12 ms·

3D Printing Store

180 points by edpichler 12y ago

alexyes 12y ago
It has been around for a while
- fudged71 12y ago
  You are being downvoted but it's very true. Amazon has had this partnership with 3DLT for a while but have only just now published the news. I guess they were doing a pilot of the project to see if anyone would buy.
  - alexyes 12y ago
    Thanks. I am actually very excited for Amazon efforts in 3D printing. My comment was more about the effect of press releases
Zikes 12y ago
3D printers, capable of creating anything you can imagine. Only phones supported for cases are iPhones. The future is now! Edit: Lots of iPhone owners on HN, I see.
- duiker101 12y ago
  you probably still need a model for all the other phones, I agree that a lot of other phone models could be supported but I don't expect anything to be instantly available.
  - jadeddrag 12y ago
    I do.
  - jpindar 12y ago
    There are some cases there for Samsung phones.
edpichler 12y ago
3D printing is not new, but once this become cheap and available to everyone, it will be a really unimaginable and unprecedented world. What a great years to be living =]
robert_tweed 12y ago
Huh. I thought based on the title that this was 3D printing as a service, which would have been quite useful. It actually seems like yet another uninteresting store for 3D printed tat. I don't see how it fills a niche that isn't already filled by, say, Etsy, or how it's really any different from the existing Amazon marketplace other than "Look! 3D printing: New! Trendy!" What makes 3D printing interesting is the ability to create things that could not have been created before. If you are selling just those things (and not a design or custom production service), it's more appropriate to categorise them according to what they are, not how they were made.
- cauterized 12y ago
  I think there's a company that does 3d printing as a service. Try shapeways, maybe?
- TheCraiggers 12y ago
  I would have liked to see a "create your own" service for the general customer as well, but if you stop and think about it, that is still a ways off for a couple reasons off the top of my head: 1) Customers would need 3D design experience, or Amazon would need to come up with a truly novel CAD type program that the general populace could use. Even products like Google's SketchUp aren't exactly easy to use once you get past drawing cubes. 2) I think most people don't yet realize the limitations of this technology. They're going to be expecting super detailed minifigs and nice polished paint jobs, not rough plastic that doesn't have a great amount of detail in it. There's also the problem with designs that are impossible for current 3D printers to create. In both cases injection molding is still king, IMHO. I think both of these will eventually get solved, but I don't think it will be this year. 3D printing is progressing at an awesome pace, but it still has to bake a bit before it gets as good as other creation methods. And most people are going to be expecting something better than what consumer grade 3D printing can currently offer. That means lots of returns for a site like Amazon.
  - yincrash 12y ago
    http://www.shapeways.com/ http://www.shapeways.com/ You can get your own designs printed, or print other people's designs.
bhouston 12y ago
I love that they have integrated partner 3D printing community sites like the beautiful Pinshape: http://pinshape.com/index http://pinshape.com/index (Right now http://pinshape.com http://pinshape.com isn't working)
- pgrote 12y ago
  If you go to the url above you receive the error: "The enemy gate is down! That's certainly some out of box thinking, launchy! The application has encountered an unexpected error and cannot display the page you requested. In case you want to contact us about this, be sure to include the error identification so we can get at your issue more easily: anonymous-1406558433-440654a4421d29f6e36ae663eb2c1df3b30ada6c62698cfe49d7c04c2dd0ca17" I haven't seen it before. If you go to https://pinshape.com/index https://pinshape.com/index there is no error.
  - duiker101 12y ago
    Same
- nickschwing 12y ago
  Hi guys, we were just doing a push at the time, everything is working as expected now. Thanks for checking us out!
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
diggan 12y ago
Kind of off topic but recently, I broke my washing machine by trying to open it while being locked. The little piece of plastic broke and I can't find a similar one anywhere... So I got the idea to make the thing myself, send the model to some company that provides single unit 3D printing in europe (I'm located in Spain) but haven't found any with reasonable pricing. Anyone here know of such company where I can send my 3D model and they will print it and send it home to me?
- gerbal 12y ago
  Sculpteo[1] and Shapeways[2] seem to be the two largest printers. According to what I have read[3], they are priced roughly in line with the costs of materials, plus some overhead. You may just want to find a maker space somewhere near you[4] and go print it there. Plus then you get to play with their kit and meet some cool people. [1]http://www.sculpteo.com/ http://www.sculpteo.com/ [2]http://www.shapeways.com/ http://www.shapeways.com/ [3]http://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/1b1701/is_shapeways_overpriced/ http://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/1b1701/is_shapew... [4]http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Spain http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Spain
