basically solve the problem of needing a crew for things like reloading the gun - so you could then create 'gun' platform that's entirely telepresent (and much more robust, in theory, than airborne drones).
...I am not really enthused about this sort of thing being used to further escalate the apartheid in Gaza.
They realize their weapons just got a lot heavier, have to be kept clean room spotless and may or may not reflect a specific wavelength. Better bet is an ablative layer of carbon.
Or just some smoke canisters.
But yeah any atmospheric scattering effect will neutralise a lot of laser weapons around the visible spectrum
A T80U Tank and a Spider Tank model from the Ghost in the Shell movie, both made on a MakerBot Replicator 2. Side note, if anyone wants to look into buying a 3D Printer I highly recommend thorough investigation into reviews and the recently released guides from MAKE Magazine & 3D Hubs.
Yet more proof that at least for modelling hobbyists - be it for tabletop gaming, replicas, RC aircraft/DIY Drones, or costuming - 3D printers are already potent new tools in their arsenal.
It's on an IR wavelength. Smoke isn't really that opaque to it. But it's not really an anti-ship weapon. It's a replacement for close in weapons systems. Anti-missile, anti-drone, and small boats. All of which aren't going to be able to use various methods to disrupt the heat from the beam. And the laser really isn't the interesting part of that that system. It's the tracking and lock-on aspects.
Well, yes, of bloody course somebody is working on it.
Mind uploading you say?
May I interest you in a robot operated by a digitally simulated worm brain? http://singularityhub.com/2014/12/15/worm-brain-simulation-drives-lego-robot/
Which is a niche market, to be honest. And that illustrates the sort of problem that 3D printing has.
I have sitting on my desk a 3D printed object - a frame for a small set of drawers (the local library has a 3D printer available to the public.) I never completed the project for two reasons:
One, I found that the size was too small for any real use, and
Two, it cost me $5 for the frame. The drawers would most likely have cost another $5. To make a small plastic drawer set that, if mass manufactured, would cost maybe $5 retail. Not to mention that if it was mass produced, it would be injection molded, which would create a final product that would be much more durable.
Yes, that spider tank model is cool, but it should be noted all the additional work the builder added to get it finished. Not just assembly, but all the finishing work as well - how much Bondo did he use?
3D printing isn't going to replace mass manufacture anytime soon - while it excels for rapid prototyping and creating bespoke pieces, TCO on mass production style items is just horrid. And that's just looking at ABS extrusion systems - the more advanced systems, like resin or sintered metal are even worse.
Imagining folks being able to create their own custom pieces with 3D Modeling [or sculpting by hand and then scanning the pieces in] and being able to share those pieces to mod/customize kits among modelers across the globe is kind of a super awesome while totally mundane application for me
EDIT: Sorta similar of a path to what hedgie was talking about, these are kind of a modeling hobbyists dream come true [albeit, probably, a potential nightmare for manufacturers if you can print out decent quality runners or individual pieces]
EDIT2: I should probably note that's for consumer-grade 3D Printing. Industrial and Medical on the other hand have some pretty fantastic applications coming out of them
Some food prep items and the stuff in my boardgames stack.
I spend my money on food, entertainment, clothes and electronics, none of which would obviously benefit from 3d printing.
I'd say the biggest single market I can think of for 3D printing will be auto parts. Once it gets to the point where a local auto parts store can run off a part for any vehicle ever made, a whole lot of industries are going to go bye-bye.
I completely agree. In fact, one of the biggest sweet-spots in my mind for the technology right now are one-off molds that take very little skill to produce good results from. For example, resin material companies have developed lines of inexpensive, clean-burning resins that can be used to produce inexpensive one-off castings. In terms of maintaining or restoring any mechanical object out of current manufacture, this is an incredible boon.
But of course, at the moment it is restricted to being a sub-interest to many other modelling hobbies. That's why I always like to keep a weather eye out for new applications and technologies that could allow for a breakout from its current limits.
Nope, and for one very simple reason - liability. You think that a cost-effective printer will be able to produce ASE-certified parts?
Today? No.
In 10-20 years...
In my mind, this is more important for classic cars: those that you can't easily get new parts for. Since what I've described involves casting (which for auto parts almost always requires some finishing steps to machine the part to spec), it's not unfeasible to produce high-quality components as long as your scan and match of the alloy used are accurate enough.
Boeing 3d sinters jet engine parts.
I could see in 100 years similar methods being cost effective, coupled with sort of continuous scan 3d visible light computer tomography for QA, being useful for some parts.
