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Don't know much about 3D printing but seems it's got a long way to go yet if it's taking 7 hours to make a mug with some ugly scaring which costs between $2 and

Don't know much about 3D printing but seems it's got a long way to go yet if it's taking 7 hours to make a mug with some ugly scaring which costs between $2 and $30 in materials. If I want to print a mug I'd want it done in 5 minutes and cost $1, otherwise what's the point of owning one from the point of view that one of these will be in every household. Does anyone know if the current materials have any hard limits on them as to how fast they can be manipulated for example?

engendered 12y ago
You are, of course, exactly right. Right now 3D printing is mostly in the "neato" stage, and is being oversold by a lot of actors. The materials are limited, costly, and prohibitive, and the process is extremely slow and of moderate accuracy. It is getting better, of course, but there are some hard, sober limits on the sorts of materials that can be extruded and modeled like this.
- mseidl 12y ago
  Cheap consumer 3d printing sucks. Keep in mind that if there is something cheap now like 3d printing, it's been around for 20+ years. And it has. Königsegg (The car company) 3d prints their turbos and doesn't do any machining to finish the impeller. Think of how accurate it has to be to spin to 100-150k rpm or more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNedUZxP8NU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNedUZxP8NU
tudorw 12y ago
You're right of course, it's hard to imagine it as a household item, although having said that, I know a lot of people who invested a lot of money into 2d printers and ink even though it cost way more than having better quality prints produced commercially. Maybe the appeal will outweigh the impracticality, if you had a uniquely shaped hand and regular mugs and utensils just didn't work, I imagine you'd be looking to get one in the next 12 months :)
- notahacker 12y ago
  Consumer (and office) 2D printing is all about having the document on paper within 30 seconds of hitting "print" though. If it took 7 hours, most people would happily use the print shop.
  - bradfa 12y ago
    Yes, but if you can have something in 7 hours instead of 7 weeks, then the 3d printing thing starts to make a lot of sense. Granted, there are many online services now which will 3d print parts for you with very high quality and about 1 week turn around, so owning your own 3d printer is not always a good financial move for a business, depending on the desired uses.
  - brk 12y ago
    Not to mention that many printed docs are expected to have a relatively short life span. Handouts for a meeting, shopping lists, address labels, etc. For the person printing things on the average "cheap" printer, they're not typically concerned with the longevity aspect. Most 3D-printed things seem to be the opposite for mainstream applications. People keep using examples of printing "stuff you can't get at Walmart" and implying the printed parts are expected to be used for many years in an environment that will have some moderate amount of wear and tear. 3D printing not only needs to get faster by an order of magnitude, the quality of the output component needs to increase substantially as well. You need to be able to print in colors and wind up with a finished product that looks close to the quality of an injected molded piece.
jacquesm 12y ago
The amazing thing is not to look at that it costs all of $2 and all of 7 hours but that it costs only $2 and only 7 hours. This capability is useless if you're making mugs but it is priceless when you're prototyping. Making mugs is entirely the wrong application.
- hugs 12y ago
  Someone once told me: "3D printers are not for making what you can buy at Walmart. They're for making what you can't buy at Walmart."
- logfromblammo 12y ago
  I believe the application is that you can make exactly one mug for only $2 and 7h. Then you can make exactly one tumbler. Then you can make exactly one plate. Then you can make exactly one coat hook. Then you can make exactly one collar clip that secures the armrest onto the driver's seat in your car. Then you can make a chess piece to replace the one the dog chewed up. And then you can make a bowling trophy. Any specialized machine can absolutely annihilate the volume printer on the basis of cost, and for many things also on the basis of quality, but you have to produce thousands of units to pay for the machine. You don't even need it to be a prototype. You just need to be making something that no one else needs--or not enough other people to warrant building a specialized machine to make that thing. But then, if you do need that specialized machine, maybe there only needs to be one of those, and you have just the right sort of machine to make unique items....
