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Ask Slashdot: For What Are You Using 3-D Printing?
An anonymous reader writes: I've been thinking about getting a 3-D printer for a while: the quality is rising, the software is better, STL files really do seem a sufficiently good standard ("sufficiently standard," that is — I'm not worried that printers are going to stop supporting it anytime soon), and prices have dropped quite a bit. Importantly to me, it also seems like less of a jumping-off-a-cliff decision, since I can get a completely assembled one from places as wild and crazy as ... the Home Depot (not that I plan to). However, even the stretchiest practical things I can think of to print can't truly actually justify the price, and that's OK — I hope not to require enough replacement knobs and chess pieces to necessarily *need* one, and playing around with it is the main likely upshot, which I'm OK with. But still, I'd like to hear what uses you have been putting your 3-D printer to, including printers that aren't yours but belong to a hackerspace, public library, eccentric neighbor, etc. What actually practical / useful tasks have you been using 3-D printing for, and with what printer technology? What playful purposes? It's OK if you just keep printing out those chess pieces and teapots, but I'm curious about less obvious reasons to have one around. (And I might just use the local Tech Shop's anyhow, but the question still applies.) If you've purchased a 3D printer, are you happy with the experience? If so, or if not, what kind did you get?
I'm a trained CNC machinist with a 3D printer and I think your attitude is stereo-typically ignorant. Same type of argument usually made by people who drive pickups with a perfect paint job and refuse to buy tools from harbor freight.
Most of the idle crap people want from life can be accomplished with ABS plastic filament. This is true at least for anyone who doesn't work with their hands.
The home inventor personality is usually obsessed with achieving marginal improvements in efficiency which are typically too niche to already have products in existence solving the problem. Sword-chucks and triangle shovels are just a special type of arrogance from people who like to blame their deficiencies on the lack of their poorly thought through silver bullet solution.
If you have to sweat and bleed to get your pipe-dream produced in Aluminum or Steel, people will normally change their "only a carbon-fiber spork will do" attitude when differentiating themselves as having an "eye-for-quality"(aka ham fisted over-engineered for the situation's merits) becomes too costly.
They have had kits that do not require a 3d printer for that for a long time now. There are a few different companies offering it. Here are a couple that I know of.
http://www.willykit.com/
http://www.createamate.com/
And I there there is a clone a willy kit somewhere but cannot remember the URL for it. All of these options are much cheaper than a 3d printer and you can put vibrators in them as well as glow in the dark colors and even lights. Lots of fun- just don't make a bunch of them and hand them out in the secret Santa at work next year. Trust me, it's not as fun or funny as you might think.
A little CNC machine would be pretty slick for that .. a CNC and a 3d printer are nearly the same.. one is subtractive, one is additive.. buy thery're "just" x-y-z tables; make an x-y-z and hang a dremel off the carriage instead of an extruder, and you've got a CNC that can carve out PCBs.
But as always, the problem with PCBs is.. vias; you can do one sided boards easy, but two sided, with via's.. plating and drilling/lining-up is a drag :)
Some filament is conductive, so the theory is about 3d printing the traces, which may work; not practical or cost effective right now (when you can submit a 4" square pcb design to Elecrow and get 10 of them for $10 .. thats hard to beat.)
I've used some printers at a makerspace, including an Ultimaker2 (which crapped out 12.5hrs into a 13 hr print). Also an Orion which was fine, and then there are a bunch at the place that I didn't use because there was always something wrong with them.
Anyway, I recently got a printer and I was thinking of either the Flashforge or a Lulzbot Mini. The Mini has fewer features, but I swear, it's a "print out of the box" experience. It does a self-leveling routine that works great, the heated PEI surface grips everything (no glue, no blue tape, no kapton). It has a year warranty, and being based on Colorado, support is in a language I can understand easily (plus some people in Colorado have work). Finally, it is totally open source, hardware and software. And not just "here's the source, good luck with that" style of open source, step by step illustrated howto type open source: Guides: https://ohai-kit.alephobjects.... Source for all the printers, even retired models: https://www.lulzbot.com/suppor...
Anyway, you might want to check out Lulzbot.
As an aside, and aimed at the original poster's question, I feel like I'm well on the way to saving the price of the printer in the two months I've had it. The makerspace I was using charged $50/mo and 25c per gram, and you had to pay for the garbage prints -- that 13 hour print that failed there cost me an entire Saturday, plus $15 in plastic. I had the thing printed by Sculpteo, but that cost almost $70. Plastic is actually really cheap -- a kilo spool can be had for $25, or 2 cents per gram -- a 50 gm object costs me a buck, and I can do other things I need to do around the house while it prints. At the makerspace, that would be $12.50, plus sitting around for hours. Have I made anything terribly useful? No. But I have plans, and even if I don't, I'm having fun.
Valid questions, I'll try to answer a few, and hopefully that answers some of the other peoples concerns as well:
:)
Sure, 3D printing isn't yet for everyone, and yes - it does take both knowledge and experience. One of those things are of course 3D modelling experience, the better 3D modeller you are...the better your results will be, and of course the faster you'll get it done.
Another thing you need to be somewhat experienced at, is how to model things FOR a 3D printer, this is because if you just "print" without any planning, you're most likely to end up with having to experiment so much that you'll make 10s of misprints, costing you a small fortune in ABS plastic.
You also need to know to remove bugs in your model, all STL files must be properly CLEANED before converted to an STL file. This means you need to understand how to make clean models, remove double vertices, double faces, edges etc. You also need to understand where to apply support for the various parts, most printers can't really print into thin air...so you need to model some temporary holders/molds that holds the printed object in place while printing. You also need to consider how to clean up the final model, most cheaper printers will leave some ugly looking stripes (due to the printing process), which you need to sand down later, if you have too many details, it'll make it pretty though to clean up later on.
The design process time depends entirely on the object complexity at hand. For example, a small cover for a battery can take as little as 1 hour to design (I'd probably do it in less than 10 minutes), but the printing process itself takes a lot longer. If you where to make a complex cogwheel construction, that could take hours to days. Nevermind a beautiful detailed statue that could take weeks. But hey, good art doesn't grow on trees, and this is up to each individual to master.
Yes, 3D printing isn't for everyone, but then again... that also makes it worth something to those who are willing to put the time and effort into the learning process. If it was for everyone, there'd be no business for people like me, but sure - 3D printing will improve tremendously over time, so please keep buying those printers!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.