2 ms·

Sho, you make good points, but the comparison is closer than you think. You mention the high cost of specialty fabrics, but the plastics market is even more com

Sho, you make good points, but the comparison is closer than you think. You mention the high cost of specialty fabrics, but the plastics market is even more complex. The 1-7 coding for recycling on plastic containers is a gross oversimplification. Plastics are engineered for specialty applications to be more flexible, heat resistant, more easily bonded to other plastics, etc. Trying to get an ounce of plastics like that will also cost considerable sums. To your point about 2D printing, think about how uniform the feedstocks are. 4 colors of ink can be sprayed on paper to recreate a rainbow of colors. 2D printing is almost platonic in its simplicity. 3D printers may work with a subset of materials in the future, but its a drop in the bucket. Also, I see clothes as a special case as well, but one that is MORE likely to be customized. Sure you may just need a commodity item like a black Tshirt, but clothing is one of the most personalized product cateogries. Custom neck ties, new fashions, printed Tshirts, etc. Just look at the startups in the space: Threadless, Cafepress, Zazzle, Spreadshirt, etc.

sho 18y ago
Hm, also good points, but I still think your conclusions are too "confused by the present situation". For example, you rightly mention the awesome variety of plastics. But how many of them are really, when it comes down to it, essential to the functionality of the end product? I see many, many of these different plastics as existing not because of their inherent qualities in the end product but due to other factors. For example, you mention a type of plastic that bonds well to others. That is a manufacturing concern. It could be essential for the final idealised product to glue two plastics, but it could just as easily be an artefact of the manufacturing process. Another thing you fail to consider is the disappearance of the scale manufacturing incentive to reduce material costs. If you're making 100,000 copies of something, every percent reduction in your materials cost, and in the complexity of manufacture, becomes very significant. But if you're making 1, the materials cost is almost irrelevant, and you don't care about being able to stamp out one a second. How much could the removal of that factor influence the design? Consider a milk bottle. In manufacturing millions of them, there is every incentive to reduce costs. So we have the cheapest possible plastic which is food-safe but strong and moldable enough to have a handle, etc. Another type of plastic for a soft drink bottle. Another for a jar of honey, another for your takeaway food container. But every single one of these could actually be functionally replaced by, say, metal. The different plastics, the use of plastic at all, is not fundamental to the function, it is a side-effect of marginal costs in scale manufacturing. This is probably a bad example but I hope it shows the point. How many types of "building block" do we need? It is probably an unanswerable question but even so, it is surely orders of magnitude less than the question you're answering, which is "how many do we currently have". And your point about clothes - the "customisations" you are talking about are superficial only, just what is printed on the front! The actual clothing is identical. Cafepress do not design and manufacture a unique type of t-shirt just for you. You are actually kind of proving my point ;)
- replicatorblog 18y ago
  Sho, Great critique, but I think your conclusions underplay the importance of manufacturing. Granted we probably don't need as many plastics as we currently have, but even a single polymer like Lexan would need to come in many colors. These colors also also impacted by "flake" material being included to introduce reflectivity and a variety of other special effects. Also, the nature of molding something allows you to have certain material properties that cannot be achieved through additive fabrication. Of course, we could move to metal for some product categories, but cost becomes an issue there as well, you might be willing to pay more for a one off object, but 20X as is the norm now? Regarding the superficial nature of most clothing customization, you are correct that most offerings only allow you to change graphics, but Walmart has a tremendous business along those lines. Also, next generation startups like www.propercloth.com are allowing more customization in fit and function. In any case I think we both have valid points and there is only so much we can accomplish on a message board. If you are ever in Boston give me a shout.
  - TimoS 18y ago
    How about a compromise: you submit your design to Zazzle or whatever and they 3D print it for you. Same principle as ordering a 2D print right now. Some people print at home because it's instant and cheaper and there's no shipping cost. But there's plenty of reasons to order 2D prints online instead, including different materials, potentially higher quality, and lower up-front costs. The 3D printing concept seems like it works even better than 2D printing as a made-to-order service; it's more dependent on materials, a fancier machine will be able to make better stuff, you probably don't need it instantly, and shipping costs will be relatively smaller.
    - mhb 18y ago
      That is the business run by the article's author (http://www.shapeways.com http://www.shapeways.com). Check it out.
- kragen 18y ago
  > Consider a milk bottle. In manufacturing millions of them, there is > every incentive to reduce costs. So we have the cheapest possible > plastic which is food-safe but strong and moldable enough to have a > handle, etc. Another type of plastic for a soft drink bottle. Another > for a jar of honey, another for your takeaway food container. But > every single one of these could actually be functionally replaced by, > say, metal. The different plastics, the use of plastic at all, is not > fundamental to the function, it is a side-effect of marginal costs in > scale manufacturing. I’m no expert on manufacturing, but I think you could use the same low-grade high-density polyethylene used for the milk bottle for the soft-drink bottle, the jar of honey, and the takeaway food box as well. It would be thicker and heavier in some cases, and you wouldn’t be able to see through it as well as the PET that’s currently used for the soft-drink bottle or the crystal polystyrene used for see-through takeaway food boxes. (You could also use PET for all of those things. PS is less versatile because it’s brittle.) I don’t think this is where 3-D printing is going to make a big impact first, though. The objects you’re describing have a large potential market for them, where they compete on material properties and low cost with other objects. You can presumably mix just-in-time filled systems in your 3-D printer to get a wider range of material properties but I think that may not be a comparative advantage for 3-D printers in the near future. Instead, think about objects that are more customized to their surroundings, where shipping and inventory is a major part of the retail cost: drawer pulls, power strips for the number of plugs you actually have (integrated into your 3-D printed desk), planters, replacement machine parts, prosthetic body parts, screws of funny sizes, and so on.

