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The things that I print range pretty widely:
- 3D printed prosthetics for people. See http://www.enablingthefuture.o... . Yes, home printers can make prosthetics that hold up to real world use, and for a lot of people (particularly kids and uninsured) the difference between $50 and $5,000 is insurmountable. Of course you should work with a professional if you can, for obvious reasons, but they're getting into 3d printed prosthetics.
- Parts that you can't buy. For example, a clip in my dishwasher broke, and the manufacturer only wanted to sell the whole drawer assembly for $400. So I printed my own, which have lasted for years. (Nylon)
- And parts that you can buy, but it's more fun (or cheaper) to make your own. Like a replacement watch band for the Pebble.
- Scans. I have a portable scanner (structure.io) and I scan people at Maker Faires and F&SF Conventions. Fun to share and print.
- Art. I like designing things and printing them because they look cool. And there's tons of great art to download.
- Personalized/unique stuff. I've published tons of designs using Thingiverse Customizer, that let you personalize or randomly generate a unique pen, your wallet, minions, snowflakes, etc.

That being said, I don't think 3d printing is quite at the level to be ready for people with no technical or artistic interest, because there's little for those people to do with a 3d printer. They can download and print other people's designs, but I'd think they'd get bored of that after a while. Designing your own stuff is a lot more fun!

Albert Manero at his team at UCF are doing a great job. One bit I want to add: the community that he's working in is e-NABLE ( http://www.enablingthefuture.o... ). The "one note" stuff is just a Microsoft sponsorship deal, done after-the-fact, and while their financial and marketing sponsorship of Albert's work is awesome (his work takes time and money, even if he gives the results away for free), it would be better to credit the actual community that contributed to the design, not the made up community that MS created for marketing spin. In particular, the hand used in the Limitless design is Flexy Hand (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:242639) by Gyrobot, who's a very cool guy who deserves some credit for his work.

This seems useful. http://enablingthefuture.org/

There are plenty of ways to "rent a 3D printer". The most obvious is that you can use a service bureau such as ShapeWays, which operates high-end 3D printers (the $100K+ kind), which you "rent" by sending them STL files to print and ship you. And there are numerous "Maker spaces" that have 3D printers that you can use for the cost of membership. And there are enough people with 3D printers around that you can ask around to see who can do you a favor and print the parts for you. Or you can look on the e-NABLE map http://enablingthefuture.org/c... and see if there's a group member in your area who can help you out. There are several universities doing substantial volumes of this work as well, because their students learn a lot by designing and printing parts and working directly with patients.

Typically the first one is assembled by the volunteer working with the family, as a training session, and after that they can print replacements and do the assembly themselves.

this approach does require a parent/relative/friend with some dedicated to get started. There's a map of volunteers http://enablingthefuture.org/c... . If you don't have anyone around that wants to help, you'd better have insurance to cover paying a professional to help you out.

Wow, nice to see someone with an informed post. The amusing thing to me is that we've got tons of videos, and this is the one that made Slashdot. But we're happy with any of the patent's stories. They're pretty cool, actually - patients talking about their prosthetics, shot by either the patients, their parents, or the "maker", and a few videos of people giving presentations (e.g. at TED). Check out http://enablingthefuture.org/m... .

We're not claiming that 3D printed prosthetics are better than commercial prosthetics, just that they're more accessible. Particularly outside of the US and Europe, the cost is a huge barrier, and we're excited that we are producing designs, documentation, etc., empowering people to help each other if they don't have a viable commercial option.

The group has a web site http://enablingthefuture.org/ which links to a map of participants, and a very active Google+ community.

You're coming very much from the prospective of a wealthy American/European, where a $42K prosthetic is an option.

But if you're not covered by very good insurance, which is the case for the majority of humanity, an affordable 3D printed hand is much better than nothing.

And a free/open innovative community working on prosthetics can move much faster than the commercial options, and perhaps innovate past them the way home 3D printing exploded past the commercial 3D printing companies. The commercial guys were too concerned with the expensive/subtle issues, when what people may well care more about is being able to cheaply and easily solve their problem.

You're right that the $42K prosthetic isn't the same as the $50 one. A major difference, which you missed, is that it's myoelectric and active, while the $50 one is mechanical. It turns out that for this patient, the simple, mechanical solution worked better than the sophisticated, computerized one. So it's fundamentally a cheaper, simpler solution.

The rest of the costs pretty much come down to the traditional business model vs. FOSS. If you want to buy a product from a company that you can sue, with MBAs and lawyers and on-staff researchers, etc., you get to pay the big bucks for the product. If you don't have the money for that, or you prefer free/open source solutions for other reasons (such as the ability to modify the designs to suit your personal needs), you can go the Free Open Source Software route, and print your own.

