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A Bid To Take 3D Printing Mainstream
Nerval's Lobster (2598977) writes "Can 3D printing go truly mainstream? Startup M3D is betting on it, having launched a Kickstarter campaign to create what it terms the first truly consumer 3D printer, built around proprietary auto-leveling and auto-calibration technology that (it claims) will allow the device to run in an efficient, easy-to-use way for quite some time. According to The Verge, the device is space-efficient, quiet, and sips power: 'One of the main obstacles between 3D printers and consumers has been clunky, unintuitive software. Here too, M3D promises improvements, having designed an app that's 'as interactive and enjoyable as a game' with a minimalist and touch-friendly interface.' Do you think 3D printing can capture a massive audience, or will it remain niche for the foreseeable future?"
You think people are going to pay you money so you can get bought out by a bigger company to take 3D printing mainstream? Take it to the VCs.
More like the fact that CAD software packages cost many thousands of dollars, and no good free alternatives exist.
Or that the printers themselves for commercial grade machines also cost many thousands of dollars.
Or that mechanical design is inherently challenging and is an expensive skill to develop.
But nope, just have some big buttons on a touch screen and everything will be groovy.
Recognize what 3d printing really does very well; one offs and/or prototypes.
If you need 1 of something 3d printing is a good choice. If you need 30k of something it is an awful choice. Many times you are better off finding the one off something already made. Then if that does not work then look into 3d printing.
At this point it is finiky (unless you are really into it) and somewhat on the pricy side (both setup and feed stock). For someone really into it like a hacker/maker yeah buy one. For joe schmoe? Skip, it will gather much dust in your garage/spare room.
3d printing is an excellent tool. Recognize it for that. Making the software better is a good step for the 'joe schmoe' factor. But you still have the problems of feed stock and setup/tuning. Which are getting better but frankly are not quiet there yet.
In 5 years it will probably be a lot better...
Wasn't that Makerbot?
There are two barriers right now - cost of the printer and time to print.
For cost, you just need a Kinkos or OfficeMax or USPS or FedEx store model - where you have an account and have it printed there and you pick it up.
For time, the above model works fairly well.
We actually have quite a few 3D printers on campus and use them for a lot of things, so you can see it moving - you can even print stuff at the UW Bookstore (which also prints books in the public domain of rare editions).
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
1: Start a promising buzzword based Kickstarted project. ....
2: Sell to large company turning everyone's Kickstarter contributions into a steaming pile of
3: (No ??? step, we've been here before)
4: PROFIT!!!
Sigs are bad for you...
Yes it can, but not with these guys' plan. Sure their printer is cheap and all, but so what? Here's how you make 3D printing mainstream:
1) Find an item that can be 3D printed and be useful and cheaper than buying the product. Something that everyday mom and pop would find interesting, not 3D printing hobbyists.
2) Market to consumers how this item is better being 3D printed rather than buying at the store, and would save you $X per one printed vs. bought.
3) have a cheap, decent quality 3D printer.
4) Profit.
These guys did #3, but what they need is #1 to make it mainstream. If 1% of the country finds that their life is made better by 3D printing some product instead of buying it or ordering it, then you'll have 3 million consumer grade 3D printers out there because they will understand the value. That will create a critical mass of consumers available for more 3D printed products, which will in turn generate more and more 3D printed products. What 3D printing needs is the 3D printed version of the "killer app" or the "exclusive video game" that puts the printers in consumers' hands, which will in turn create a market for more 3D printed products.
This will be good for creating random toys and knick knacks. The problem with 3d software for the masses is that it's technical. When you create a part for use (as opposed to a blob of toyness), holes, edges, parts have to be in a specific place. That requires math, which is beyond the reach of the average user. It's like trying to create a technical drawing with an iPad sketch program. You can make pretty pictures with your finger (okay - artists can, you can just make ugly dogs and weird looking trees), but you can't make a scaled technical drawing for fabrication.