  - bram_rongen 12y ago
    Another option if you want to meet the person behind the printer is http://www.3dhubs.com http://www.3dhubs.com. It's all about connecting people on a local level around 3D printing.
- chromaton 12y ago
  Curious: how do you define "reasonable pricing"?
  - Zancarius 12y ago
    I don't know about the OP, but in my opinion, it'd be anything less than or equal to an equivalent replacement part (if it were available--in the OP's circumstance it's not). For example, some manufacturers of vacuum cleaners easily charge in upwards of $20 for a small plastic piece that you wouldn't expect to pay more than $8 for. So, if on-demand 3D printing services could compete with that niche, it's something I could see being of use for aftermarket repair or replacement. Poorly designed plastic switches no bigger than your thumb shouldn't be more expensive than hose attachments. The only thing to worry about is the manufacturers' response: I don't know how much money they make from replacement parts, but if it's anything other than a minor revenue stream, I'd imagine they might issue legal threats or takedown notices. I wonder if, in another 20 years, we'll see OEMs sending threats to 3D printing companies warning them not to sell replacement components even if customers sent them the schematic?
chromaton 12y ago
It's an interesting idea, but looks quite limited in the available options. What most people miss is that current cheap 3D printing doesn't produce very durable, large, or high resolution parts. To get really good quality, you need an expensive machine, and that means expensive parts to pay for the capital costs. Also, for the best results, you have to understand the limitations of the machine: resolution, minimum wall thickness, and so on. This is part of the reason I've been focused on waterjet and laser cutting. You can design parts on the computer the same way, but the limitations are quite easy to understand, and you can end up with large, durable parts at the end of the process.
- dheera 12y ago
  Durable, large, high resolution, and cheap have all be done, just not at the same time. As with any technology I think it will only be a matter of time, though. Personally I do wish there were more options for metal and ceramic, which would make it very useful for custom, wacky eating utensils that could not be done with traditional manufacturing easily. Ponoko does it but it's not cheap and they have a limited selection of colours.
- fragmede 12y ago
  > To get really good quality, you need an expensive machine, and that means expensive parts to pay for the capital costs. It's maybe possible that Amazon has access to lots of capital if desired. Hell, they have "bronze-infused stainless steel" as a material option - I think it's obvious that Amazon isn't using hobby-grade 3d printers.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    I imagine they use a process similar to Shapeways for that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9VOwqtOglg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9VOwqtOglg I wouldn't be all that surprised if Shapeways or similar is actually doing the printing.
Pxtl 12y ago
As much as I love the 3D printing revolution, I feel like we all collectively skipped a step - most parents and teachers I know would just be ecstatic to have a 2D cutter plotter for the purposes of cutting out silhouettes of letters and the like.
- regularfry 12y ago
  You can get stencil cutters for not-very-much-money: http://www.amazon.com/Silhouette-Cameo-Material-Cutting-Printer/dp/B0060D1LFO http://www.amazon.com/Silhouette-Cameo-Material-Cutting-Prin...
  - VLM 12y ago
    Both that and the somewhat cheaper cricut are into the whole walled garden thing where you get to buy the letter "H" for $1 or whatever. Its not like owning a laserprinter where you can reasonably assume you can "just print" without having to purchase each letter in each font first. Also my wife has a cricut and its slow. Fast enough for home craft use, but don't expect 15 ppm laser printer speeds, its more like 5 to maybe 10 minutes per page. This has scaling effect and labor cost issues for a school teacher. Theoretically you could build something as fast as a modern laser cutter, heck, you could use a modern laser cutter, but even those aren't as fast as a laser printer. Giving the kids some fine motor practice in cutting out laserprinted outlines would be cheaper and more effective.
    - regularfry 12y ago
      > Both that and the somewhat cheaper cricut are into the whole walled garden thing where you get to buy the letter "H" for $1 or whatever. Both the product FAQ and the customer comments on that page disagree with you: Q: Can you create your own illustrations / decal designs (vectors) and print them with this - or is it only clip-art images? A: Yes, I create my own vector designs and import them from adobe illustrator. Seems like either you or they are wrong.
      - 12y ago
mholt 12y ago
Does anyone else think that the slogan "Shop the Future" is kind of corny?
- njharman 12y ago
  One person's marketing gold is another's marketing cheese.
regularfry 12y ago
