Consumers Not Impressed With 3D Printing

Lucas123 (935744) writes "Putting a 3D printer beside the coffee maker in every home, as some manufacturers hope will happen someday, is a long ways from reality as consumers today still don't understand how the technology will benefit them, according to a new study. The study, by Juniper Research, states that part of the problem is that killer applications with the appropriate eco-system of software, apps and materials have yet to be identified and communicated to potential users. And, even though HP has announced its intention to enter the 3D printing space (possibly this fall) a massive, mainstream corporation isn't likely to change the market."

Comments

Premature much

[Anonymous Coward]

Whining about lack of software as a roadblock to mass adoption of home 3D printing is absurd at this point in time.

Inexpensive 3D printing is still barely more than a toy for hobbyists. I have one (mendlemax 2), and while I love playing with it, I recognize it for what it is.

The path forward as I see it for home 3D printing is:

- spend a long damn time in the hobbyist domain
- eventually capabilities will hit a point where actual useful products can be produced, but it will still be way more effort to do so than to buy the equivilant mass-produced item.
- small niche markets will open up offering custom things and replacement parts that are no long available. I forsee a long period of time where 3D printing is practical, but at a small business level rather than a home level. The "bring your model down to staples" phase if you will.
- eventually some people will start using these services regularily and start dreaming of having one at home
- this is when 3D printing at home really takes off

This is however so far away that I may not be alive to see it. When the time comes, I'm sure someone will whip up a slick UI...

Re:Premature much

[Anonymous Coward]

But I'm sure scumbag companies will ruin this otherwise good idea by somehow requiring the printers to have DRM or random restrictions.

Re:Premature much

[Shakrai]

The path forward as I see it for home 3D printing is:

You forgot the part where people find a way to use it for sexual gratification. New technology meets yesterday's primal urges. Same story, different day.

Re:Premature much

[aix tom]

On the other hand, 15 years ago about ~90% of my friends who had computers had printers at home to print their photos, these days none of them has (including me).

Take your memory stick to the local supermarket or photo shop to get high-quality prints from a working, regularly serviced photo printing machine is cheaper and the quality is better. The same way I print Photos maybe 5-10 times a year at most, I can't imagine I would need/want to 3D print something that often that having my own 3D printer would make sense.

Same with photo printers

[CastrTroy]

It's the same deal with photo printers. It's much easier and cheaper to go down to Walmart or Costco when you need to print out your photos and get them to use their professional quality machines to do the job. I think that 3D printers will end up in the same sport. You'll go down to Walmart, and get them to print out an item for you. You'll only need it maybe 5 times a year, so there's no point in owning your own 3D printer. There's already services where you can send a 3D file and somebody will print it out and ship it to you.

Perhaps

[Highland Deck Box]

if they could create a 2D printer that wasn't a crotchety piece of shit, then people would be more excited. I don't look forward to trying to unjam some 3D printer nozzles full of melted plastic.

Re:Perhaps

[Shakrai]

if they could create a 2D printer that wasn't a crotchety piece of shit

There are dozens of different quality printers on the market today. They just cost more than the $30 people are willing to pay for an inkjet printer from Wally World.

Apt quote

[SteveFoerster]

“If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse.” – Henry Ford

Consumers are right

[WrongMonkey]

3-D is ok for a one-off prototype. But who needs a $1000 device that takes hours to print a happy meal toy?

The Big Bang Theory quote time

[smooth wombat]

Raj and Howard in front of a 3d printer:

Raj: Ooh. I, I think it's done.

(Opens door to printer)

Raj: It worked! We printed a whistle.

Howard: Amazing. You realize these things go for 25 cents a pop at a party store.

Raj: And we made it in only three hours!

HP might make it work, but with DRM.

[Animats]

The problem with most low-end extruder-type printers is that the engineering sucks. Most 3D printers work by trying to push a string with a gear (which jams or fails to feed), trying to weld a hot thing to a cold thing (which produces weak welds), trying to perform a process that is very temperature-sensitive without air temperature control (which makes the process fail frequently), and trying to weld a plastic that has too high a coefficient of expansion (which causes cracks during cooling).

Some of them then follow up by building a 3-axis motion system out of thin wood (too flexible), and using screw threads and nuts (too much play and backlash) instead of Acme lead screws and recirculating-ball nuts (like real CNC tools.) The end result is miserable process repeatability. This is why a big fraction of hobbyist-level 3D print jobs fail.

HP can probably solve those problems. Many of them are similar to the problems inkjet printers and pen plotters face. HP made both of those technologies work well. It wasn't easy. As one engineer pointed out, intuition fails you when trying to understand what's going on with ink at microdroplet size. HP had to use supercomputers to simulate the fluid dynamics before they got a print head that worked really well. (Of course, most of the engineers who did that were laid off years ago.) Many of the problems with 3D printers are cheaply solveable if you're making hundreds of thousands of them, not hundreds.