Oh, and kickstarter is not a mainstream consumer outlet. Call me when they have the model for sale at WalMart or Staples.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It'll stay niche until people come up with more useful things to print than a handful of Yoda figurines or a gun barrel that's guaranteed to blow up in your face. While there are some people who've made useful things with 3D printers, the average person is not going to produce the engineering quality 3D models that are needed to build such useful items.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Most people can't even bother with making coffee from scratch, what makes anyone think they want to deal with calibration, software, consumables, and other aspects of 3D printing.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
How To Get Rich Off of Kickstarter Without Delivering.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Over the last few years 3d printing has come on dramatically, it's great for rapid prototyping.
Unfortunately though the average home user doesn't really have much need for rapid prototyping, and most of the things which come out of current 3d printers just don't look polished enough to appeal. They're still very rough looking, more the type of thing which'd come out of a Christmas cracker than the type of thing most people would want as decor.
In terms of software I don't think a more user-friendly 3d editor will help too much. I view 3d product design as similar to writing software, you can make it more accessible but most people are just going to be interested in the library of things other people have developed. Make a library of designs which the average person (not the average current 3d printer owner, they're more enthusiast) will find interesting, attractive, and useful and maybe you'll break the mainstream- until then it's the realm of the tinkerer and the hacker. Most people don't need or want a print out of the Stanford rabbit.
I'm not saying this isn't of interest or use, I may have pledged for one myself if I didn't find paying the import duties to the UK to be so painful (Anyone want to Kickstart a business importing other business' Kickstarters?), but it's still just another 3d printer. I don't think it's the type of thing I'd be recommending to my parents and neighbours though, I just don't think they'd want to deal with the hassles that 3d printers currently bring in exchange for the benefits. How much 3d printing do most people actually need?
What I do see as becoming more popular is the shared printer. People at home make orders for larger and well-finished 3d objects selected from a catalogue and printed on a very nice printer, and they either post them or make them available for collection at central points. I know businesses like Shapeways do this already but the price isn't right for most people yet, it needs to be the case where printing a vase isn't that much more expensive than buying one, and printing a piece to fix your plumbing should be easily affordable.
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I don't see how the "mainstream" market would really have a need for 3d printers. Those who are hobbyists will always find a use for it, but "mainstream?" Maybe I don't understand what the author means by that.
We use a 3d printing service at work when we are prototyping hardware and light fixtures and such. Those services are getting cheaper and I see that as the way the "mainstream"market market will go. The only thing I have found to make is custom lego mini figure accessories for the kids.
This is Yet Another Crap Extruder based printer. That whole class of machines sort of works on good days. None of them Just Work.
The fundamental problem is that they're welding a hot thing to a cold thing. That sucks for metal welding, it sucks for soldering, and it sucks for plastic welding. It's how you get bad welds, cold solder joints, and fractures in 3D printing. The heated build plate systems usually start a build OK, but a few cm from the build plate, that heat source isn't close enough to help much. So many taller builds fail around 2-5 cm.
For this process to work, it needs better temperature control. A heated build chamber (that's patented). A hot air jet or small laser aimed at the target just before the weld (larger plastic welders do this). But nobody seems to be doing that. They just keep coming up with variations in the 3-axis motion mechanism (not hard to get right) and the software (not really the problem). Or they add DRM and overcharge for "print cartridges".
Consumer Reports reviewed 3-D printers the other month. How much more mainstream does it get?
I think 3D printing as we know it today is likely to remain in the realm of the hobbyist for the foreseeable future. BUT... at $300 a pop this new printer's going to open up the process to a lot more hobbyists who might be scared off by a MakerBot's monster price tag.
A printer like the M3D would be put at a price point where it wouldn't be unusual to find one at an elementary school. I could see this becoming a great educational tool.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
I'm still waiting on those claims to come true of 2D printing.
