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Study Finds 3D Printers Pay For Themselves In Under a Year
Lucas123 writes "Researchers using a RepRap open source 3D printer found that the average household could save as much as $2,000 annually and recoup the cost of the printer in under a year by printing out common household items. The Michigan Technical University (MTU) research group printed just 20 items and used 'conservative' numbers to find that the average homeowner could print common products, such as shower rings or smartphone cases, for far less money than purchasing them online at discount Websites, such as Google Shopper. 'It cost us about $18 to print all [20] items... the lowest retail cost we could find for the same items online was $312 and the highest was $1,943,' said Joshua Pearce, an associate professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at MTU. 'The unavoidable conclusion from this study is that the RepRap [3D printers] is an economically attractive investment for the average U.S. household already.'"
I wonder... have they tried our Chinese friends?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Does this mean 3D printers put China out of business? (Well not completely of course - though you can print the iphone case, you still can't print the iphone yet, but the little accessories and nicknacks make up a huge chunk of the Chinese exports.)
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
If you thought the whining of the content industry concerning the illegal copying of imaginary property was loud, this will be deafening.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In order to recoup the ~$1,000 cost of the printer and save $2,000 on household items in a year, you'd need to buy $3,000 on household items a year in the first place.
Excluding the cost of plastic and electricity ofcourse.
And not just any household items, but only household items that are made of relatively weak plastic and don't have to look smooth.
How many shower curtain rings, spoon holders and smartphone cases do you buy every year?
Also; how fast should a 3D printer be in order to produce that amount of items in a year?
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Printing shower rings in a 3D printer is not a quick process.
Typical numbers might be 30 minutes set-up (download, heat up and slicing) + 30 minutes each x 10 rings x 1.25 (failure rate) = approx 7 hours. Granted you dont have to sit there for the whole time, but you do have to nurse the printers through quite regularly - tweaker the slicer, clean up failed prints, remove finished prints. They're not as set-and-forget as poeple might think.
Seriously... shower rings. Yes, that's the future of 3D printing that will save the world.
But I can't fault the summary, the article is even worse: "It blows my mind you can print your own shower curtains and beat the retail price," said Joshua Pearce, an associate professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at MTU.
So now printing a couple 1" diameter pieces of hard plastic more or less equates to an entire shower curtain? Seriously, go Michigan Technical University, your academic rigor speaks for itself! And in all of my years of eating I never even realized I needed a "spoon rest", but apparently I'll save up to $2000 by printing my own vs whatever barbaric technique I have been using to somehow keep my spoon on the table.
The journal article Computer World references is behind a pay wall. I know a better way to save money. Buy good stuff. My metal shower hooks look much better than those cheap plastic ones. And since they are metal, they don't break. I'm not sure what items they are talking about that would need to be bought on such a consistent basis. I have serious reservations about their claims. I'm not going to print plastic replacement parts for mechanical things such as vehicles and appliances. Can anyone with access to the journal please let us know what items they are talking about?
TLDR - Don't buy cheap crap, don't break stuff, and some things just shouldn't be plastic.
'The unavoidable conclusion from this study is that the RepRap [3D printers] is an economically attractive investment for the average U.S. household already.'"
No, the unavoidable conclusion is these researchers have no clue as to what the average householder uses and further more they are financially inept when it comes of where and how to shop for said items.
I have had a long hard think about 3D printers and I could not come up with one, NOT A SINGLE ONE, example of where I would 3D print something which I could just buy commercially and be better off. Why would I want a phone case made of a single colour plastic when there's a plethora of cases on the market with fancy designs, colours, custom grips, etc.
For me the desire for a 3D printer is not replace things I buy but to make things I can't. Custom cases for projects, little stands and holsters for things, the indexing latch on my 20 year old coffee grinder for which there's no longer a replacement part (though a screw through a piece of wood is working fine at the moment). I could do so much with a 3D printer, and I will once the price comes down further, as it has been for the past few years.
Just because you can print them does not make them usable. The durability of reprap items is very very low. Something that these guys completely ignored in their "study".....
Printed iphone cases fall apart, I know this, I have a 3d printer and the parts that come out are NOT durable. They are great prototype quality items butthey do not handle a year of abuse.... most fail within 30-60 days.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I don't even find the cost of ink makes it worth owning a color inkjet, but a 3D printer is cost effective?
That's a little surprising. The stuff you feed into the printer must be dirt cheap, or at least cheaper than ink and photo paper.
Because if I need to print out photographs, it's far cheaper to take the digital files to a place which can print them for a few cents each.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
No. This was written by men locked in the basement of the ivory tower who have only the vaguest conception of the outside world.
The authors seem to be entirely missing the point. 3D printers are for prototyping stuff that isn't already sold at the dollar store. Additionally they are useful for making replacement parts that are not available or only available as part of a larger assembly. For me the list currently includes:
Servo brackets for a 2DOF Quadruped
Replacement spacers for a trampoline safety net
Lead foil holders for a linear accelerator
Wall hook to hang a bow
Handle for a dead bolt lock
case for a raspberry pi
thermometer holder for a water phantom
ion chamber clamp for a water phantom
Has it paid for itself? No. Is that why you bought a 2D printer? Or did you buy one because it does useful stuff like print out recipes n stuff. Did you buy that compound miter saw after a careful calculation of payback time, or did you just buy one because it helps you do/build fun stuff. Do you buy a mill or cnc cutter based on time to payback? For most of us I would guess the answer is no. We buy these tools because they fit in with our hobbies and interests. The "usefulness" and "savings" are just arguments we use to get the significant other to buy into the purchase. (And he/she doesn't really believe you, but goes along anyway.)
Modelling these things takes time. Sure, there will be off the shelf models for shower rings and the like, but if you're printing a new battery cover for your remote control you'll have to model it yourself - and that takes time.
However, if you amortise the cost of the 3D printer over a group of friends, or co-workers, then maybe you will eventually save money. I still don't know what I would print though - children's toys might be an option once they're past the chewing stage of development. Maybe emergency lego bricks you need to finish a design? And cases for Raspberry Pis and the like.
But the price of 3D printers will come down, and the build quality and speed will go up. What is a $500 device now will be a $200 device in three or four years, and once that barrier to entry is reduced, a lot more uses will be found.
Replacement car parts could be a use case too - once someone does a design. My wing mirror wobbles, I presume behind it there's a plastic assembly that includes the ability to adjust the mirror's pitch and yaw that is broken, I bet printing one of those is cheaper than buying an official replacement - except that the official replacement probably won't ever break.
I think the boom will come when you can easily REPAIR all the things that would otherwise be "broken" when all it is is one little plastic piece inside that needs replacing. I'm thinking of things like cheap but otherwise good toys, the little battery cover on the back of a remote, etc. Or being able to make anything you can think of. There are plenty of little "boy, I wish I had a little stand/holder that would do X and Y" that would make life better.
Same with regular printers. It might be hard to quantify exactly how much you're saving by being able to print coupons, boarding passes, etc. on your home printer, but the overall convenience and general quality of life are definitely improved. Little "I'll do this because I can" things are what make it worth it.
I don't need a purchase to pay for itself in a certain amount of time, I just need it to make my life better enough that it's worth buying. I didn't buy a smartphone with google maps because I need to save enough gas to pay for the phone, I bought it to reduce the amount of time I have to sit in traffic.
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