3 ms·

I can't wait to buy one, even if it's just to print gifts for friends and nameplates for the office. Every time I hear more about this domain (typically from f

I can't wait to buy one, even if it's just to print gifts for friends and nameplates for the office. Every time I hear more about this domain (typically from folks like iamwil at CubeHero) I become more excited by the possibilities. It's a enabling technology, so looking for a "killer application" is probably the wrong way to think about it: the impact is likely to be more fundamental and spread across a variety of small use cases for a long time until it's ingrained in our culture. I still remember walking into a VC's offices and seeing a row of neatly-printed 3D 4-polytopes sitting along the counter to welcome entrants. Sadly, it's the one piece of equipment where I can't think of even a tangential application in crowd labor, so there's not one here at the office yet. I expect this'll be as ubiquitous as a 2D printer in offices within a few years, though.

iamwil 13y ago
Thanks for the shout out. :) I still maintain the same stance. Many people look at the technology as it is now, or too far in the future, rather than where it's headed in the next year or three. As for crowd labor market, there might be an application. 3D printers are slow compared to other types of manufacturing, and thus, to get any volume to sell, one needs to operate a printer farm, or try to do distributed 3D printing. When people do operate printer farms, where they have racks of printers to print out parts that they sell. However, the current crop of 3D printers still requires manual labor in the beginning and the end of the print. There's no mechanism yet to automatically remove the piece and start a new job. This may be where labor can come in. As for distributed printing, I do know of a guy that's trying this out as an experiment, since he doesn't have the capacity to print every piece he's selling, he pays others to help him print, and then it's shipped to him. So that is a possibility as well.
- Kliment 13y ago
  Hey. I prototyped an automagic part remover for unattended continuous operation for a client who prints continuously. Contact me if you are interested (kliment@0xfb.com)

iamwil 13y ago

Thanks for the shout out. :) I still maintain the same stance. Many people look at the technology as it is now, or too far in the future, rather than where it's headed in the next year or three. As for crowd labor market, there might be an application. 3D printers are slow compared to other types of manufacturing, and thus, to get any volume to sell, one needs to operate a printer farm, or try to do distributed 3D printing. When people do operate printer farms, where they have racks of printers to print out parts that they sell. However, the current crop of 3D printers still requires manual labor in the beginning and the end of the print. There's no mechanism yet to automatically remove the piece and start a new job. This may be where labor can come in. As for distributed printing, I do know of a guy that's trying this out as an experiment, since he doesn't have the capacity to print every piece he's selling, he pays others to help him print, and then it's shipped to him. So that is a possibility as well.

Kliment 13y ago
Hey. I prototyped an automagic part remover for unattended continuous operation for a client who prints continuously. Contact me if you are interested (kliment@0xfb.com)