For repair purposes, I can see people with skill at operating 3d printers and scanners providing replacement part services to people who (paid or unpaid) fix things for the local portion of a massive audience. In particular 3d printed parts could be useful when the repair person finds that the problem is a broken or worn piece of plastic, like a plastic gear with a broken tooth, or a plastic key with a broken stem on a remote that got dropped. Much of the time it will be cheaper to just replace the entire device, but sometimes people will value fixing the item they're comfortable with, and fabricating a custom replacement part that's no longer otherwise manufactured will be just the thing. The electromechanical door locking mechanism on my 22 year old car is like this. A replacement mechanism isn't available, and I can still lock the car mechanically, but it's always annoying that one worn custom plastic gear keeps me from being able to lock it with the remote fob.
3D printing is a huge game changer. It may be the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel. A 3D printer that can build a home apparently already exists. A canoe or a camper might be rather easy to generate. Combine 3D printing with robotics and the handwriting is on the wall. On top of all of that we now have tiny computers that are surprisingly capable. What might a 3D printer do with material to build a robot powered by a Raspberry Pi?
Theoretically you need to;
- Level the build plate and calibrate it
- Learn any 3D modeling software to create or modify objects, often at millimeter level precision
- Learn the slicing software which converts your 3D object file into a file your printer understands as instructions
That's it. Frankly, the second one is a huge investment of time and energy, and while some simple 3D design is possible in very stripped-down programs, nothing BUT simple design is possible in very stripped-down programs. Autodesk Inventor and others may be more complex than they need to be, but only for a fairly basic definition of 'need'. Many folks just rely on others models and skip step two entirely, and you can get by that way ... for a while.
A bigger problem to the consumer market is the practical issues. What a consumer needs is reliability, and a by-the-numbers process. Like an ink printer, when I send a document to it, I hit 'print' and I expect it to work.
It took a long time for printers and copiers to get to that point. Even now we have issues where printers need different settings for different paper, and we still have paper jams and ink smears, and the basic functionality of a printer is significantly less complex.
So we're not there yet though. As a replicative process, any minor error grows geometrically as the model progresses, and we don't have consumer-level devices that match the precision of the expensive commercial-sized printers. The following items all have a large impact on the success of your build, and all of them are intractably linked; print speed affects optimal rafting, which is impacted by the humidity, and so on and so on.
- Managing airflow, humidity, temp, and particulate matter (dust) around the device
- Rafting and supports to actually allow printing various shapes with undercuts and voids (which vary based on a number of things, not least of which is the actual model)
- Balancing heating and cooling; cooling causes contraction which results in curling especially when different parts of the build are at different temps at the same time.
- Print speed
- Print quality
- Printer head wear and tear
One of the tests of these "pro-sumer" 3D printers is to try to print the same object out 5 or 10 times, and count how many times it was successful with the same build instructions. 8/10 is really good. Usually, of course, you'll have to try 2 or 3 times just to get your first 'successful enough' print - these don't count, you're just dialing the numbers in for that model based on experience and guesswork for your specific printer.
What we're left with is this; All the made-for-your-mother, 'basic consumer' 3D printers are, and will be for the short foreseeable future, akin to the EZ-Bake-Oven. They sorta look like a real oven, and they can sort of cook food like a real oven, but you're not meant to try to use it as a real oven. Stick to the company approved recipes only, and even then, the quality will be low.
So, no, I don't think they're going anywhere with a consumer device at this point in time. Maybe in another 5-8 years we'll be ready for the first widely usable one, but it's a bit too early to crow about it just yet.
I shudder to think of the resulting landfills.
The Bucaneer had this same concept for over a year ago...
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
There are many products that people buy, including food, which are readily producible by people who wish to do so but the DIY crowd is a minority because most people just want to consume the best of whatever humanity can devise, at the cheapest price and with the greatest convenience.
Look at ceramics, very old tech with readily available materials and technology, but how many people make the plates they eat off?
A 3D printer is a mini factory and if it cannot produce a product that is "better" overall that what can be purchased online, shipped from a factory and delivered to people's door, it will never be used by most people on a regular basis.
Rather I see 3D printing empowering regional production and skilled artisans more than every consumer.
There won't be a massive user base of 3D printers for the simple reason that most people don't need them.
It is far simpler, faster and cheaper to run down to Walmart and buy items already made! What possibly would the average user want to create? Just download something? The vast majority of printable items on Thingverse are useless chatskis, and the average person won't have the desire, time or skills to create something new.
