
MTU Study: 3D printers may soon be in every home - makos
http://www.3ders.org/articles/20130730-mtu-study-3d-printers-may-soon-be-in-every-home.html
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anigbrowl
_In the study, Pearce and his team chose 20 common household items listed on
Thingiverse, such as cellphone accessories, a garlic press, a showerhead, a
spoon holder, and the like.

Then they used Google Shopping to determine the maximum and minimum cost of
buying those 20 items online, shipping charges not included. Next, they
calculated the cost of making them with 3D printers. The conclusion: it would
cost the typical consumer from $312 to $1,944 to buy those 20 things compared
to $18 to make them in a weekend._

Oh come _on_. Like all those items online were made out of the same low-melt-
point plastic and the 3d-printed ones were of equivalent quality. I'm very
much pro 3d-printing but there's some serious reaching here.

The last page of the study ([http://www.academia.edu/4067796/Life-
Cycle_Economic_Analysis...](http://www.academia.edu/4067796/Life-
Cycle_Economic_Analysis_of_Distributed_Manufacturing_with_Open-
Source_3-D_Printers)) offers examples such as a shower head with prices
ranging from $7.87 to $437.22, jewelry organizers from $9 to $109, and
orthotics ranging from $99 to $800. There's a _little_ bit more going on with
the expensive ones than just being a heap of plastic that you can duplicate at
home, I think.

~~~
buro9
I wondered whether the bicycle water bottle holder could really hold a heavy
bottle as the bike vibrated, hit potholes, etc.

Just making something that looks the same does not mean it will perform the
same.

For example, would the lemon juicer in the picture withstand the dishwasher
for as long as the shop bought equivalent? If not, how many times would the
printed version be replaced and at what cost?

I just don't yet buy, in the examples given, that the items are of equivalent
performance, and that is if one were to generously say that they had
equivalent aesthetic qualities.

3d printing will get there, but it's not there yet.

~~~
snom380
ABS is quite sturdy (it's what Lego is made of). You can also print
polycarbonate with some all-metal hot-ends and a fume hood.

~~~
jalada
How much would it cost to install a fume hood? And what are the dangers?

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diziet
3d printing will truly be consumer ready when I could take out my phone and
'scan' the broken alarm clock housing, and within 10 minutes of tweaking with
relatively easy to use software be able to print a replacement. Until then, a
shapercube will sit in a closet and only get occasional 'geek' time to show to
others.

~~~
patio11
One could envision something like "Take a photo of your broken thing", sending
that photo off to an industrial/mechanical engineer who lives in (without loss
of generality) China and can be employed profitably to do non-trivial work in
CAD software to save $X0, and then sending the resulting IP to a local 3D
printing firm who'd maintain expensive, fiddly equipment, make sure the
printing process terminated successfully, and then give the product to either
a gopher or UPS for delivery.

Now I question whether that makes more sense along any axis than "Buy a new
alarm clock from a more-or-less-locally cached store of Chinese alarm clocks
and cut out the middlemen", but it might be interesting to try.

~~~
snom380
What makes more sense (and that I've done myself) is to print out a part for
some expensive appliance where the parts are either extremely expensive or
just not available at all. For instance, a $1000 automatic espresso maker can
have lots of moving plastic parts, and the rest of the machine might be in
perfect working order save for that one broken part. And when you've made the
replacement part it's easy to print another one, and share it with others.

Or another example (from some years ago), just to get one replacement part for
my perfectly fine shower cabinet, I had to buy a complete set of plastic
mounts, to the price of $160.

~~~
rubinelli
One could create a line of "open-source appliances", that had ease of
maintenance as its main selling point, although catering to a part of the
market that prefers fixing rather than buying stuff can be a little tough.

~~~
mechanical_fish
They probably don't need to be open-source appliances, though firms that
insist on suing people who post open CAD drawings of their machine's parts
will incur a competitive disadvantage.

What will happen is that groups of hobbyists will rapidly converge on the
machines on the market that fit in a sweet spot of good design, affordability,
and mod-ability, then amplify the effect by building up open libraries of
printable parts.

I think of all the Honda Civics I saw in California. The Civic is a long-
standing hobbyist car. Or think of all the iPhone add-ons you can buy or make.
The iPhone is a far cry from "open hardware", but it's still a standard base
for a hobbyist market.

I do wonder whether this is the sort of thing that will push 3D printing
across the chasm, but that doesn't mean it's ridiculous. One must start the
market somewhere, and there seem to be enough hobbyists and prototypers around
to keep things moving forward.

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rickyconnolly
3D printing is rather useful in the research lab. For example, most biological
research labs will have a piece of kit called an electrophoresis chamber. This
is essentially a plastic, watertight box with two wire electrodes inside.
These chambers will cost upwards of 800 dollars.

I drew up plans for my own electrophoresis chamber in Sketchup, uploaded it to
Shapeways ([https://www.shapeways.com/model/1240729/sds-page-
tank-v6.htm...](https://www.shapeways.com/model/1240729/sds-page-
tank-v6.html?li=my-models&key=18f1e746e2b834553627f15f0600d845)), and got it
printed and sent to me for less than 70 bucks. Wiring it up cost less than a
dollar.

By the way, does anybody know of similar services that are even less
expensive? Shapeways seem to specialize in making little trinkets and gadgets,
so I suspect my rather large, bulky box cost even more than it needed to.

~~~
jamessb
The Derisi Lab at UCSF has a repository of 3D models for parts they use in
their (bio) lab:
[http://derisilab.ucsf.edu/index.php?page=3D](http://derisilab.ucsf.edu/index.php?page=3D)

(Press release from 3D printer manufacturer:
[http://www.stratasys.com/resources/case-
studies/medical/deri...](http://www.stratasys.com/resources/case-
studies/medical/derisi-lab))

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7952
If something can be made at home on a 3d printer, surely it can be made in a
factory for less money with a better 3d printer. It could reduce the price of
factory made parts, but it is hard to believe it would eliminate them.