You could do some pretty fancy designs for single piece intakes that are otherwise very complicated to fabricate.
And stuff like older cars where things don't exist anymore.
Mostly I am interested in multimedia 3d printing. If you can print structural plastic, condutors, semi-condutors, insulators, contact matetial andthermal conductive electrical insulators, you can start doing circuits imbeded within things, print 3d circuit boardlike things with simple logic. When you need real compute, just drop in IC chips(and maybe heatpipes) part way through and keep building around them.
The end result could be really dense, totally shock, water, and whatever else resistant you need. You would be pretty unconstrained with regard to form, and maintain function. ...and the resulting units would be totally unserviceable. Possibly quite hard to recycle.
And we can already do pretty much all those things independently of each other now.
Actually, they've already incorporated 3D printing into casting - there are 3D printers that can create wax models for lost wax casting.
More than even you're aware of actually: one of my senior year college professors invented both Metal SLS [his PhD adviser invented plastic sintering] and the new LAMP process. Now, not only are there those that were made simply for jewelry and small-scale manufacturing, but for the creation of jet turbine blades made from superalloys (which are, truth be told, primarily dependent on really, really well-controlled furnaces more than anything else). At any rate, dropping the time from having a CAD model of a turbine blade to having a prototype blade from one year to two weeks is a truly significant development.
Edit: stupid fucking bees and their out of state tuition. Grumble.
I'm pretty sure the salvage industry will survive if the 3D printers hit the point where it's practical to print out pieces. There's a fair bit of stuff that I can see in a car, where it's just not going to be practical to print out the part any time soon (even if it's a wax mold to make a model part), when an unwanted vehicle can be gutted for the part. It'll probably force the salvage industry to lower the prices on parts, that could be printed out with a 3D printer.
I could see this lowering storage costs for an auto parts dealer though, once they get the costs down. If you can print out a part that meets the standards for a similar price, of what it costs now to make such a part without 3D, it seems more cost effective to print parts that customers order. Auto parts certainly are an area where there is enough variance and where demand is in such a state, that cost effective 3D printing, would be a huge game changer. Though I could see how that model might add on time because I'm pretty sure your generic walk-in auto parts store is only going to be willing to print out parts made of certain materials, while parts made out of other materials, mostly certain metals, would require having the part made at a specific site because it requires printing the wax mold, filling it in with model and then possible further machine refinement (which might make going to salvage yard more appealing).
Really, as far as consumer stuff goes, 3D printers will probably mostly help people properly maintain older equipment. It won't matter if no one carries spare parts on hand, if it's just as cost effective to use a 3D printer to acquire those parts. Downside is that it'll make it harder to get people to part with old items, that have some nasty negatives (particularly things that are very environmentally friendly be that a vehicle with nasty exhaust or a machine that is terrible at energy efficiency).
I don't really see 3D printers taking off for home use. I mean, on top of having something that could be printed, you also have to factor in how often it would need to be printed or reprinted. Assuming you don't throw out perfectly good items, once something is made barring it getting broken, made obsolete or needing a new items for some other use, you aren't printing another item. I see it being more of being an item, once costs are brought down, that stores would want to have because it means they spend less money on shipping and storing inventory. Just have a costumer show up and place their order for something that isn't kept in stock, but can be printed out.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Which is where the actual benefit of 3D printing in commercial manufacture is going to be seen - in both rapid prototyping, and in the manufacture of items where there is small volume and the need to be flexible in manufacture. Which, don't get me wrong, is a huge step forward!
But everyone keeps on saying that this is going to be something that replaces a large amount of traditional manufacturing. To which I have to point out that no, it's not going to happen because 3D printing can't compete with traditional manufacturing techniques on cost when it comes to volume. It's like the old saying "never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with tape backups" - there's more to manufacturing than just the actual "making stuff" bit - it also has to be done in the most cost effective manner possible. And in many cases, that's going to be traditional methods.
It's going to be for items where there isn't enough demand to make stores want to have it in stock or barely enough to justify having it in stock now. Advances and reductions in 3D printing will probably change the metrics for what is considered enough demand to justify having it in stock though.
We already see this model taking shape with some of the media industry. Last I check though, we haven't see any of the big players realize they could still make money off some books, series, movies, music and games, where the demand isn't high enough to justify having copies on store shelves, but where people would pay good money to be able to buy a physical copy. It's just the industries in question would have to realize they have the means to do such custom ordering, but they at least have started making use of digital distribution.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
PSN:Furlion