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Sure. But making mugs is wrong. You can't compare the output of a machine like this to an industrial process designed to make tens of thousands of something. Nothing beats a cheap ceramic mug for mug-ness. And that goes for pretty much any one-off produced with a 3D printer that attempts to re-create a mass produced item. It'll be more expensive, more fragile, less pretty and in general less functional and strong.
    - 12y ago
bluedino 12y ago
Look how far printing came from 9-pin dot matrix printers in the 80's to $69 desktop Brother lasers and full-size 120 ppm lasers.
yourapostasy 12y ago
My time bandwidth is entirely too sunk into other pressing matters these days to be able to take on 3D printing, but Some Day Soon, I want to set it up in my workshop. These large artifacts that could be mass-produced cheaper are not my target use case, however. In our current throwaway-oriented manufacturing and product distribution civilization, it irks me to landfill perfectly good objects for want of a very small plastic part. It isn't the gross materials cost compared to the mass-manufactured cost that I evaluate in these situations, it is the logistical tail externalities cost I impose upon my descendents for landfilling objects that could be used with a modest (to my income level) investment in repairing it. This observes the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" mantra by reducing the waste stream through repairing. There is a rant embedded there, on waste streams are a sign of technological backwardness as a riff on Iain Banks' "money is a sign of poverty", but that's for another time. A couple of examples to illustrate. A door bell ringer that has a base mounted to the door frame and then the housing slips over the base and latches in with a simple catch in the base. The housing was ripped off the base (toddler Destruct-O-Tron), and upon inspection it was the simple catch that tore off. The catch is the size of a fingernail clipping. It's long gone. Customer service at the manufacturer was sympathetic, but unable to help; they acknowledged they had the bases, but it just wasn't in their procedures to send it separately even if I was willing to pay for it. If I have a 3D scanner+printer, I could create another base with that catch, instead of ordering an entire ringer and landfilling a working ringer for want of a fingernail-clipping size piece of plastic. When I ordered the replacement ringer, I not only threw away the plastic, but also the PC board (though I salvaged the battery), and contributed my small part to converting nasty bunker fuel oil into emissions and engaging the exhaustively long supply chain it took to create the replacement ringer (including a few drops more oil to create the virgin plastics that went into the new ringer). That's just me, but multiply by billions of people making similar decisions over the next few decades as a burgeoning global middle class arises from the externalities wreckage wrought by our current globalization implementation, and it gets ugly fast. Another example. A sippy cup is designed with a small plastic rocker at the top that lets a straw flip up and down [1]. That rocker can be pried off, and eventually is lost somewhere in the house until a few years later when it is found in some nook. Without the rocker, the cup leaks when upside down. The manufacturer has stopped making the product, in favor of a new version with an incompatible rocker; this manufacturer turned out to be willing to ship just replacement rockers, but they only had the new style on hand. Off to the landfill the cup goes, and I order replacement old style cups from dwindling retailer inventories. Unless I have access to a 3D scanner+printer. The state of technology is sufficient as-is today to let me more than satisfactorily solve these situations without resorting to a replacement purchase, and about 1-3 instances come up every week. Double that occurrence frequency if I got a metal laser sintering 3D printer. I could refine various products with small, custom silicone bumpers/insulators/grips/etc. by creating silicone molds with a 3D printer. The applications only increase as the 3D printing technology advances. These are only the simple, obvious applications; much greater changes and improvements in industrial product design, manufacturing, externalities reduction, sales, marketing, support and distribution lie ahead when we combine these immediate applications to other developments. [1] http://c3.q-assets.com/images/products/p/mc/mc-083_1z.jpg http://c3.q-assets.com/images/products/p/mc/mc-083_1z.jpg
gvb 12y ago
Nobody buys a compiler to calculate the values generated by the whetstone benchmark[1], everybody already knows the answers. The point is not to make a mug, the mug is a benchmark. The point is that it takes a nontrivial amount of time, the model readily available, it is repeatable, and it has some very interesting properties WRT complex curves and overhanging structures. (Like all benchmarks, we can argue from now to forever whether it is a good benchmark.) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whetstone_%28benchmark%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whetstone_%28benchmark%29

