3 ms·

The arguments presented are really off-base. The idea of a 3d printer is to find a model on the internet for free (or $) press print and use the "thing". Very,

by trapper 18y ago

The arguments presented are really off-base. The idea of a 3d printer is to find a model on the internet for free (or $) press print and use the "thing". Very, very simple. Sewing machines were completely different. First, you had to get a pattern. Patterns weren't cheap and weren't easily available. There was no decent distribution mechanism for patterns, which is half the problem. Then you had to learn how to sew. Then you must collect the materials. For each garment, you would input time. Tell me how these two models are anything alike? And how could a person from a 3d printing company not get it?

replicatorblog 18y ago
I disagree, for some the thought with 3D printers is simply to download a model and hit print, but many others see it as a path to "democratized" innovation. e.g. people can improve designs of physical object just as they can work on OS code. For this to be a reality it will require people to develop a strong sense of mechanical design and fluency with CAD software. Even if you just wanted to hit print, you can currently only print plastics. To make an object of any complexity you would need to gather electronic components, perform assembly, which may require secondary skills like soldering. Given the state of the art and development roadmap homegrown manufacturers would need to sand and paint the output of the 3D printer to achieve a "commercial" finish and tht requires time and training. At a high level I think the comparison is apt. It is fairly easy to learn to sew (as easy as learning HTML, for instance) but we still do not have a movement of homegrown tailors on the scale of amateur web designers.
- mnemonicsloth 18y ago
  At a high level I think the comparison is apt. It is fairly easy to learn to sew (as easy as learning HTML, for instance) but we still do not have a movement of homegrown tailors on the scale of amateur web designers. Surely this is better explained by the (current) lack of overlap between the community of tailors and the community of people who are savvy about the possibilities of web-based collaboration. There are, e.g. pattern-exchange sites out there for people who like making their own clothes.
  - replicatorblog 18y ago
    To some degree, I would argue that the crafting community has a strong track record of sharing, but usually in an offline way e.g. sewing circles, meeting friends at sewing supply shops, etc. The point I am trying to make is that even though most people (esp. customization enthusiasts) could at this time make their own clothes few do. Even the legions that read Craft: magazine who are tech savvy and crafty don't seem to be making clothes en masse, but the argument for 3D printers is that once they are cheap enough people will flock to them.
    - mnemonicsloth 18y ago
      With respect, I think you only think you're making a different point. The lack of overlap goes both ways. There are few sewing machine enthusiasts who share designs online. Similarly, few of the people who want to share stuff online think clothes are the obvious place to start. Is this really that surprising, in light of what you know about hacker culture? To use your HTML example, you're saying that since few early web hackers had pages dedicated to kitty cats and bad poetry, nobody interested in such things was ever going to turn up online.
- jerf 18y ago
  "I disagree, for some the thought with 3D printers is simply to download a model and hit print, but many others see it as a path to "democratized" innovation." How are those opposing forces? I am surprised to read so many comments and see nobody articulate what I thought the 3D-printing idea was, which is that it will bring open source to the physical world. No more, no less. You don't need a degree in mechanical design to use an open-source-powered 3D printer anymore than you need to be a programmer to use open source, with roughly the same capabilities and tradeoffs. Most of the rest of the problems cited in this discussion are supposed to be solved by automation; for instance, I can easily imagine how to help people stock up on raw plastic stock with arbitrary degrees of customization, that's not even remotely a challenge. "Even if you just wanted to hit print, you can currently only print plastics." Considering that 3D printers only barely exist today, basing your skepticism of the concept around only the progress that will be made in the next 5 to 10 years is an odd position to take. (And I feel I'm being generous when you explicitly say "today".) There is nothing fundamentally challenging about integrating electronics into a sophisticated 3D printer; it's only engineering of the type open source does every day. We could make a pretty decent pass at a generic electronic loadout today and it will only get easier over time. Already we see full Linux machines barely larger than the plug they attach to. In fact, it's not even that 3D printers will be "like" open source, the hope is that it will be open source. 3D printers are just another hardware peripheral, hardly different in principle from 2D printers or graphics cards or audio cards or any of the other myriad bits of complicated technology already attached to computing power. Trying to separate the "3D open source community" from the greater open source community would be as futile as trying to separate the "3D graphics open source community" from the greater open source community; oh, there will be specializations and such but there's no way you could produce a criterion that cleanly separates each and every project into either "3D" or "not 3D", the way you can separate "open source" and "not open source" (for a suitably well-defined definition).
  - replicatorblog 18y ago
    Jerf, a couple points: 1. How are those opposing forces? The first statement would be me selecting an item out of a catalog and printing it as a designer intended, so a traditional ecommerce system, but with no delivery, just on demand manufacturing. The second would be more of an open source model, but customization could be limited through DRM. 2. I didn't say people would need to have degrees in mechanical design, just that they would have to become skilled in it. For most people this is going to take an investment of hundreds of hours. 2. I think you are underestimating the "ease" that plastics for manufacture can be lined up. I think people are lulled into a sense of ease when it comes to 3D printing because we have seen such dramatic improvement in info tech and desktop printing. In the case of software your raw materials are 1 & 0's with 2D printing you have cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink. Moving into atoms the variety expands incredibly quickly. Materials all have quirks and the process that manipulates them further complicates the matter. 3. With electronics you are still going to face issues. First what is the "ink cartridge" analog for electronic components? How do you handle the regulatory issues? UL, FCC? I'm sure it can be done, its just not that easy. 4. 3D printing is a 20 year old industry. It faces long development cycles and requires significant and costly improvements in material science. Thanks for your generosity, but I will stand by my skepticism. In closing I don't doubt the rise of "open source" manufacturing. I just don't think 3D printing will have major role in it. You seem to have confidence and a vision for how to make 3D printing ubiquitous. I hope you help move the state of the art forward.