Until 3D printers reach the Star Trek replicator level, they will stay on the benches of hobbyists and those in need of design prototypes.
This topic has been re-hashed here before several times (e.g. here)
Let's see what is actually innovative or different on this printer when compared to the existing ones:
- automatic leveling - ok, but they seem to use a sensor ("motion sensor chip"?!) in the printer head (?!) and not moving bed. I am not really sure how this could actually work ... ... ... ...
- non-heated bed - they claim it is not needed because of autoleveling, but that is BS. You need heated bed for ABS to stick to it, level or not level, otherwise the moving head will lift the print or it will warp. Nothing to do with the bed being level.
- tiny working volume
- autocalibration - again some magical "motion sensor chip" is mentioned, without any explanation what that autocalibration is nor how it works
- they are keen on the artistic look of the thing, but I have serious reservations about the rigidity and accuracy of the device - the claimed 15um is only the theoretical resolution of the steppers, not actual resolution of the printer (depends on the nozzle size which is 0.45mm by default!). The ABS body doesn't instill much confidence!
- reduced power consumption is somehow supposed to make things lighter and cheaper (?!) - that argument seems backwards to me
- startup, they don't have any other products - who knows when they will actually be able to deliver. The August date is completely unrealistic.
- their team doesn't instill much confidence - 1 electronics guy, 1 CNC guy, 4 CAD people, 2 sw people, but they have 8 artists, 2 PR agencies and 4 lawyers! Not a healthy balance, IMO
- incredibly cheap price ($300), but you get what you pay for IMO ...
- they have exceeded their funding target 10x already
Honestly, I don't see how this printer will make 3D printing somehow accessible to the unwashed masses - there are still all those issues of CAD, mechanical design, toy-like device with nebulous claims and nothing to back it up.
I'm not sure you're entirely correct here. I think you're right that "average" people won't be able to do good 3D design, but I'm seeing more and more gallery sites open with very interesting 3D models available for free. I think there's a good analogy to the early computer industry. We had very few users that weren't power users, because it was a pain to learn. But then, more and more people created interesting software and the hardware advanced and it became cheaper and easier to get involved (thanks to shareware, freeware, hardware clones, etc.), and now we've got these crazy pocket computers with amazing apps for $.99. I think 3D printing and production may follow a similar adoption model, we're just in the early-adopter, hobbyist, hardcore geek phase now.
So you mean they will soon get as clunky and unreliable as 2D printers?
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
I get it's not an investment, but it's proprietary. There is not advantage to this. There is no reason or incentive for me to put out good money when someone else is going to gain from it, and nothing of value (such as freedom, etc) is gained.
Sure, you can print their library of files that have been prepared specifically for the machine, but what are those files? Little bits of plastic junk you can buy at Walmart for almost free anyway. How long will the novelty of printing salt and pepper shakers last?
At $300 grandma and grandpa are going to be buying these for the grandkids instead of the cheesy microscopes and telescopes they used to buy in that price range. Unless the kid is seriously motivated to learn how to get the best performance from this thing (learn to use CAD software, etc.) it will end up like those microscopes and telescopes- on sale for $0.50 at the next garage sale.
3D printers are for hobbyists who make things. There may be a few nascent hobbyists out there who haven't been making things because they lack the means, and this may be the thing that pushes them to actually start producing stuff, but for most it will be an expensive toy that will quickly fall into disuse.
I like the autoleveling and I'm interested in seeing how they print ABS without heating the bed. Both are useful developments if they work.
And libeler: How'd "eating your words" taste? See here http://slashdot.org/comments.p... were they flavorful (lol) seasoned with "the bitter taste of SELF-defeat" + YOUR FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH you bigmouth libelous Open SORES bullshitter?
