We've had one version or another of FDM machine in our R&D shop since 2004, and I couldn't imagine getting on without it. It has saved us countless mistakes and tool reworks on forgings and diecastings and moldings. The thing paid for itself in the first year just by stemming off the potential problems of not having a part in-hand prior to tooling up.
As for the printing guns and knives, it's my opinion that this is just some prepostrous notion that some self-appointed media miscreant dreamed up on a slow news day. I can go to the local hardware and put together a pretty decent 12 gauge zip gun in the time it takes me to render the model preparing it for printing. Not to mention the blatantly obvious strength issues. ABS and fused epoxy is generally not considered ordnance grade material. Not to mention that if one has the wherewithal to purchase a 3D printer, the funds are probably there to acquire some pretty decent, well made firearms.
As a previous poster mentioned, printing patterns for investment casting, now there is a useful application. Burnout of shells can be accomplished with ABS patterns, as well.
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
Bought a PrintrBot Plus. If (emphasize IF) you have a propensity towards fiddling and tinkering, this is an interesting thing to play with on a hobbyist level. I bought the kit, spend a couple hours an evening for most of a week assembling it, and another couple hours before I got recognizable output, but it does indeed work.
And yes, after printing a couple of cat statues, I downloaded the file and printed an AR-15 pistol grip.
Caveat: This is not a 'plug and play' thing by any stretch of the imagination. Instructions for assembly are nebulous in places. The software is usable but subject to much tinkering and there are myriad parameters and adjustments to work with.
When are you going to print the rest of the AR-15?
Not to put too much of a damper on things, but I believe we are seeing the start of a new technology, that should grow, and improve with time. However there will be limits on some things that can not be made that way. That maybe where the CNC machine can fill in to make a complete build. I still think plastic handles, and knobs is just the start. Give the kids time to play with them, and they will become useful tools in the future.
I'm still looking for an ap to print a new brake light.
@OFG, I've got the same model... some immediate upgrades to consider:
- a good bed leveling mechanism
- an automotive relay to switch the heated bed (taking load off the printrboard) and a diode to prevent the relay coil from damaging the driving circuit on the printrboard. The pins on the printrboard are undersized and will eventually char/melt if you don't offload the current (one reported instance of a near-miss w/fire in an online forum).
- An aluminum (not glass) printing bed (heated bed goes underneath, then insulation..separately arrange your leveling mechanism for the bed. I got sick of breaking pieces of glass when parts stick too well. $45 for a very flat aluminum plate, 0.25" thick, from Amazon.com
- GT2 pulleys & belts, 2mm pitch (I haven't printed with mine yet, but received them and installed them last night. $30 upgrade, reportedly the single-most-important hardware upgrade for print accuracy.
- Cooling fans and thermal switches for your X, Y, and extrude motors (they get very hot during long prints)
Not an upgrade, but probably worth considering
- a 100 ft roll of 8" wide kapton tape (because those little 8"x8" squares get consumed regularly)
Interesting thread. I remember an SME presentation of few years back where we stood around a printer for 45 minutes waiting for a small bottle to be printed. Amazing to see how the tech has developed. We still use a lot of CAD (cardboard aided design) - you can do a lot with an exacto-knife and a cardboard box a lot cheaper than these printers.
There is a bunch of 3D models still made with cardbord. I was recently looking at the model of the Denver airport expansion, and it looked like it was made of cardbord.
So it appears not everyone is embracing the technology.
I've been printing replacement parts for things that break around the house:
Steering knuckle for power wheels quad
Crank arm for exercise bike
Patch and mounting bracket for toy disco ball
My brother hs asked me to print a replacement mirror mount for one od his trucks...but he hasnt yet sent the broken part for me to work on.
New? When were will-fit parts introduced? Probably before serially-produced autos! (if you take other-party parts to be "will fit" even when they're custom)
How can that be piracy, when I can purchase software, download it, and use it, and that is not called piracy? I think the difference is exchange of money to purchase a licence, to print something. I have no intentions of cheeting anyone out of there hard work designing a tail light cover. My issue is to cheat the wholesailer, and UPS people out of there profit from my tail light cover.
If I can print postage from home without a worry of piracy, why can't I print a tail light cover without the same concern?
If things can be printed, at home, or the local print shop, why do I need to pay someone to manufacturer, ship, store, and ship again the item to get to me. Unless there is something special about it that I can't print it at home.
The design of the taillight lens itself is someone's 'intellectual property' and while it is true that there may be no protection here for the people who package, ship and install such an item, I suspect that the company that designed and manufactured it will think differently.
Now if you're taking about the 'new economy' perhaps in the future we may see somehting like an 'iTunes' store where OEM's have licensed someone to make available, for a fee, downloadable files of 'virtual' replacement parts which can then be 'manufactured' by the end user.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA Siemens PLM: UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
iTunes is a good example. The music industry itself is a fantastic example.
Their 'product' in the end is nothing more than bits in a computer. Stream of 1s and 0s. Yet they were charging $15 to $20 to buy a CD with those bits on it, despite very little of that money going to the musicians. Most of that money went to the label and the distribution network. When Napster came out, it was a complete end-around of everything the music industry was doing - an automated distribution network of 1s and 0s, and the entire industry was gutted. Most musicians weren't really impacted, in fact the revolution led to a lot easier ways for new and upcoming artists to get distributed without having to bow to the labels to get picked up, but a few big name artists took it on the chin, and all the rich record execs took it on the chin. So they passed RIAA, had the government start arresting teenagers, etc etc. And in the end, they still didn't ever get their profit stream back, because the 'new economy' gutted their old way of doing business.
So what artists do now, is distribute their music for cheap through iTunes, or cheaper through Spotify on a subscription service, and Apple farms a little off the top, or Spotify pays the artist by the play, and the big labels are less and less important, because the artist is only one step away from the listener.
Well it turns out, engineering design is also a bunch of 1s and 0s. Some kinds of engineering design will also go the way of the music industry. Yes, somebody somewhere designed a tail light cover, and that tail light cover is IP, that's owned by some big company, with corporate executives, and offices, and overhead, and all these sorts of things that have been interposed between the design engineer in his cubicle and the end-user buying the tail light cover at NAPA. But an independent engineer in a 1 man shop could also design a tail light cover in his pajamas on a saturday morning in his home office, and he could put his design up on iDesigns, or on Engineerify, and get a dollar for every time someone downloads his design. And Tail Light Cover Inc. will go the same way as Tower Records.
That's what I mean when I say "welcome to the new economy."
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -
I would still think mass production would be less expencive to manufacturer auto parts, however, the warehouse, and shipping for one unit is what changes the price structure for the consumer.
And all togather the printing of small objects I believe will reduce the need for so much wearhouse space, and the waiting two weeks for a tail light cover.
Another aspect is that if the plastic is recyleable, there could be a much faster return for damaged cars, in that salvage yards can remove those as soon as the cars are delivered to them.