Someone needs to hide my credit card.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118660757/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118660757/ Ok, this really irks me. Why do people keep writing and printing paper books that will become obsolete before even the first batch is sold out? Topics like this, or the latest (at the time of writing) version of jQuery or other things that have lifespan of few months? Surely this is just a waste of money and paper for everyone. I can see the value of e-books, or even print-on-demand publications, but not this. Those books end up either cluttering the local libraries or pissing off second-hand bookshop employees because no-one will buy or read them in a year. It's almost a printer-to-recycler pipeline.
- Htsthbjig 12y ago
  There are lots of reasons. The fact that you don't have a use for this does not mean that other people don't too. I buy text books, not as often as I did because of things like Lynda but I do from time to time. The first thing I do is to cut the book with an automatic saw and give the pages to my amazing Fujitsu automatic scanner. Then I store the book on a box far away in a storage room. This way I have a 100% DRM free book I can read whenever I want and weights 0 grams, and I can travel to other countries with it. Most of the time(when buying multiple books) the tree killer version is cheaper than the DRM ebook one, and it does not have your name in all the pages like some bastards do. Some books never will have a DRM free ebook ever.
  - lucian1900 12y ago
    Why not just buy a digital version and remove the DRM? It's easy enough and almost always cheaper.
    - aroch 12y ago
      Not all books have a digital, DRM free version? Also, sometimes having the physical book is nice, especially for quick reference between a few known pages
    - Istof 12y ago
      although it does not make sense, I believe it is illegal to remove DRM...
Istof 12y ago
The whole point of 3D printing is that you can create almost anything but they don't let you print your own files at Amazon?
- delecti 12y ago
  That opens up potential copyright/patent issues, I fully understand why they wouldn't want to risk it.
  - Istof 12y ago
    Why don't they call their toys custom injection molding? it's a marketing ploy?
    - delecti 12y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean. Are you suggesting they're not actually 3d printed toys?
      - Istof 12y ago
        I'm sure that they are 3D printed but they are not offering the full benefits of 3D printing (and far from it) ... calling it 3D printing is almost irrelevant (although quality can sometime differ when using some types of 3D printing).
    - jonmrodriguez 12y ago
      Injection molding refers to a specific manufacturing process that Amazon is not using. http://www.vulcanmold.com/uploads/image/plastic-injection-molding-proces.jpg http://www.vulcanmold.com/uploads/image/plastic-injection-mo...
    - dmd 12y ago
      Because that would be completely wrong. It's not custom, and it's not injection molding. What they're doing isn't custom, and they're not claiming it is. It is 3D printing, and they are (correctly) claiming it is.
birkbork 12y ago
So, clone-a-willy?
marcosscriven 12y ago
If anyone has a chance of making it work, it's a company like Amazon. I spent a bit of time last year trying to work on a a 3D model sharing site: http://www.fabfabbers.com/ http://www.fabfabbers.com/ - as a personal project rather than a viable business. In the end I found the idea of providing 3D development tools online much more interesting, and spent a bit of time converting OpenSCAD. I got a bit fed up with it in the end though, so it's just bit rotted since.
- e12e 12y ago
  I don't know -- if it was one thing Amazon could do better than anyone else, it would be print-on-demand. But apparently they prefer to stick with traditional physical books. Granted, unlike 3d printing a toy, or tool or what-not -- there are better (well potentially better) alternatives to print-on-demand: e-books. I do find it kind of odd that they don't allow custom designs -- seems to defeat the purpose of 3d printing?
  - hiddencost 12y ago
    hrm? Amazon does do print-on-demand. It seems fairly obvious that they don't allow custom designs. If you want to print your own stuff, go to a maker space. Quality control is important for a company like Amazon, and custom designs make that impossible. A small batch of items is the logical place to start a service like this. I'm sure over time they'll steadily incorporate proven designs onto the platform; probably they'll also let people submit designs and get a cut of the design, just like books. But, there will need to be a rigorous quality control process in place before the platform can be that open.
    - e12e 12y ago
      Amazon does print-on-demand for books? Eg printing copies in Germany rather than shipping from the US?
      - hiddencost 12y ago
        The print-on-demand is only available if the author enrolls in the program, I assume for legal reasons. https://www.createspace.com/ https://www.createspace.com/
johnvschmitt 12y ago
AutoCAD? Seriously? For consumers, who are the primary market here on Amazon, looking to get started, why would they buy very expensive software for the CAD part? Blender is a free CAD tool that I use, as well as millions of others, and is just fine for 99% of consumers. If they get serious & professional, then they'd feed right into the expensive corporate CAD solutions: SolidWorks, AutoCAD, etc. But, it's odd that Amazon would start you with B2B tools like that. Of course, that makes me suspect that AutoCAD is paying Amazon for this positioning. If not, then it's just a mistake IMO.