engendered 12y ago

You are, of course, exactly right. Right now 3D printing is mostly in the "neato" stage, and is being oversold by a lot of actors. The materials are limited, costly, and prohibitive, and the process is extremely slow and of moderate accuracy. It is getting better, of course, but there are some hard, sober limits on the sorts of materials that can be extruded and modeled like this.

mseidl 12y ago
Cheap consumer 3d printing sucks. Keep in mind that if there is something cheap now like 3d printing, it's been around for 20+ years. And it has. Königsegg (The car company) 3d prints their turbos and doesn't do any machining to finish the impeller. Think of how accurate it has to be to spin to 100-150k rpm or more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNedUZxP8NU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNedUZxP8NU

tudorw 12y ago

You're right of course, it's hard to imagine it as a household item, although having said that, I know a lot of people who invested a lot of money into 2d printers and ink even though it cost way more than having better quality prints produced commercially. Maybe the appeal will outweigh the impracticality, if you had a uniquely shaped hand and regular mugs and utensils just didn't work, I imagine you'd be looking to get one in the next 12 months :)

notahacker 12y ago
Consumer (and office) 2D printing is all about having the document on paper within 30 seconds of hitting "print" though. If it took 7 hours, most people would happily use the print shop.
- bradfa 12y ago
  Yes, but if you can have something in 7 hours instead of 7 weeks, then the 3d printing thing starts to make a lot of sense. Granted, there are many online services now which will 3d print parts for you with very high quality and about 1 week turn around, so owning your own 3d printer is not always a good financial move for a business, depending on the desired uses.
- brk 12y ago
  Not to mention that many printed docs are expected to have a relatively short life span. Handouts for a meeting, shopping lists, address labels, etc. For the person printing things on the average "cheap" printer, they're not typically concerned with the longevity aspect. Most 3D-printed things seem to be the opposite for mainstream applications. People keep using examples of printing "stuff you can't get at Walmart" and implying the printed parts are expected to be used for many years in an environment that will have some moderate amount of wear and tear. 3D printing not only needs to get faster by an order of magnitude, the quality of the output component needs to increase substantially as well. You need to be able to print in colors and wind up with a finished product that looks close to the quality of an injected molded piece.

jacquesm 12y ago

The amazing thing is not to look at that it costs all of $2 and all of 7 hours but that it costs only $2 and only 7 hours. This capability is useless if you're making mugs but it is priceless when you're prototyping. Making mugs is entirely the wrong application.

hugs 12y ago
Someone once told me: "3D printers are not for making what you can buy at Walmart. They're for making what you can't buy at Walmart."
logfromblammo 12y ago
I believe the application is that you can make exactly one mug for only $2 and 7h. Then you can make exactly one tumbler. Then you can make exactly one plate. Then you can make exactly one coat hook. Then you can make exactly one collar clip that secures the armrest onto the driver's seat in your car. Then you can make a chess piece to replace the one the dog chewed up. And then you can make a bowling trophy. Any specialized machine can absolutely annihilate the volume printer on the basis of cost, and for many things also on the basis of quality, but you have to produce thousands of units to pay for the machine. You don't even need it to be a prototype. You just need to be making something that no one else needs--or not enough other people to warrant building a specialized machine to make that thing. But then, if you do need that specialized machine, maybe there only needs to be one of those, and you have just the right sort of machine to make unique items....
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Sure. But making mugs is wrong. You can't compare the output of a machine like this to an industrial process designed to make tens of thousands of something. Nothing beats a cheap ceramic mug for mug-ness. And that goes for pretty much any one-off produced with a 3D printer that attempts to re-create a mass produced item. It'll be more expensive, more fragile, less pretty and in general less functional and strong.
  - 12y ago

bluedino 12y ago

Look how far printing came from 9-pin dot matrix printers in the 80's to $69 desktop Brother lasers and full-size 120 ppm lasers.

