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Something I've noticed at Makers Faires and Expos is there's a lot of people with 3D Printers, but they tend to fall into two groups. One one side you have col

Something I've noticed at Makers Faires and Expos is there's a lot of people with 3D Printers, but they tend to fall into two groups. One one side you have college teachers wearing suits sitting at a table with pamphlets advertising their school's fabrication lab. These guys all have commercial 3D printers they bought from a company, and examples of fairly boring objects they printed. On the other side you have the hackers from the maker spaces. These guys all have 3D printers they have made themselves which favor extreme colors, and bizarre and interesting features that commercial units don't have and can't support. These guys will have mohawks, crazy clothes, piercings, tattoos, and be showing off amazing objects they designed themselves, often to solve actual real life problems. Currently the market is bifurcated into suits vs artists. The suits try to sell their printers to other suits and to soccer moms. The artists are doing the cool stuff. The problem is that suits and soccer moms don't want 3D printers. It's like when the industry tried to sell early 8 bit computers to women using a marketing message "You can manage your recipes." Sure, but the reality is a card file works even better for that purpose. The startups are marketing their printer kits to the freaks, rebels, punks, artists and mad scientists. And that's the people that are able to actually use 3D printers right now. Not suits and suburbanites. Things will change later, but right now this is an early market that appeals a lot to early adopters, who are non conformists by definition, otherwise they wouldn't be early adopters. It's not about cost either. The author of the article talks about a $299 printer. The custom kit printers tend to cost a lot more than that including all the various costs. Users can save money by buying a commercial fully assembled printer. But that doesn't give you street cred and it's not hot roddable.

anigbrowl 12y ago
These guys will have mohawks, crazy clothes, piercings, tattoos, and be showing off amazing objects they designed themselves, often to solve actual real life problems. I don't agree. A small number of the items are useful, most often replacement parts for things that would either require replacement with much larger parts (custom patches for damaged plastic shell) or which are difficult to replace (item no longer manufactured or firm no longer in business or part so obscure as to hinder repair). I've also seen some novel items that are good prototypes for industrial production. However, the majority of stuff I see at the 'freak' tables is junk, and samey junk at that. Expansible plastic jewelry, dodecahedral plastic hats (admittedly intended to draw attention to the large print area, but couldn't you find something more interesting?), and a lot of kitchenware, which strikes me as a particularly poor sector; ABS filament is non-toxic but I wouldn't use it where it's likely to encounter heat or alcohol, as would many examples on this page: http://www.pinterest.com/mekitso/3d-printed-kitchen/ http://www.pinterest.com/mekitso/3d-printed-kitchen/ Toys are a more obvious application, but most kids are not so into a monochromatic toy, and cheaper printers don't have the resolution to make good multi-part toys. An awful lot of printer offerings I see appear to be motivated by an 'if you build it they will come' approach, but are being offered for sale more on novelty than utility. The problem is that suits and soccer moms don't want 3D printers. Suits love 3d printers for industrial design/prototyping, architectural models, anything related to physical products where you might want to go into volume production later. And I do think there's a market for soccer moms: the most commercially interesting offerings I've seen at the lower end of the market in the last year or two is chocolate printing. It turns out that sugar works well enough for extrusion, low resolution is not that big of a deal when you're going to be eating it, and quite a lot of people are into doing really elaborate things with food. OK, such people tend to be artistically inclined too, but since everyone eats that translates into a huge number of people. Martha Stewart is already there: http://www.marthastewart.com/1065207/3d-printing-101 http://www.marthastewart.com/1065207/3d-printing-101 ...although note the bias towards services like Shapeways that can do one-offs in high quality materials, vs home printers. But I bet you'll see a Martha Stewart-branded 3d printer within a few years that's optimized for confectionary use. Now I'm not into baking or sweets, but I'm willing to bet that confectionery printers become by far the most widespread, while most people will go to a local print shop for quality 3d fabrication, whether that's sintered metal, multicolor paper, or very high resolution multifeed plastic. Makerbot-type printers have about as much future as dot matrix paper printers. The boring presenters at Maker Faires tend to be offering actual utility, if you can get past the eye candy. If you doubt this, go to a large hardware store; they have quantitites of boring-looking things with very high utility.
- im3w1l 12y ago
  Back in my days, we had to put hours and hours into gluing together and painting our warhammers! Surely todays kids shold be able to 3d print the parts and do the gluing and painting by hand.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    Ah, I was thinking of action figures although now that you mention it I was into painting wargaming/roleplaying figurines myself as a teen. In fact one of the first things that got me interested in 3d printing was my good memories of things like building model aircraft and so on, but that also made me pay attention to how crude FDM is :-/
    - larve 12y ago
      there are some SLA printers in the consumer market that are more suited for small detail prints, like the Formlabs form1 or the pegasus touch.
- fudged71 12y ago
  Most of the objects on that pinterest page are ceramics http://www.shapeways.com/materials/ceramics http://www.shapeways.com/materials/ceramics And sugar isn't being used for extrusion, unless you're referring to the paste extruders which are basically icing bags.

