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I know the guys behind the original Makerbot, and if you think that they had no clue about CNC mills, lathes, grinders, cast makers and mould makers, industrial

I know the guys behind the original Makerbot, and if you think that they had no clue about CNC mills, lathes, grinders, cast makers and mould makers, industrial robots and so on: you're very, very definitely mistaken. What is this generalization that "things that are not new are not good"? The point of the entire 3d-printer movement is that its no longer in the hands of industrial masters: its in the hands of the users. In some ways, your argument is kind of like saying "you know, I wish those Linux guys would learn about operating systems .. didn't they know there were already VMS and DOS and bigger OS's and stuff out there, made by bigger and better people than them, sheesh.."

DaniFong 14y ago
Two things: 1) Awareness is not knowledge 2) The inventors of the technology are not who I meant by the enthusiasts. I am not trying to reproach the technologies developers. I am simply trying to warn off the over-impressionable, and calm the hype artists. Surely you are aware of the plethora of 3D printing enthusiasts and the great dearth of useful things to do with it? I particularly hold those hype artists responsible who have not tried to 3D print anything. This obviously doesn't hold for the 3d printer inventors. But one tends to have one's enthusiasm muted when the jet clogs, the material spills out on the edges, the refills cost enough to bail out a small european island, the software barfs, the whole process takes HOURS and the eng product is a liney, smooshy, oozy, breaky catastrophe. This technology is NOT READY FOR THE HYPE and in the glories of rapid commercialization there are going to be damnable, industry draining, momentum churning, radical to conservative turning, uber-disappointment, and public opinion will again overshoot, and we will again be forced back into enterprise software, and it will all be preventable and all our fault. --- Check this stuff out, instead, to get a broader view of new construction: Pop-up machine assembly. Mass producible, high quality materials. Machine components are possible -- things you could never otherwise have. http://vibrantresearch.com/ http://vibrantresearch.com/ Pneumatic robots. Moving. Human compatible. Flexible. Packable. Lightweight. Strong. These are simple sown and braised (sometimes unbraised!) polyurethane. Way faster than 3D printing. Actually does things. Super cool. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqP3IpEqkk4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqP3IpEqkk4 Computer sciences should have by new realized the great advantage in the methods here outlined. A linear element cutting or sewing a surface which then pops out works much faster than a linear element zigging and zagging building up layer by layer. This is a fundamental characteristic of the technology. Also you can use less material, and stronger. --- A friend of mine, Tim Anderson, founded ZCorp, one of the first useful 3D printers. The basic advance played to strengths, and worked fast, you could build up layers quickly, cheaply, and even use color, thanks to printing liquid onto a powder on each layer. The material kind of sucked for material properties, but you'd have color, so you could show something in 3d, (stress concentrations in 3d, for example) and you could do art with it. Awesome. But that's about what you can do with it. Show things. Make art. That's cool. But that's not why people are getting into it. They're trying to take magic from their minds, to the computer, out to the real world. But you're stuck in a lame version of the real world when it takes 14 hours to make something out of expensive by cheap seeming plastic. And it sucks because people already can make such amazing things.

DaniFong 14y ago

Two things: 1) Awareness is not knowledge 2) The inventors of the technology are not who I meant by the enthusiasts. I am not trying to reproach the technologies developers. I am simply trying to warn off the over-impressionable, and calm the hype artists. Surely you are aware of the plethora of 3D printing enthusiasts and the great dearth of useful things to do with it? I particularly hold those hype artists responsible who have not tried to 3D print anything. This obviously doesn't hold for the 3d printer inventors. But one tends to have one's enthusiasm muted when the jet clogs, the material spills out on the edges, the refills cost enough to bail out a small european island, the software barfs, the whole process takes HOURS and the eng product is a liney, smooshy, oozy, breaky catastrophe. This technology is NOT READY FOR THE HYPE and in the glories of rapid commercialization there are going to be damnable, industry draining, momentum churning, radical to conservative turning, uber-disappointment, and public opinion will again overshoot, and we will again be forced back into enterprise software, and it will all be preventable and all our fault. --- Check this stuff out, instead, to get a broader view of new construction: Pop-up machine assembly. Mass producible, high quality materials. Machine components are possible -- things you could never otherwise have. http://vibrantresearch.com/ http://vibrantresearch.com/ Pneumatic robots. Moving. Human compatible. Flexible. Packable. Lightweight. Strong. These are simple sown and braised (sometimes unbraised!) polyurethane. Way faster than 3D printing. Actually does things. Super cool. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqP3IpEqkk4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqP3IpEqkk4 Computer sciences should have by new realized the great advantage in the methods here outlined. A linear element cutting or sewing a surface which then pops out works much faster than a linear element zigging and zagging building up layer by layer. This is a fundamental characteristic of the technology. Also you can use less material, and stronger. --- A friend of mine, Tim Anderson, founded ZCorp, one of the first useful 3D printers. The basic advance played to strengths, and worked fast, you could build up layers quickly, cheaply, and even use color, thanks to printing liquid onto a powder on each layer. The material kind of sucked for material properties, but you'd have color, so you could show something in 3d, (stress concentrations in 3d, for example) and you could do art with it. Awesome. But that's about what you can do with it. Show things. Make art. That's cool. But that's not why people are getting into it. They're trying to take magic from their minds, to the computer, out to the real world. But you're stuck in a lame version of the real world when it takes 14 hours to make something out of expensive by cheap seeming plastic. And it sucks because people already can make such amazing things.