yourapostasy 12y ago

My time bandwidth is entirely too sunk into other pressing matters these days to be able to take on 3D printing, but Some Day Soon, I want to set it up in my workshop. These large artifacts that could be mass-produced cheaper are not my target use case, however. In our current throwaway-oriented manufacturing and product distribution civilization, it irks me to landfill perfectly good objects for want of a very small plastic part. It isn't the gross materials cost compared to the mass-manufactured cost that I evaluate in these situations, it is the logistical tail externalities cost I impose upon my descendents for landfilling objects that could be used with a modest (to my income level) investment in repairing it. This observes the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" mantra by reducing the waste stream through repairing. There is a rant embedded there, on waste streams are a sign of technological backwardness as a riff on Iain Banks' "money is a sign of poverty", but that's for another time. A couple of examples to illustrate. A door bell ringer that has a base mounted to the door frame and then the housing slips over the base and latches in with a simple catch in the base. The housing was ripped off the base (toddler Destruct-O-Tron), and upon inspection it was the simple catch that tore off. The catch is the size of a fingernail clipping. It's long gone. Customer service at the manufacturer was sympathetic, but unable to help; they acknowledged they had the bases, but it just wasn't in their procedures to send it separately even if I was willing to pay for it. If I have a 3D scanner+printer, I could create another base with that catch, instead of ordering an entire ringer and landfilling a working ringer for want of a fingernail-clipping size piece of plastic. When I ordered the replacement ringer, I not only threw away the plastic, but also the PC board (though I salvaged the battery), and contributed my small part to converting nasty bunker fuel oil into emissions and engaging the exhaustively long supply chain it took to create the replacement ringer (including a few drops more oil to create the virgin plastics that went into the new ringer). That's just me, but multiply by billions of people making similar decisions over the next few decades as a burgeoning global middle class arises from the externalities wreckage wrought by our current globalization implementation, and it gets ugly fast. Another example. A sippy cup is designed with a small plastic rocker at the top that lets a straw flip up and down [1]. That rocker can be pried off, and eventually is lost somewhere in the house until a few years later when it is found in some nook. Without the rocker, the cup leaks when upside down. The manufacturer has stopped making the product, in favor of a new version with an incompatible rocker; this manufacturer turned out to be willing to ship just replacement rockers, but they only had the new style on hand. Off to the landfill the cup goes, and I order replacement old style cups from dwindling retailer inventories. Unless I have access to a 3D scanner+printer. The state of technology is sufficient as-is today to let me more than satisfactorily solve these situations without resorting to a replacement purchase, and about 1-3 instances come up every week. Double that occurrence frequency if I got a metal laser sintering 3D printer. I could refine various products with small, custom silicone bumpers/insulators/grips/etc. by creating silicone molds with a 3D printer. The applications only increase as the 3D printing technology advances. These are only the simple, obvious applications; much greater changes and improvements in industrial product design, manufacturing, externalities reduction, sales, marketing, support and distribution lie ahead when we combine these immediate applications to other developments. [1] http://c3.q-assets.com/images/products/p/mc/mc-083_1z.jpg http://c3.q-assets.com/images/products/p/mc/mc-083_1z.jpg

gvb 12y ago

Nobody buys a compiler to calculate the values generated by the whetstone benchmark[1], everybody already knows the answers. The point is not to make a mug, the mug is a benchmark. The point is that it takes a nontrivial amount of time, the model readily available, it is repeatable, and it has some very interesting properties WRT complex curves and overhanging structures. (Like all benchmarks, we can argue from now to forever whether it is a good benchmark.) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whetstone_%28benchmark%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whetstone_%28benchmark%29