2 ms·

Why you'd want a 3D printer? Isn't that kinda obvious? To make parts for your next 3D printer of course! Joking aside: I have a few spare time projects wher

by bborud 14y ago

Why you'd want a 3D printer? Isn't that kinda obvious? To make parts for your next 3D printer of course! Joking aside: I have a few spare time projects where I am going to need some way of producing mechanical parts. For instance I am designing an integrated device for controlling the flow rate of dialysis fluid during peritoneal dialysis fluid exchange. I've been working on this for a while and have gone through many designs. Mostly as a learning exercise. I think that in a few years it will be more common for people to make simple objects in their home. Brackets, mounts, adapters etc. I'm not sure if a lot of people will necessarily be involved in designing parts, but through the wonder that is the internet: you'll have vast repositories of ready made designs that can be printed.

tlrobinson 14y ago
You joke, but I bought a MakerBot and pretty much the only things I've printed are "upgrades" for the printer itself.
- bborud 14y ago
  Like there old russian saying goes: there is element of joke in every joke. A friend of mine got a 3D printer and I think he spent the first few weeks printing upgrades to the printer itself. Then he started printing parts for his CNC machine. And right now he is building a really exciting-looking, large 3D printer from scratch using ... his 3D printer. But he also prints parts for lots of other projects. Among them various DIY medical equipment that we have been designing together. I think the biggest obstacle for putting 3D printers to good use is that people just are not used to having the capability to make physical objects. It is like when the first personal computers came on the market: people played around with them and in theory you could do useful things with them -- but programming was new to people. It took a good decade or so before computers were useful at home, but in that time they had served a much more important purpose: to make programming a relatively mainstream skill. Designing mechanical objects is unfamiliar territory for most of us. Traditionally this has required really, really expensive, specialized software that up until now only professionals were into. Compare it to when digital photography went mainstream and companies like Adobe were too dumb to catch on -- I still hear people defend the exorbitant price of Photoshop with "oh, only professionals would want that kind of power". Which is utter nonsense. I have to say that Autodesk have impressed me in this respect. Although their software lineup is extremely confusing at times they have released some really neat software for free. For instance I have been using Inventor Fusion lately and it is great. (I've also used Fusion 360, which is not so great because their intent seems to be to combine it with some cloud service, and that cloud service is very far from being usable. They probably saw Thingiverse and figured they wanted a piece of that action). But I think it is brilliant of them to make good tools available for the Mac -- the people you want to reach use Macs and Linux). Also, designing physical objects requires skills that are not mainstream. I find myself looking at objects in a very new way. I try to understand how the shape is modeled, how it is supposed to deal with stress etc. These are very exciting times. I wish I was 18 again.

by bborud 14y ago

tlrobinson 14y ago

You joke, but I bought a MakerBot and pretty much the only things I've printed are "upgrades" for the printer itself.

bborud 14y ago
Like there old russian saying goes: there is element of joke in every joke. A friend of mine got a 3D printer and I think he spent the first few weeks printing upgrades to the printer itself. Then he started printing parts for his CNC machine. And right now he is building a really exciting-looking, large 3D printer from scratch using ... his 3D printer. But he also prints parts for lots of other projects. Among them various DIY medical equipment that we have been designing together. I think the biggest obstacle for putting 3D printers to good use is that people just are not used to having the capability to make physical objects. It is like when the first personal computers came on the market: people played around with them and in theory you could do useful things with them -- but programming was new to people. It took a good decade or so before computers were useful at home, but in that time they had served a much more important purpose: to make programming a relatively mainstream skill. Designing mechanical objects is unfamiliar territory for most of us. Traditionally this has required really, really expensive, specialized software that up until now only professionals were into. Compare it to when digital photography went mainstream and companies like Adobe were too dumb to catch on -- I still hear people defend the exorbitant price of Photoshop with "oh, only professionals would want that kind of power". Which is utter nonsense. I have to say that Autodesk have impressed me in this respect. Although their software lineup is extremely confusing at times they have released some really neat software for free. For instance I have been using Inventor Fusion lately and it is great. (I've also used Fusion 360, which is not so great because their intent seems to be to combine it with some cloud service, and that cloud service is very far from being usable. They probably saw Thingiverse and figured they wanted a piece of that action). But I think it is brilliant of them to make good tools available for the Mac -- the people you want to reach use Macs and Linux). Also, designing physical objects requires skills that are not mainstream. I find myself looking at objects in a very new way. I try to understand how the shape is modeled, how it is supposed to deal with stress etc. These are very exciting times. I wish I was 18 again.