As to the rest of my subject, let's let TOM speak shall we:
"I'm having great conversations on this site with one of my alias accounts" - by Tom (822) on Monday April 07, 2014 @02:29PM (#46686259) Homepage
FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
3D printers will be attractive to consumers when they are sub$500 AND provide quality prints quickly. People take print time into account along with price so if it takes hours to print an object that they can buy over the counter, people will just buy over the counter and avoid the hassle of a machine thumping away for hours. My prediction has always been that 3D printing will be done in a shop front or via mail order. This latest unit is just taking advantage of the dissatisfaction with the current crop of consumer printers, and may not actually live up to the promises.
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The idea that 3D printing won't take off because people are not well-versed in designing their own 3D products with expensive CAD software is like saying printers won't take off because people aren't really good writers and can't afford a word processor. How many people use their printers for printing off their own words from a word processor? How many people use their printers for printing off PDF files, manuals, brochures, etc. from the Net?
Why won't 3D printers take off again?
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
There's already CAD software that's easy enough for kids to use, as proven by the fact that kids are using it!
TinkerCAD and Sketchup are all easy enough that my son was using them when he was six.
So that's not what's holding 3D printing back. :-)
Personally, I don't see _anything_ holding 3D printing back.
Some people just want to download and print things, and for them there's Thingiverse (and to a lesser degree other repositories) with tens of thousands of things available for free. And there are some for-pay repositories as well, though they're small. And increasingly companies are providing printable STLs of stuff, so you can print your own. So they don't have to deal with stocking replacement parts.
Where 3D printing is great is personalized stuff. And for that, there are tools like Thingivere's Customizer. These allow designers to create designs that are configurable by users. For example, I've published a 3D printable wallet that you can put your name and address into, so it's uniquely your wallet (and more likely to be returned if it's lost). And there's a measuring cup that can be made any size you like, a pen with your name printed in it, and all sorts of other things. There are hundreds of Customizable designs, and more all the time. These let people who aren't designers print things unique to them.
And, of course, there are easy design tools like TinkerCAD and Sketchup that kids use all the time to make things to print. Heck, you can even use Minecraft to model things, then print that.
And even the professional CAD software is getting a lot easier. The fact that Blender is hard to use doesn't mean that all CAD programs are hard to use, just that Blender is hard to use. :-)
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Fused Filament printing is just another technique, with benefits and weaknesses. On the 'pro' side, it's very cheap, and it lets you make things that are quite strong, so they can stand up to routine usage. On the 'con' side, the resolution is limited, and you need to cool prints evenly or there can be curling or cracking. The issue isn't in going from liquid to solid, because until the plastic is solid it can't cause any stress on the part - when it's soft is just stretches! The issue is actually a bit later in the process, when the solid cools from warm to room temperature. PLA doesn't have this problem (it's rate of shrinking as it cools is tiny), but ABS shrinks about 2% when cooling from a warm solid to a room temperature solid, which is enough to cause curling or cracking in large prints. The solution is to keep the entire print chamber warm, then let the whole object cool at the same time when the print is done. Or print using PLA, which doesn't have this issue.
Resin printers have great resolution, but they're expensive, the material is tricky to handle (it's a liquid that you have to store in a cool, dark place, expires, and smells terrible). And the resulting objects are quite fragile. And you can't print with multiple materials. So it's great for display pieces, or for using as models for casting. But it's terrible for making things to use. Resin printing pre-dated fused filament, by many years, but it was largely abandoned once FFF emerged, due to these problems.
The other technologies are much more expensive. SLS is awesome, if you have $100K+ for a printer, and are willing to spend much more per print.
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There's certainly room for 3D printers to drop in price by improving the design manufacturability. Some of what they're doing makes sense to me.
- Use injection molded case as the structure. This costs more up front, but eliminates many parts. Very similar to how printers went from big machines with lots of screws and rods to almost all plastic. Sure, it's not as durable and rigid, but that might be an OK tradeoff for really cheap.
- Use of lighter components (carbon filament rods, etc.) allows use of smaller motors, which have less mass and consume less power. And they put less stress on a plastic frame.
- The main consumers of power are the heated build platform and the extruder's hot end. I don't see how they can reduce the hot end's power consumption much. But if they figured out how to print ABS on an unheated print bed. that's not bad.
