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Royal Mail Pilots 3D Printing Service

Posted by Soulskill on from the poorly-fitting-imitation-legos-for-all dept.

New submitter MRothenberg writes: Just in time for the holidays, the UK's postal service is testing out a 3D printing service at its central London delivery center. Customers can order "ready-to-print" objects (including shoes, soap dishes and phone cases) or bring in their own originals to duplicate and send via Royal Mail. The postal company's COO predicts consumer demand for 3D printing will grow 95 percent by 2017.

7 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. Shape DRM by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I can't wait to see what they come up with to add DRM to the shape of things so you can't copy them in a 3D scanner/printer.

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    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    1. Re:Shape DRM by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 2

      This is actually kind of interesting.

      I'm waiting to see what companies like Citadel Miniatures is going to do in response to gamers printing their own figures.

      It's not fair to exactly call them customers since, you know, they're printing their own figures. I guess they can try selling them 3d shape files of figs instead.

      --
      Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
  2. Re:Why ? by Russ1642 · · Score: 2

    But someone's going to make a fortune shipping printing medium.

  3. Unsustainable business model by MobyDisk · · Score: 2

    Who are the customers of this? I am skeptical of the business model for 3D printing as a service.

    There are 2 kinds of people who want to 3D print:
    - Makers
    - Gimmick lovers

    The makers won't use this service. 3 years ago every hackerspace had a 3D printer, and it was a cool reason to join up. Now, the makers just buy their own printer. The cost has gone down, and designing a 3D object is an iterative interactive process.

    The gimmick lovers could use the service. There are two types of gimmicks:
    - Stock gimmicks that are all the same
    - Custom gimmicks

    If there is significant demand for a stock gimmick, then it is cheaper and faster to mass produce the item and sell it. This is how we have done it for decades. Popular items on Thingiverse and are now sold on Amazon.

    That leaves custom gimmicks and low-demand stock items for 3D printing. Does the royal mail have a system for customizing gimmicks? If not, then the pool grows yet smaller. I don't know if that customer base is big enough to be profitable. Maybe someone who wants a custom or rare gimmick can find a friend with a 3D printer. That's how it was with 2D printing back in the 80s. You always had a friend with a computer and a color dot-matrix printer, and they could make those "Happy Birthday" banners for you. I suspect that might be the way this really works.

    How many places offer CNC routing as a service? That seems like the most equivalent thing to 3D printing. It has been around for decades, but I don't know of the post-office offering that service.

    1. Re:Unsustainable business model by jeffmeden · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The makers won't use this service. 3 years ago every hackerspace had a 3D printer, and it was a cool reason to join up. Now, the makers just buy their own printer. The cost has gone down, and designing a 3D object is an iterative interactive process.

      There was, and is, and will continue to be, a huge difference in what you can do with a 3d printer that costs a few hundred (currency units) and one that costs a few thousand or tens of thousands of (currency units). A Maker who is not interested in mass producing things but instead wants to create a few interesting objects at a time will probably see a huge benefit to being able to just order up the object (instead of outlaying a huge amount for a printer) from a service that has both a very high quality printer, and a delivery chain to get it to them very fast. How many Makers like that are there? Who knows.

    2. Re:Unsustainable business model by Ogi_UnixNut · · Score: 2

      I don't know, it sounds somewhat interesting for me. You see, In London, space is expensive. I barely have the space in my tiny flat for a desk, bed and TV. Even having the computers on overnight is annoying because I can hear the fans when I try to sleep.

      Much as I would like a 3D printer, I don't have the space for it. Nor could I deal with the noise (and most likely smell) while it spends hours printing.

      The only hackerspace is clear across the city for me, so it isn't really convenient to go there to use their 3D printer. The idea that I can send a STL file to Royal mail, and get the printed part back in the mail after a week or so is actually not a bad idea. Especially if (due to their ability to have larger capital expendeture) they go for one of the proper 3D printers, that are normally out of reach of mortals.

      We have to see what they come up with, and if it would suit my needs, but the idea ain't that far fetched.

  4. Re:Why ? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 2

    Wait. What?

    British phone service used to be run by the Royal Mail. It got split out as British Telecom in 1980 and then it got sold off by the government in 1984.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.