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My boss had some leftover budget money and decided to get some tech toys. He got a drone with a camera and a 3-D printer. I was skeptical of both. The drone wa

by jqm 12y ago

My boss had some leftover budget money and decided to get some tech toys. He got a drone with a camera and a 3-D printer. I was skeptical of both. The drone was totally awesome and I want one now. The 3-D printer took a day to print some crappy stuff... I was not impressed and didn't see the utility. Its not like we haven't had machine lathes and other methods of home manufacture forever. It's cool prices are coming down on 3-D printers. But I have a hard time seeing many good use cases right now.

TylerE 12y ago
Yea, absolutely. Especially when if you really wanted to you could put together a small home machine shop using e.g. Sherwood CNC stuff for a couple grand. The part size would be limited, no more than a couple of inches, but you could do proper metal and wood working.
- thawkins 12y ago
  You cant creat stuff with complex internal structures in one piece with a lathe and cnc, most of those end up being cast and then finished on the cnc mill, 3d printers allow that.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
I agree with this but there are a couple of caveats. 3D printing effectively takes a lot of "tuning". I joke that there are a lot of people "building" 3D printers but only a few people who are "engineering" them. You look at something like the BondTech extruder[1] or the E3D V6[2] hot end and you can see folks who have done a lot of engineering into various options and increasing reliable function in the presence of a lot of variables. It is those variables that affect the overall output of the process and can easily lead to crappy stuff. So its hard to reliably get what you want the first time and it does take time. That said, there are places where 3D printing makes stuff much easier, prototyping connectors is one of them. Making ways to bind together rods and board into shelves for example, or what not. But what really struck me about 3D printing has been that people who didn't try to make things before they bought a 3D printer, are no more successful or motivated to make things after they bought a 3D printer. But people who are used to using duct tape and bits of brackets and such. Those people are hugely more productive when they have a printer to build the hard to make bits. [1] http://www.bondtech.se/ http://www.bondtech.se/ [2] http://e3d-online.com/E3D-v6 http://e3d-online.com/E3D-v6 EDIT: Disclosure I also have a Sherline Mini-Mill and Sherline mini-lathe which I converted to CNC operation before getting a 3D printer, and have done more stuff on the 3D printer than I have on either the mill or the lathe.

by jqm 12y ago

TylerE 12y ago

Yea, absolutely. Especially when if you really wanted to you could put together a small home machine shop using e.g. Sherwood CNC stuff for a couple grand. The part size would be limited, no more than a couple of inches, but you could do proper metal and wood working.

thawkins 12y ago
You cant creat stuff with complex internal structures in one piece with a lathe and cnc, most of those end up being cast and then finished on the cnc mill, 3d printers allow that.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

I agree with this but there are a couple of caveats. 3D printing effectively takes a lot of "tuning". I joke that there are a lot of people "building" 3D printers but only a few people who are "engineering" them. You look at something like the BondTech extruder[1] or the E3D V6[2] hot end and you can see folks who have done a lot of engineering into various options and increasing reliable function in the presence of a lot of variables. It is those variables that affect the overall output of the process and can easily lead to crappy stuff. So its hard to reliably get what you want the first time and it does take time. That said, there are places where 3D printing makes stuff much easier, prototyping connectors is one of them. Making ways to bind together rods and board into shelves for example, or what not. But what really struck me about 3D printing has been that people who didn't try to make things before they bought a 3D printer, are no more successful or motivated to make things after they bought a 3D printer. But people who are used to using duct tape and bits of brackets and such. Those people are hugely more productive when they have a printer to build the hard to make bits. [1] http://www.bondtech.se/ http://www.bondtech.se/ [2] http://e3d-online.com/E3D-v6 http://e3d-online.com/E3D-v6 EDIT: Disclosure I also have a Sherline Mini-Mill and Sherline mini-lathe which I converted to CNC operation before getting a 3D printer, and have done more stuff on the 3D printer than I have on either the mill or the lathe.