3-D Printing Comes To Amazon

An anonymous reader writes Promising "an appstore for the physical world," Amazon has just unveiled their new online market for products created using a 3-D printer. "Customization gives customers the power to remix their world," explains the co-founder of Mixee Labs (an Amazon partner), "and we want to change the way people shop online." Amazon's ability to sell you things before they've even been built is currently limited mostly to novelties like iPhone cases, jewelry, and bobbleheads that look like you. But this could be the beginning of mainstream 3D printing.

Comments

Strength

[Anonymous Coward]

Are the products of 3D printers actually strong/hard enough for real world application? Something like a phone case needs to be tough enough to resist abrasion or it will shred in contact with hard objects. The material needs to be tough enough and hard enough that the snaps around the edges don't fail after a few of operations.

I haven't actually used this stuff so I sincerely don't know.

Re:Strength

[Russ1642]

The strength and martial properties of medals comes from the arrangement of the crystal lattices. These are things that 3D printing cannot do.

And there's all that tireless training and stressful competition. Who wants to do that?

Re:Strength

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Depends on what you pay.

A poorly calibrated fused filament unit will produce stringy junk that delaminates if you look at it funny. A well calibrated one will achieve something reasonably close to what the plastic it is using is actually capable of. Outside the cheap seats, you can print all kinds of things(especially if you count parts that require one or more additional processing steps as '3d printed'. Printing wax, for example, is pretty undemanding, and allows you to do lost-wax casts of more or less any shape that will cast properly, without needing a printer that can sinter or melt metals. Some of the techniques for producing ceramics are in the same vein, the printer just needs to tack the ceramic material together long enough for firing, which takes care of the mechanical properties.)

The one thing that is (relatively) easy with injection molding that 3d printing (to my knowledge) isn't so hot for is overmolds. When injection molding you can use insert molding or multi-shot systems to achieve the (enormously common and fairly popular) combination of a rigid plastic structure with an elastomeric surface treatment for grip or aesthetic reasons. For prototyping purposes you can get paint-like coatings that emulate elastomeric overmolds that you can brush on to 3d printed parts; but the quality isn't as good and production takes longer.

Re:Strength

[50000BTU_barbecue]

No, they come from training hard and never giving up. In the Army. Or something.

Little Appliance Parts

[resistant]

I know this makes me a boring person who should be stripped of his nerd card, but I'd really like to use this or a similar service to get a small replacement part printed for an old refrigerator's freezer-door hinge. It broke a long time ago, and I've been propping the door on the remnant of the bottom hinge. Needless to say, the needed part is no longer available, and trying to hack a crude replacement for it promises to be just enough trouble that I've been putting it off for lo these many years. If I could somehow translate what I see of the part into a simple CAD model for Amazon, I'd be happy to pay $10 or so just to avoid the fuss of trying to drill and hammer and cut my way to a solution.

In the classic Slashdot tradition, of course, I haven't paid much attention yet to Amazon's pricing structure, which will undoubted turn out to be unreasonable for such small matters. Still, I'm looking forward to an eventual explosion in availability of quick three-dimensional approximation scanners and small-scale solid-matter printers in corner stores where I can take the pieces to be translated into a reasonable facsimile of the original part.

Re:Little Appliance Parts

[Overzeetop]

Or just fill it with beer and duct tape the door on.

Re:Little Appliance Parts

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Amazon's offering is substantially less flexible than that of existing players (shapeways is the name that comes to mind; but there are others), who already accept basically any STL that isn't horribly munged in some way and spit the result out in a number of different materials.

You still have to model the part, or buy a (currently rather expensive) 3d scanner to do it; but if you are willing to put on your CAD hat, you could have the part by next week, just not from Amazon. I wonder if they are just moving slowly, or worried about the copy cops coming after them once people start knocking off action figures or something...

3D Printing Issue.

[jellomizer]

The real issue right now with 3D Printing, most of the stuff you can print is stuff most people really don't need.

The last time I wished I could have a 3D printer was to replace a Worm Gear for my Garage Door Opener. That was about 6 Months ago.

For decoration, I really don't want Cheap Plastic decorations, and a new phone case isn't that interesting either.

Right now 3D Printing is really still for industry.

"Beginning of mainstream 3D printing"

[Animats]

But this could be the beginning of mainstream 3D printing.

We heard that when Staples did it.

Amazon's 3D printed product offerings are rather lame. They're not offering any of the more advanced 3D printing processes; for that you have to go to Shapeways. All you can get from Amazon is plastic junk.

Re:They will need some actual product

[tbuddy]

They are so literally retarded that by seeing them you forget what the term literally means.

Re:Meh

[interkin3tic]

I agree. Furthermore, why make an egg now? Fuck that, wait for a chicken first, THEN make an egg. Greedy fucking ovipares always jumping the gun...

Staples' My Easy 3d is MUCH better! Print ANYTHING

[mrnick]

With Staples' My Easy 3d you can print ANYTHING! It looks like Amazon's solution is to let you personalize objects, not create your own.

http://staples.myeasy3d.com/in...

Amazon's 3D Print... uhmm well all I can say is LAME!

Re:They will need some actual product

[ranton]

They are so literally retarded that by seeing them you forget what the term literally means.

Criticism of the use of literal when it is used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true literally needs to stop.

Re:Finally.

[runlvl0]

I can have a custom dragon dildo!

Why does your dragon need a dildo?

Re:obgoat:

[rworne]

Funny as xkcd is, there is actually one on Piratebay's Physibles site. Just google: "physibles 3D dildo"

This country I'm visiting (or their ISP) is blocking the site or I'd post a link, but on second thought, maybe it's for the better good.