3D Printing Store

180 points by edpichler 12y ago

alexyes 12y ago

It has been around for a while

fudged71 12y ago
You are being downvoted but it's very true. Amazon has had this partnership with 3DLT for a while but have only just now published the news. I guess they were doing a pilot of the project to see if anyone would buy.
- alexyes 12y ago
  Thanks. I am actually very excited for Amazon efforts in 3D printing. My comment was more about the effect of press releases

Zikes 12y ago

3D printers, capable of creating anything you can imagine. Only phones supported for cases are iPhones. The future is now! Edit: Lots of iPhone owners on HN, I see.

duiker101 12y ago
you probably still need a model for all the other phones, I agree that a lot of other phone models could be supported but I don't expect anything to be instantly available.
- jadeddrag 12y ago
  I do.
- jpindar 12y ago
  There are some cases there for Samsung phones.

edpichler 12y ago

3D printing is not new, but once this become cheap and available to everyone, it will be a really unimaginable and unprecedented world. What a great years to be living =]

robert_tweed 12y ago

Huh. I thought based on the title that this was 3D printing as a service, which would have been quite useful. It actually seems like yet another uninteresting store for 3D printed tat. I don't see how it fills a niche that isn't already filled by, say, Etsy, or how it's really any different from the existing Amazon marketplace other than "Look! 3D printing: New! Trendy!" What makes 3D printing interesting is the ability to create things that could not have been created before. If you are selling just those things (and not a design or custom production service), it's more appropriate to categorise them according to what they are, not how they were made.