Yes, this relies on volunteer labor to do the printing, assembly, fitting, etc. There are 600+ people registered at http://enablingthefuture.org/ (mainly in the Google+ group). That's the point - by empowering people with FOSS designs and documentation, they can help each other, at much lower cost than paying professionals with all of the overhead that you mention. And it turns out that many of the volunteers work professionally in the field - this is just a new way for them to apply their skills to help patients.

And I'll also point out that your comments reveal some misunderstandings of how rapidly 3D printing has progressed.

- It doesn't cost $10K for a quality 3D printer. You can get a fine 3D printer for $1K, or a cheap one for $300, and the most expensive home 3D printer is $3K. There are some great industrial printers, but it would be stupid to buy an industrial printer to print one thing - there are plenty of people and Maker spaces who already have 3D printers. See http://enablingthefuture.org/c... and register if you're interested. And of course there are service bureaus such as ShapeWays if you really want a high-end printed version.
- The materials aren't as fragile as you think. There are 100+ people happily using ABS prosthetics now, and we're finding that printing in Nylon is amazingly durable. You can hammer on Nylon, and just bounces back. Amazing stuff. Hospitals and medical researchers are using 3D printed Nylon now, so using it for prosthetics is pretty reasonable.
- If you can print a replacement for the raw cost of materials, that changes the economics. If you can print your own replacements for $1, it doesn't make sense to spend $millions in R&D, and spend vastly more for the prosthetic's materials, because the cost of avoiding breakage far outstrips the cost of the breakage.

All of the designs are published, and open source. So there's nothing being hidden in the video - you can download the models and inspect them to your heart's desire.

If you don't like the music that someone selected, feel free to make a better video!

You're coming very much from the prospective of a wealthy American/European, where a $42K prosthetic is an option.

But if you're not covered by very good insurance, which is the case for the majority of humanity, an affordable 3D printed hand is much better than nothing.

And a free/open innovative community working on prosthetics can move much faster than the commercial options, and perhaps innovate past them the way home 3D printing exploded past the commercial 3D printing companies. The commercial guys were too concerned with the expensive/subtle issues, when what people may well care more about is being able to cheaply and easily solve their problem.

You're right that the $42K prosthetic isn't the same as the $50 one. A major difference, which you missed, is that it's myoelectric and active, while the $50 one is mechanical. It turns out that for this patient, the simple, mechanical solution worked better than the sophisticated, computerized one. So it's fundamentally a cheaper, simpler solution.

The rest of the costs pretty much come down to the traditional business model vs. FOSS. If you want to buy a product from a company that you can sue, with MBAs and lawyers and on-staff researchers, etc., you get to pay the big bucks for the product. If you don't have the money for that, or you prefer free/open source solutions for other reasons (such as the ability to modify the designs to suit your personal needs), you can go the Free Open Source Software route, and print your own.

Yes, this relies on volunteer labor to do the printing, assembly, fitting, etc. There are 600+ people registered at http://enablingthefuture.org/ (mainly in the Google+ group). That's the point - by empowering people with FOSS designs and documentation, they can help each other, at much lower cost than paying professionals with all of the overhead that you mention. And it turns out that many of the volunteers work professionally in the field - this is just a new way for them to apply their skills to help patients.

And I'll also point out that your comments reveal some misunderstandings of how rapidly 3D printing has progressed.

- It doesn't cost $10K for a quality 3D printer. You can get a fine 3D printer for $1K, or a cheap one for $300, and the most expensive home 3D printer is $3K. There are some great industrial printers, but it would be stupid to buy an industrial printer to print one thing - there are plenty of people and Maker spaces who already have 3D printers. See http://enablingthefuture.org/c... and register if you're interested. And of course there are service bureaus such as ShapeWays if you really want a high-end printed version.
- The materials aren't as fragile as you think. There are 100+ people happily using ABS prosthetics now, and we're finding that printing in Nylon is amazingly durable. You can hammer on Nylon, and just bounces back. Amazing stuff. Hospitals and medical researchers are using 3D printed Nylon now, so using it for prosthetics is pretty reasonable.
- If you can print a replacement for the raw cost of materials, that changes the economics. If you can print your own replacements for $1, it doesn't make sense to spend $millions in R&D, and spend vastly more for the prosthetic's materials, because the cost of avoiding breakage far outstrips the cost of the breakage.

All of the designs are published, and open source. So there's nothing being hidden in the video - you can download the models and inspect them to your heart's desire.

If you don't like the music that someone selected, feel free to make a better video!

Interestingly, kids LOVE 3D printed hands. If you go to http://enablingthefuture.org/ there are tons of pictures of thrilled kids. It's cool to be like Iron Man!