by trapper 18y ago

replicatorblog 18y ago

I disagree, for some the thought with 3D printers is simply to download a model and hit print, but many others see it as a path to "democratized" innovation. e.g. people can improve designs of physical object just as they can work on OS code. For this to be a reality it will require people to develop a strong sense of mechanical design and fluency with CAD software. Even if you just wanted to hit print, you can currently only print plastics. To make an object of any complexity you would need to gather electronic components, perform assembly, which may require secondary skills like soldering. Given the state of the art and development roadmap homegrown manufacturers would need to sand and paint the output of the 3D printer to achieve a "commercial" finish and tht requires time and training. At a high level I think the comparison is apt. It is fairly easy to learn to sew (as easy as learning HTML, for instance) but we still do not have a movement of homegrown tailors on the scale of amateur web designers.

mnemonicsloth 18y ago
At a high level I think the comparison is apt. It is fairly easy to learn to sew (as easy as learning HTML, for instance) but we still do not have a movement of homegrown tailors on the scale of amateur web designers. Surely this is better explained by the (current) lack of overlap between the community of tailors and the community of people who are savvy about the possibilities of web-based collaboration. There are, e.g. pattern-exchange sites out there for people who like making their own clothes.
- replicatorblog 18y ago
  To some degree, I would argue that the crafting community has a strong track record of sharing, but usually in an offline way e.g. sewing circles, meeting friends at sewing supply shops, etc. The point I am trying to make is that even though most people (esp. customization enthusiasts) could at this time make their own clothes few do. Even the legions that read Craft: magazine who are tech savvy and crafty don't seem to be making clothes en masse, but the argument for 3D printers is that once they are cheap enough people will flock to them.
  - mnemonicsloth 18y ago
    With respect, I think you only think you're making a different point. The lack of overlap goes both ways. There are few sewing machine enthusiasts who share designs online. Similarly, few of the people who want to share stuff online think clothes are the obvious place to start. Is this really that surprising, in light of what you know about hacker culture? To use your HTML example, you're saying that since few early web hackers had pages dedicated to kitty cats and bad poetry, nobody interested in such things was ever going to turn up online.
jerf 18y ago
"I disagree, for some the thought with 3D printers is simply to download a model and hit print, but many others see it as a path to "democratized" innovation." How are those opposing forces? I am surprised to read so many comments and see nobody articulate what I thought the 3D-printing idea was, which is that it will bring open source to the physical world. No more, no less. You don't need a degree in mechanical design to use an open-source-powered 3D printer anymore than you need to be a programmer to use open source, with roughly the same capabilities and tradeoffs. Most of the rest of the problems cited in this discussion are supposed to be solved by automation; for instance, I can easily imagine how to help people stock up on raw plastic stock with arbitrary degrees of customization, that's not even remotely a challenge. "Even if you just wanted to hit print, you can currently only print plastics." Considering that 3D printers only barely exist today, basing your skepticism of the concept around only the progress that will be made in the next 5 to 10 years is an odd position to take. (And I feel I'm being generous when you explicitly say "today".) There is nothing fundamentally challenging about integrating electronics into a sophisticated 3D printer; it's only engineering of the type open source does every day. We could make a pretty decent pass at a generic electronic loadout today and it will only get easier over time. Already we see full Linux machines barely larger than the plug they attach to. In fact, it's not even that 3D printers will be "like" open source, the hope is that it will be open source. 3D printers are just another hardware peripheral, hardly different in principle from 2D printers or graphics cards or audio cards or any of the other myriad bits of complicated technology already attached to computing power. Trying to separate the "3D open source community" from the greater open source community would be as futile as trying to separate the "3D graphics open source community" from the greater open source community; oh, there will be specializations and such but there's no way you could produce a criterion that cleanly separates each and every project into either "3D" or "not 3D", the way you can separate "open source" and "not open source" (for a suitably well-defined definition).
- replicatorblog 18y ago
  Jerf, a couple points: 1. How are those opposing forces? The first statement would be me selecting an item out of a catalog and printing it as a designer intended, so a traditional ecommerce system, but with no delivery, just on demand manufacturing. The second would be more of an open source model, but customization could be limited through DRM. 2. I didn't say people would need to have degrees in mechanical design, just that they would have to become skilled in it. For most people this is going to take an investment of hundreds of hours. 2. I think you are underestimating the "ease" that plastics for manufacture can be lined up. I think people are lulled into a sense of ease when it comes to 3D printing because we have seen such dramatic improvement in info tech and desktop printing. In the case of software your raw materials are 1 & 0's with 2D printing you have cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink. Moving into atoms the variety expands incredibly quickly. Materials all have quirks and the process that manipulates them further complicates the matter. 3. With electronics you are still going to face issues. First what is the "ink cartridge" analog for electronic components? How do you handle the regulatory issues? UL, FCC? I'm sure it can be done, its just not that easy. 4. 3D printing is a 20 year old industry. It faces long development cycles and requires significant and costly improvements in material science. Thanks for your generosity, but I will stand by my skepticism. In closing I don't doubt the rise of "open source" manufacturing. I just don't think 3D printing will have major role in it. You seem to have confidence and a vision for how to make 3D printing ubiquitous. I hope you help move the state of the art forward.