cauterized 12y ago
I think there's a company that does 3d printing as a service. Try shapeways, maybe?
TheCraiggers 12y ago
I would have liked to see a "create your own" service for the general customer as well, but if you stop and think about it, that is still a ways off for a couple reasons off the top of my head: 1) Customers would need 3D design experience, or Amazon would need to come up with a truly novel CAD type program that the general populace could use. Even products like Google's SketchUp aren't exactly easy to use once you get past drawing cubes. 2) I think most people don't yet realize the limitations of this technology. They're going to be expecting super detailed minifigs and nice polished paint jobs, not rough plastic that doesn't have a great amount of detail in it. There's also the problem with designs that are impossible for current 3D printers to create. In both cases injection molding is still king, IMHO. I think both of these will eventually get solved, but I don't think it will be this year. 3D printing is progressing at an awesome pace, but it still has to bake a bit before it gets as good as other creation methods. And most people are going to be expecting something better than what consumer grade 3D printing can currently offer. That means lots of returns for a site like Amazon.
- yincrash 12y ago
  http://www.shapeways.com/ http://www.shapeways.com/ You can get your own designs printed, or print other people's designs.

bhouston 12y ago

I love that they have integrated partner 3D printing community sites like the beautiful Pinshape: http://pinshape.com/index http://pinshape.com/index (Right now http://pinshape.com http://pinshape.com isn't working)

pgrote 12y ago
If you go to the url above you receive the error: "The enemy gate is down! That's certainly some out of box thinking, launchy! The application has encountered an unexpected error and cannot display the page you requested. In case you want to contact us about this, be sure to include the error identification so we can get at your issue more easily: anonymous-1406558433-440654a4421d29f6e36ae663eb2c1df3b30ada6c62698cfe49d7c04c2dd0ca17" I haven't seen it before. If you go to https://pinshape.com/index https://pinshape.com/index there is no error.
- duiker101 12y ago
  Same
nickschwing 12y ago
Hi guys, we were just doing a push at the time, everything is working as expected now. Thanks for checking us out!

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

diggan 12y ago

Kind of off topic but recently, I broke my washing machine by trying to open it while being locked. The little piece of plastic broke and I can't find a similar one anywhere... So I got the idea to make the thing myself, send the model to some company that provides single unit 3D printing in europe (I'm located in Spain) but haven't found any with reasonable pricing. Anyone here know of such company where I can send my 3D model and they will print it and send it home to me?

gerbal 12y ago
Sculpteo[1] and Shapeways[2] seem to be the two largest printers. According to what I have read[3], they are priced roughly in line with the costs of materials, plus some overhead. You may just want to find a maker space somewhere near you[4] and go print it there. Plus then you get to play with their kit and meet some cool people. [1]http://www.sculpteo.com/ http://www.sculpteo.com/ [2]http://www.shapeways.com/ http://www.shapeways.com/ [3]http://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/1b1701/is_shapeways_overpriced/ http://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/1b1701/is_shapew... [4]http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Spain http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Spain
- bram_rongen 12y ago
  Another option if you want to meet the person behind the printer is http://www.3dhubs.com http://www.3dhubs.com. It's all about connecting people on a local level around 3D printing.
chromaton 12y ago
Curious: how do you define "reasonable pricing"?
- Zancarius 12y ago
  I don't know about the OP, but in my opinion, it'd be anything less than or equal to an equivalent replacement part (if it were available--in the OP's circumstance it's not). For example, some manufacturers of vacuum cleaners easily charge in upwards of $20 for a small plastic piece that you wouldn't expect to pay more than $8 for. So, if on-demand 3D printing services could compete with that niche, it's something I could see being of use for aftermarket repair or replacement. Poorly designed plastic switches no bigger than your thumb shouldn't be more expensive than hose attachments. The only thing to worry about is the manufacturers' response: I don't know how much money they make from replacement parts, but if it's anything other than a minor revenue stream, I'd imagine they might issue legal threats or takedown notices. I wonder if, in another 20 years, we'll see OEMs sending threats to 3D printing companies warning them not to sell replacement components even if customers sent them the schematic?

