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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?
They're quite useful if you know what you're doing. For example, you have some kind of toy, gadget, device and whatnot...that's missing the battery cover? Hard to find...even on eBay, so what do you do? Fire up your favourite 3D software and make one. Works like a charm.
If you're working in advertisement/merchandise production... you can make small prototype samples of what you want to have mass produced, this ensures that your oversea production don't get it wrong (and they always do, trust me!) Shipping a sample of what you want mass produced, is a dream come true, and fortunately for (me) most of my competitors have no clue that this can be done, so they still do it the old fashioned way (try to tell the production team with drawings and talk over the phone with a foreign team that hardly understands English).
Pictures say more than a 1000 words they say, well...a prototype object to hold in your hand says more than 1000 pictures.
3D printers are a godsend.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
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.
I carry around a pipe caliper that I designed and 3D printed. A scissor-looking device that tells you the size of a pipe (up to 4") based on outside diameter. Useful on the job.
I designed and printed a custom flashlight holder for those cheap LED flashlights.
Custom replacement handle for a triangular file
Set of custom drawer knobs.
Custom hard drive mounting bracket.
Custom battery holder.
Custom shelf bracket.
~Three dozen clothespins.
3-axis tilt camera stand that mounts on top of a tripod. (replaces one that broke).
Custom 80:1 worm gear reduction for a machine I was working on, as well as a few spur gears and light-duty V-belt pulleys for same machine. Custom thrust bearing and ball bearing holders.
A full set of Meta-Chess pieces.
A custom tool for aligning V-belt pulleys using a 3V line laser module and magnetic base.
Currently in progress is a mostly 3D printed racing wheel controller for my PC, which uses the guts from a dual analog game controller. The controller is unusable because the silicone pads for the buttons cracked, but the electronics are still good and with 4x analog axes I can get steering and three pedals plus 16 digital buttons. My hangup is I can't get the "feel" of the buttons right...
If I ever get off my ass and finish building the electric furnace I've been working on, and manage to melt some aluminum with it, I fully intend to try lost-PLA casting some aluminum parts. That's be awesome...
=Smidge=
It has a use for some small, niche scenarios, but it doesn't do anything for most of us here, and I really wish we would stop seeing stories on it every other week.
With a 3D printer you could run a ~19th century machine shop from your own home. You don't use the 3D printed model. You use it to check fit up and then to turn it into molds.
You can melt iron with used motor oil even charcoal. Sand casting is still used almost everywhere for cast iron.
Give me a 3D printer big enough and I'll build you a tractor. Engine and all.