anigbrowl 12y ago

These guys will have mohawks, crazy clothes, piercings, tattoos, and be showing off amazing objects they designed themselves, often to solve actual real life problems. I don't agree. A small number of the items are useful, most often replacement parts for things that would either require replacement with much larger parts (custom patches for damaged plastic shell) or which are difficult to replace (item no longer manufactured or firm no longer in business or part so obscure as to hinder repair). I've also seen some novel items that are good prototypes for industrial production. However, the majority of stuff I see at the 'freak' tables is junk, and samey junk at that. Expansible plastic jewelry, dodecahedral plastic hats (admittedly intended to draw attention to the large print area, but couldn't you find something more interesting?), and a lot of kitchenware, which strikes me as a particularly poor sector; ABS filament is non-toxic but I wouldn't use it where it's likely to encounter heat or alcohol, as would many examples on this page: http://www.pinterest.com/mekitso/3d-printed-kitchen/ http://www.pinterest.com/mekitso/3d-printed-kitchen/ Toys are a more obvious application, but most kids are not so into a monochromatic toy, and cheaper printers don't have the resolution to make good multi-part toys. An awful lot of printer offerings I see appear to be motivated by an 'if you build it they will come' approach, but are being offered for sale more on novelty than utility. The problem is that suits and soccer moms don't want 3D printers. Suits love 3d printers for industrial design/prototyping, architectural models, anything related to physical products where you might want to go into volume production later. And I do think there's a market for soccer moms: the most commercially interesting offerings I've seen at the lower end of the market in the last year or two is chocolate printing. It turns out that sugar works well enough for extrusion, low resolution is not that big of a deal when you're going to be eating it, and quite a lot of people are into doing really elaborate things with food. OK, such people tend to be artistically inclined too, but since everyone eats that translates into a huge number of people. Martha Stewart is already there: http://www.marthastewart.com/1065207/3d-printing-101 http://www.marthastewart.com/1065207/3d-printing-101 ...although note the bias towards services like Shapeways that can do one-offs in high quality materials, vs home printers. But I bet you'll see a Martha Stewart-branded 3d printer within a few years that's optimized for confectionary use. Now I'm not into baking or sweets, but I'm willing to bet that confectionery printers become by far the most widespread, while most people will go to a local print shop for quality 3d fabrication, whether that's sintered metal, multicolor paper, or very high resolution multifeed plastic. Makerbot-type printers have about as much future as dot matrix paper printers. The boring presenters at Maker Faires tend to be offering actual utility, if you can get past the eye candy. If you doubt this, go to a large hardware store; they have quantitites of boring-looking things with very high utility.

im3w1l 12y ago
Back in my days, we had to put hours and hours into gluing together and painting our warhammers! Surely todays kids shold be able to 3d print the parts and do the gluing and painting by hand.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  Ah, I was thinking of action figures although now that you mention it I was into painting wargaming/roleplaying figurines myself as a teen. In fact one of the first things that got me interested in 3d printing was my good memories of things like building model aircraft and so on, but that also made me pay attention to how crude FDM is :-/
  - larve 12y ago
    there are some SLA printers in the consumer market that are more suited for small detail prints, like the Formlabs form1 or the pegasus touch.
fudged71 12y ago
Most of the objects on that pinterest page are ceramics http://www.shapeways.com/materials/ceramics http://www.shapeways.com/materials/ceramics And sugar isn't being used for extrusion, unless you're referring to the paste extruders which are basically icing bags.