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Cheap 3D Fab Could Start an Innovation Renaissance
blackbearnh writes "An article over on O'Reilly Radar makes the argument that, just as inexpensive or free software development environments have led to a cornucopia of amazing Web and mobile applications, the plummeting cost of 3D fabrication equipment could enable myriad new physical inventions. The article was prompted by a new Kickstarter project, which if funded will attempt to produce a DIY CNC milling system for under $400. Quoting: 'We're already seeing the cool things that people have started doing with 3D fab at the higher-entry-level cost. Many of them are ending up on Kickstarter themselves, such as an iPhone 4 camera mount that was first prototyped using a 3D printer. Now I'm dying to see what we'll get when anyone can create the ideas stuck in their heads.'"
This is the cheapest path for a CNC and 3d printer in every home.
I have done quite a bit of research on it and it's competitors (Zen Toolworks CNC, Mantis CNC, Makerbot, Cupcake CNC) and none lead to a completed kit for this low of a price without serious time investment, trial and error, and knowledge.
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Not until they start trading commercially developed CNC path programs for the parts.
Anyone can make their own music and movies, it just turns out that you get a much more polished product that doesn't take dozens or hundreds (or more) hours of your own time.
The question will be come whether sharing or selling the digital reverse-engineered program you feed to your 3D printer is legal. Physical items are generally not copyrightable, and I believe selling copies of patents (which describe HOW to make an item) is also legal. Now, if a CNC path is simply a set of descriptive data describing a physical object, it may also fall outside of a "creative work." That kind of stuff should clog the courts for a while...if this every takes off. How many people are going to drop $400 and several hundred hours of time to make personal replacement parts?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Other than maybe "it's already packaged".
Search Google for "Home Made CNC". People have been making these out of OSB & plywood for a while.
Here's a pretty nice one using an off the shelf router.
Hack a day has an article from 2008.
Another.
They do require some technical knowhow. But that's about it. I think the most basic use parallel ports for IO.
Assuming he is referring to the injection nozzles, I doubt it you can make a quality part on a reprap. You can probably make ones that work, but they wouldn't be any good IMO.
Here is an example of what happens when you have an idea stuck in your head, and you have pencil and paper at hand: YouTube - Doodling in Math Class: Infinity Elephants
And here's what happens when you have the same idea and a 3D printer on hand: Vi Hart: Blog: Entry
Just drawing stuff and 3D printing stuff because it's nifty. This is one of the places where awesome things come from.
I work in a research hospital. I recently had a conversation with our in-house shop guy, while he was doing a 3D build of a prototype part for me. He said this is a huge friggin' deal for people in the industry. He has had his finger on the pulse of this for quite some time now, and the big companies are very definitely worried about this. Right now, he can make anything he wants, and the only major issue is cost of materials. In the future, especially when metal forming rather than plastic is more easily done, who knows? His take is that the commercial-size 3D printers are quite likely going to come complete with DRM systems that will check specs and refuse to print anything that matches certain database flags. He doesn't like this, but he sees it on the horizon. As it is now, it's cheaper for us to do prototyping and then have a manufacturer mass-produce the part we designed; it won't be too much longer before it's just as cheap and fast to do it in-house. Manufacturers are worried. They won't sit idly by and let it happen without a huge fight.