chromaton 12y ago

It's an interesting idea, but looks quite limited in the available options. What most people miss is that current cheap 3D printing doesn't produce very durable, large, or high resolution parts. To get really good quality, you need an expensive machine, and that means expensive parts to pay for the capital costs. Also, for the best results, you have to understand the limitations of the machine: resolution, minimum wall thickness, and so on. This is part of the reason I've been focused on waterjet and laser cutting. You can design parts on the computer the same way, but the limitations are quite easy to understand, and you can end up with large, durable parts at the end of the process.

dheera 12y ago
Durable, large, high resolution, and cheap have all be done, just not at the same time. As with any technology I think it will only be a matter of time, though. Personally I do wish there were more options for metal and ceramic, which would make it very useful for custom, wacky eating utensils that could not be done with traditional manufacturing easily. Ponoko does it but it's not cheap and they have a limited selection of colours.
fragmede 12y ago
> To get really good quality, you need an expensive machine, and that means expensive parts to pay for the capital costs. It's maybe possible that Amazon has access to lots of capital if desired. Hell, they have "bronze-infused stainless steel" as a material option - I think it's obvious that Amazon isn't using hobby-grade 3d printers.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  I imagine they use a process similar to Shapeways for that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9VOwqtOglg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9VOwqtOglg I wouldn't be all that surprised if Shapeways or similar is actually doing the printing.

Pxtl 12y ago

As much as I love the 3D printing revolution, I feel like we all collectively skipped a step - most parents and teachers I know would just be ecstatic to have a 2D cutter plotter for the purposes of cutting out silhouettes of letters and the like.

regularfry 12y ago
You can get stencil cutters for not-very-much-money: http://www.amazon.com/Silhouette-Cameo-Material-Cutting-Printer/dp/B0060D1LFO http://www.amazon.com/Silhouette-Cameo-Material-Cutting-Prin...
- VLM 12y ago
  Both that and the somewhat cheaper cricut are into the whole walled garden thing where you get to buy the letter "H" for $1 or whatever. Its not like owning a laserprinter where you can reasonably assume you can "just print" without having to purchase each letter in each font first. Also my wife has a cricut and its slow. Fast enough for home craft use, but don't expect 15 ppm laser printer speeds, its more like 5 to maybe 10 minutes per page. This has scaling effect and labor cost issues for a school teacher. Theoretically you could build something as fast as a modern laser cutter, heck, you could use a modern laser cutter, but even those aren't as fast as a laser printer. Giving the kids some fine motor practice in cutting out laserprinted outlines would be cheaper and more effective.
  - regularfry 12y ago
    > Both that and the somewhat cheaper cricut are into the whole walled garden thing where you get to buy the letter "H" for $1 or whatever. Both the product FAQ and the customer comments on that page disagree with you: Q: Can you create your own illustrations / decal designs (vectors) and print them with this - or is it only clip-art images? A: Yes, I create my own vector designs and import them from adobe illustrator. Seems like either you or they are wrong.
    - 12y ago

mholt 12y ago

Does anyone else think that the slogan "Shop the Future" is kind of corny?

njharman 12y ago
One person's marketing gold is another's marketing cheese.

regularfry 12y ago

Someone needs to hide my credit card.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118660757/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118660757/ Ok, this really irks me. Why do people keep writing and printing paper books that will become obsolete before even the first batch is sold out? Topics like this, or the latest (at the time of writing) version of jQuery or other things that have lifespan of few months? Surely this is just a waste of money and paper for everyone. I can see the value of e-books, or even print-on-demand publications, but not this. Those books end up either cluttering the local libraries or pissing off second-hand bookshop employees because no-one will buy or read them in a year. It's almost a printer-to-recycler pipeline.