sho 18y ago

Hm, also good points, but I still think your conclusions are too "confused by the present situation". For example, you rightly mention the awesome variety of plastics. But how many of them are really, when it comes down to it, essential to the functionality of the end product? I see many, many of these different plastics as existing not because of their inherent qualities in the end product but due to other factors. For example, you mention a type of plastic that bonds well to others. That is a manufacturing concern. It could be essential for the final idealised product to glue two plastics, but it could just as easily be an artefact of the manufacturing process. Another thing you fail to consider is the disappearance of the scale manufacturing incentive to reduce material costs. If you're making 100,000 copies of something, every percent reduction in your materials cost, and in the complexity of manufacture, becomes very significant. But if you're making 1, the materials cost is almost irrelevant, and you don't care about being able to stamp out one a second. How much could the removal of that factor influence the design? Consider a milk bottle. In manufacturing millions of them, there is every incentive to reduce costs. So we have the cheapest possible plastic which is food-safe but strong and moldable enough to have a handle, etc. Another type of plastic for a soft drink bottle. Another for a jar of honey, another for your takeaway food container. But every single one of these could actually be functionally replaced by, say, metal. The different plastics, the use of plastic at all, is not fundamental to the function, it is a side-effect of marginal costs in scale manufacturing. This is probably a bad example but I hope it shows the point. How many types of "building block" do we need? It is probably an unanswerable question but even so, it is surely orders of magnitude less than the question you're answering, which is "how many do we currently have". And your point about clothes - the "customisations" you are talking about are superficial only, just what is printed on the front! The actual clothing is identical. Cafepress do not design and manufacture a unique type of t-shirt just for you. You are actually kind of proving my point ;)

replicatorblog 18y ago
Sho, Great critique, but I think your conclusions underplay the importance of manufacturing. Granted we probably don't need as many plastics as we currently have, but even a single polymer like Lexan would need to come in many colors. These colors also also impacted by "flake" material being included to introduce reflectivity and a variety of other special effects. Also, the nature of molding something allows you to have certain material properties that cannot be achieved through additive fabrication. Of course, we could move to metal for some product categories, but cost becomes an issue there as well, you might be willing to pay more for a one off object, but 20X as is the norm now? Regarding the superficial nature of most clothing customization, you are correct that most offerings only allow you to change graphics, but Walmart has a tremendous business along those lines. Also, next generation startups like www.propercloth.com are allowing more customization in fit and function. In any case I think we both have valid points and there is only so much we can accomplish on a message board. If you are ever in Boston give me a shout.
- TimoS 18y ago
  How about a compromise: you submit your design to Zazzle or whatever and they 3D print it for you. Same principle as ordering a 2D print right now. Some people print at home because it's instant and cheaper and there's no shipping cost. But there's plenty of reasons to order 2D prints online instead, including different materials, potentially higher quality, and lower up-front costs. The 3D printing concept seems like it works even better than 2D printing as a made-to-order service; it's more dependent on materials, a fancier machine will be able to make better stuff, you probably don't need it instantly, and shipping costs will be relatively smaller.
  - mhb 18y ago
    That is the business run by the article's author (http://www.shapeways.com http://www.shapeways.com). Check it out.
kragen 18y ago
> Consider a milk bottle. In manufacturing millions of them, there is > every incentive to reduce costs. So we have the cheapest possible > plastic which is food-safe but strong and moldable enough to have a > handle, etc. Another type of plastic for a soft drink bottle. Another > for a jar of honey, another for your takeaway food container. But > every single one of these could actually be functionally replaced by, > say, metal. The different plastics, the use of plastic at all, is not > fundamental to the function, it is a side-effect of marginal costs in > scale manufacturing. I’m no expert on manufacturing, but I think you could use the same low-grade high-density polyethylene used for the milk bottle for the soft-drink bottle, the jar of honey, and the takeaway food box as well. It would be thicker and heavier in some cases, and you wouldn’t be able to see through it as well as the PET that’s currently used for the soft-drink bottle or the crystal polystyrene used for see-through takeaway food boxes. (You could also use PET for all of those things. PS is less versatile because it’s brittle.) I don’t think this is where 3-D printing is going to make a big impact first, though. The objects you’re describing have a large potential market for them, where they compete on material properties and low cost with other objects. You can presumably mix just-in-time filled systems in your 3-D printer to get a wider range of material properties but I think that may not be a comparative advantage for 3-D printers in the near future. Instead, think about objects that are more customized to their surroundings, where shipping and inventory is a major part of the retail cost: drawer pulls, power strips for the number of plugs you actually have (integrated into your 3-D printed desk), planters, replacement machine parts, prosthetic body parts, screws of funny sizes, and so on.