I would love it if the affect of this was to make companies focus on better
materials that can't be made at home. The price doesn't change but the product
gets better. A lot of cyclists would prefer a $30 carbon fiber bottle cage to
a home made plastic one for $10.

~~~
joakleaf
Except, if it is made in a factory you have:

• Transportation costs from factory to store • Cost for additional space
required to hold stock

If it is sold through a store • Cost for display space in a store • Cost of a
sales person selling the item • Cost for (neat) packaging • Cost of your time
picking up the item

etc.

So while the factory can logically create the product cheaper it could still
end up costing more.

~~~
7952
I agree that posting and packing are always going to be a factor. The other
points you mention are becoming less relevant as we move towards online
buying. This is especially true of shops selling random obscure parts. Also,
just think about how annoying normal 2d printers are. Sure you can print
something at home; but it will be expensive and slow compared with the
expensive laser printer at the office.

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beering
The methodology behind this study is pretty shaky. Most concerning is that
their main claim - that $312 is a lot more than $18 - isn't held up by much
searching.

As an example, you can get a decent silicone nano wristband for $2.78 online.
They listed $16.98 as the "total retail cost". Similarly, a plastic iPad stand
(though of not the same design) can be ordered online for $1.27, while the
study listed $16.99.

Many items' retail prices were about 2x-5x higher than they could have been.

Of course, the RepRap cost doesn't include the cost of getting a RepRap, nor
the ridiculous amount of time it takes to even keep it running. And, of
course, doesn't include the cost of all the failed builds you'll inevitably
run into when trying to print things.

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bigiain
I keep seeing articles like this and thinking "these people are thinking about
this wrong".

3D printers _aren 't_ better at making mass produced injection moulded plastic
objects than injection moulding. They can (more or less) replicate the sort of
mass-produced thing you can buy on Amazon that's been sailed here in shipping
container loads from China – but if you're going to make a few thousand of
them (or better still, a few tens of millions), then "the industry" has got
the efficiency of that manufacturing and supply chain down to a very fine art.
(In the same way that it's very difficult to match McDonalds on a calorie-per-
dollar metric.)

What I believe will really make 3D printers "go viral", is when enough people
work out that there's different, _new_ _categories_ of objects we can produce.

Things where only 50 or 100 people in the world are ever going to want - maybe
a mount to fit an iPhone 4S with an extended battery case to the handlebars of
a 2012 Vespa 125 Sport, or a bracket to hold an Arduino and a 2x40char LCD to
the side of a pre 2005 Rancilio Silva espresso machine. I wonder how many
things/objects get thought up, but discarded because "it'll got $x,000 to make
a set of moulds, and there's only 100 people in the world who'd even consider
buying this"?

I think there are also objects that right now don't exist because existing
manufacturing techniques don't allow them to be (mass) produced - one of the
cheaper 3D printers comes with a sample file of a Chess Rook (the "castle
piece) with an internal spiral staircase inside it - a geometry that's
physically impossible to create a mould you could extract the part from
(without destroying the mould). I wonder how many things/objects get thought
up then "discarded" because "you can't make that"?

I see people trying to print 3D plastic guns using more or less "traditional"
gun shapes and designs. That's just _wrong_ (though I have some grudging
admiration for the people doing it for largely political/anarchist
motivations). What we need is for people to start developing the knowledge and
experience with 3D printing materials – so they've got the same sort of "gut
feel" for sizes/configurations/suitability of various options to design parts,
as "old school" welders have about what size/shape/configuration of steel
stock and gussets/bracing is "strong enough" for your boat-trailer/golf-
buggy/go-kart. People who can go "that _might_ work, but how about we over-
engineer that section a bit more, 'cause it seems a little close to the
material limits". People who can go "Lets 3D scan that metal bracket, then
adjust the thickness of _those_ planes and increase the gusset radius along
_that_ intersection, and add some webbing around _those_ holes, then it'll be
'strong enough' to replace the original metal part".

I look forward to that – and I suspect it'll start happening in a fairly short
timeframe.

~~~
dorfsmay
Make sense. But then one of the item on his table is an orthopaedic insole, an
item that is custom made for one's foot. I can totally see orthopaedist,
dentist etc... have a 3D printer in their office to manufacture one-of-a-kind
insole, dental cap, or even prescription lenses.

~~~
Qworg
Invisalign braces and Vivera retainers are already 3D printed (using UV
photopolymer and a laser). They just do it at a factory, because the 3D
printer that can produce that level of detail/strength is terribly expensive.

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mipapage
Most of this is done with plastic, no? What would be cool is that the plastic
from no-longer-used printouts could be recycled thru the machine.

Kipple: I worry about the amount of plastic kipple these things will generate.

~~~
snom380
With the filastruder project (DIY plastic filament extruder) that should be
possible. However, 3D printers don't like too much recycled material (at least
not for ABS) so you would have to add it along with new ABS pellets.

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noptic
Why would i want one at home? I do not even have a 2d printer! I can handle
nearly all of my stuff without paper so it is a lot cheaper to go to the
copyshop next door.

I know a 3d printer is used in a different way but I would rather go to a 3d
print shop with high quality printers and a good choice of materials and post
print services (polishing, coloring, ...).

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smoyer
With this study, I can finally justify the ROI of a 3D printer to my CFO (my
wife).

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darkxanthos
Of course they leave off the cost of the print in that $18 estimate.

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meapix
with this, can I print money bills?

~~~
gyom
Only if you're a bank. Or the FED.

~~~
slavak
And your country's money happens to be made out of ABS...