Htsthbjig 12y ago
There are lots of reasons. The fact that you don't have a use for this does not mean that other people don't too. I buy text books, not as often as I did because of things like Lynda but I do from time to time. The first thing I do is to cut the book with an automatic saw and give the pages to my amazing Fujitsu automatic scanner. Then I store the book on a box far away in a storage room. This way I have a 100% DRM free book I can read whenever I want and weights 0 grams, and I can travel to other countries with it. Most of the time(when buying multiple books) the tree killer version is cheaper than the DRM ebook one, and it does not have your name in all the pages like some bastards do. Some books never will have a DRM free ebook ever.
- lucian1900 12y ago
  Why not just buy a digital version and remove the DRM? It's easy enough and almost always cheaper.
  - aroch 12y ago
    Not all books have a digital, DRM free version? Also, sometimes having the physical book is nice, especially for quick reference between a few known pages
  - Istof 12y ago
    although it does not make sense, I believe it is illegal to remove DRM...

Istof 12y ago

The whole point of 3D printing is that you can create almost anything but they don't let you print your own files at Amazon?

delecti 12y ago
That opens up potential copyright/patent issues, I fully understand why they wouldn't want to risk it.
- Istof 12y ago
  Why don't they call their toys custom injection molding? it's a marketing ploy?
  - delecti 12y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean. Are you suggesting they're not actually 3d printed toys?
    - Istof 12y ago
      I'm sure that they are 3D printed but they are not offering the full benefits of 3D printing (and far from it) ... calling it 3D printing is almost irrelevant (although quality can sometime differ when using some types of 3D printing).
  - jonmrodriguez 12y ago
    Injection molding refers to a specific manufacturing process that Amazon is not using. http://www.vulcanmold.com/uploads/image/plastic-injection-molding-proces.jpg http://www.vulcanmold.com/uploads/image/plastic-injection-mo...
  - dmd 12y ago
    Because that would be completely wrong. It's not custom, and it's not injection molding. What they're doing isn't custom, and they're not claiming it is. It is 3D printing, and they are (correctly) claiming it is.

birkbork 12y ago

So, clone-a-willy?

marcosscriven 12y ago

If anyone has a chance of making it work, it's a company like Amazon. I spent a bit of time last year trying to work on a a 3D model sharing site: http://www.fabfabbers.com/ http://www.fabfabbers.com/ - as a personal project rather than a viable business. In the end I found the idea of providing 3D development tools online much more interesting, and spent a bit of time converting OpenSCAD. I got a bit fed up with it in the end though, so it's just bit rotted since.

e12e 12y ago
I don't know -- if it was one thing Amazon could do better than anyone else, it would be print-on-demand. But apparently they prefer to stick with traditional physical books. Granted, unlike 3d printing a toy, or tool or what-not -- there are better (well potentially better) alternatives to print-on-demand: e-books. I do find it kind of odd that they don't allow custom designs -- seems to defeat the purpose of 3d printing?
- hiddencost 12y ago
  hrm? Amazon does do print-on-demand. It seems fairly obvious that they don't allow custom designs. If you want to print your own stuff, go to a maker space. Quality control is important for a company like Amazon, and custom designs make that impossible. A small batch of items is the logical place to start a service like this. I'm sure over time they'll steadily incorporate proven designs onto the platform; probably they'll also let people submit designs and get a cut of the design, just like books. But, there will need to be a rigorous quality control process in place before the platform can be that open.
  - e12e 12y ago
    Amazon does print-on-demand for books? Eg printing copies in Germany rather than shipping from the US?
    - hiddencost 12y ago
      The print-on-demand is only available if the author enrolls in the program, I assume for legal reasons. https://www.createspace.com/ https://www.createspace.com/

johnvschmitt 12y ago

AutoCAD? Seriously? For consumers, who are the primary market here on Amazon, looking to get started, why would they buy very expensive software for the CAD part? Blender is a free CAD tool that I use, as well as millions of others, and is just fine for 99% of consumers. If they get serious & professional, then they'd feed right into the expensive corporate CAD solutions: SolidWorks, AutoCAD, etc. But, it's odd that Amazon would start you with B2B tools like that. Of course, that makes me suspect that AutoCAD is paying Amazon for this positioning. If not, then it's just a mistake IMO.