- Printing ABS on an unheated print bed seems challenging. But keep in mind that for small print areas, curling is less of an issue. And perhaps they've found a way to get ABS to stick to the "ABS platform" well, but not permanently.
- They could be doing automatic leveling by measuring the build platform's position, then using software to "level" the print. Marlin firmware can do this now. It's pretty cool, actually - the firmware does the math to rotate the object so that it's square to the build platform, even at an absurd angle, and the extruder steps up and down Z as it moves across X and Y in order to maintain a constant layer height.
The main thing that gives me confidence is that they appear to have multiple printers running now, so they're ramping up manufacturing of an existing product, not inventing anything new. And the design looks like an evolution of existing printers, so they can use most of the existing technology "off the shelf" and just make the specific changes that they need. So it's a much easier product to engineer than a fundamental new technology. If you look at it, it's fairly similar to any H-frame printer, but lightweight and small. From my manufacturing experience, the dates seem aggressive, but since they're doing it in the US, they might save some time on iterations, shipping, etc.
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The point isn't just that it's cheap ($300!), it's that it's a consumer-friendly printer that can be used "out of the box". So price matters, but so does the "out of box experience" and usability.
The Printrbot Simple is a very nice little printer. But at that price it's a kit that requires assembly, and the result looks like a weird machine made of wood and wiring with moving parts exposed. And the software is the same techie-looking software everyone uses. Which means that it's not an option for someone who wants to buy a printer, plug it in, and use it. And even the assembled cheap printers (Printrbot, Solidoodle) are terrible looking with not-great software. That's fine for early adopters who want to learn and are willing to suffer a bit (i.e. people who hang out on Slashdot). But if you don't think that consumer friendly industrial design matters, you're probably confused by everyone bought iPod instead of the HanGo PJB-100 (the first MP3 player with a hard drive).
And the Peachy (I'm a backer) isn't at all comparable. For $99 you're really only getting a part of a printer - you need to provide two water reservoirs, and a frame to hold it all together, and dedicate a computer to driving the Peachy. Because resin printing is extremely slow. So the Peachy is a fine learning experiment to cheaply play with resin printing, but other than the very low price, it's nowhere near consumer friendly.
Now, how this printer it plays out in reality is anybody's guess. But if they can deliver a printer that "just works" for normal consumers, for $300, that's pretty impressive, and I think it'll get them some serious attention. They're already well over their target, and it's only been a day.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
My 3d printer now has automatic bed leveling and calibration, its a servo and a microswitch, working on a other version that uses a $5 inductive sensor that eliminates all the mechanical components and is completely solid state. Its quite magical, just open up a model and hit print and it just works, still the occasional snafu, but its getting close.
I can see how the M3d will be able to encapsulate all that automatic sensing, there real limit is the processing power of the printer controllers, they are mainly based on Atmel avr 8 bit processors and are not very powerful, cheap sensors and a powerful processor allows you to make all the issues go away, again that is coming, but its slow.
Win 8.1 has point and click 3d printing, once the devices catch up, it will be up to the model repositories to take up the task, most like thingiverse are stuffed full of unprintable models, that have never been tested.
What most folks would want is an easy way to 3D scan the little plastic doodad (probably off their car) that has been temporarily been super-glued back together again just to get the proper shape file. Maybe a little sculpting to clean up edges or build back up worn edges, but that's all that will be needed.
I suppose, however, the real reason a 3D scanner won't ever be included is that is a sure way to be sued for facilitating the dreaded IP THEFT. Sigh.
By the way, as additive manufacturing becomes commonplace, do you really think even a penny of the (3x? 10x?) savings over subtractive will be passed onto the consumer? Of course not; just like CDs that were oh so expensive to produce initially and then became pennies per due to scale and advances. Yet the prices stayed about the same at the consumer level. Lather, rinse, repeat (getting screwed by corporations).
shapeways.com provides a 3D printing service that is easy to use, allows the use of a several types of materials and printer technologies and provides creatives with a ready made outlet for their work. The user can focus their time on the 3D design and avoid the high up front cost of the printer and get much better results than available from hobby printers.