

How 3D Printing Will Save American Manufacturing - pittsburgh
http://www.3dprinter.net/3d-printing-will-save-america

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dolbz
> and there is no nation on earth with the inventiveness found on such a
> massive scale as in America.

Citation needed? This sentence and the next just made me stop reading. It's
borderline supremacism. Whether the rest of the article has valid points or
not such a sweeping statement can not be taken seriously.

~~~
xiaoma
Since the 1950's, the US has won over half the Nobel Prizes awarded in
physics, chemistry and medicine. The car, airplane, internet, laser,
sequencing of the human genome, manned lunar landings and a host of humanity's
other technological triumphs each came from America. So did the modern PC, the
web, and most likely the search engines and social networking sites you use.

I sense some bruised ego and a dash of nationalism, but if that line keeps you
from reading the article because you want citations, then I have a couple of
suggestions for where you can find them: Google and Wikipedia.

~~~
Nick_C
I'm sympathetic to the thrust of your argument, but you might like to rethink
the airplane, the car, and the Web.

~~~
xiaoma
I might not. Much as the hamburger isn't technically an American invention,
the hamburger as we know it is. For all practical purposes it is from America,
not Hamburg.

Cars- It's true that a Frenchman made the first gas engine car, and that some
of the very, very early cars (which were unaffordable and unusable by the
masses) came out of central Europe. Nonetheless, it was US innovations that
led to cars that were actually adopted by significant numbers.

Airplane- I really don't know what you're getting at here. From the Wright
brothers' first flight to the mass adoption decades later, the US lead the
way.

Web- The web as we know it started with Mosaic, which came out of Illinois.
Even by 1995, the vast majority of internet users and sites were in the US. If
one were to be pedantic, Lynx which came out of Kansas could be considered to
be the start. I can only assume you're pointing at Tim Berners-Lee, who made
the initial proposal for the protocol and a few proof of concept tools. He's
an Englishman, but has chosen to do his work in the US out of MIT, which only
goes to show the strength of the OP's argument.

I still stand by my remark that being seriously upset by that line in the
article is an indicator of being out of touch with reality.

~~~
Nick_C
> it was US innovations that led to cars

Yes, Ford invented the production line, he did not invent cars.

> From the Wright brothers' first flight

Flight had been going on for decades. There is some evidence that a New
Zealander did _controlled_ flight _under power_ first (which is what the
Wright brothers are generally credited with), but did not publicise it. Wing-
warping was already under trial in Europe at the same time as the Wright
brothers; the Wright brothers' innovation was to get to the patent office
first. (I don't share people's kudos of the Wright brothers. They got too much
credit for what was going to happen anyway within weeks in Europe. They were
extremely aggressive patentors and did much to suppress innovation by
competitors.)

> Web

Berners-Lee invented the Web. Pure and simple. Other people made tools that
used it, but that was not the claim.

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tjmc
Breathless speculation penned by yet another 3D printing evangelist with less
consideration of material science than your average ant. Wake me up when you
know what Young's Modulus is.

~~~
pittsburgh
I am not the author of the article, just the submitter. However, I'll run with
your comment anyway...

Tensile Modulus (aka Young's Modulus) is a measure of how stiff a material is.
Specifically, it's a measure of how much a material stretches under load.
(Diamond has a very high tensile modulus while rubber has a very low tensile
modulus.)

Ten years ago, people were 3D printing in plastics with a tensile modulus of
under 1,000 MPa and they were happy with that. Today you can print in DSM
Somos NanoTool which has a tensile modulus of 11,400 MPa. Keep in mind this is
a _plastic_. ( Source:
[http://www.dsm.com/en_US/downloads/dsms/NanoTooleng_10.09.pd...](http://www.dsm.com/en_US/downloads/dsms/NanoTooleng_10.09.pdf)
)

If you need even stronger materials then you should consider using an SLS
(selective laser sintering) printer that can build products in titanium,
aluminum or steel. Imagine how many ants could safely walk across a bridge 3D
printed in any of these!

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alexhaefner
I guess I'm not convinced. Can someone explain the utility of 3D printing
beyond rapidly building prototypes? Can it really reach scale and quality to
do mass manufacturing? And what types of products could not in any way be
manufactured with 3D printers? Which could?

~~~
pittsburgh
3D printing isn't feasible for the the mass manufacturing of everything yet,
but it's feasible for certain types of products today, and it is improving.
Here are some ways in which 3D printing has moved closer in the last few
years:

* Stronger materials, such as Somos NeXt resin: <http://www.dsm.com/en_US/html/dsms/next.htm>

* Cheaper materials

* BioCompatible materials, such as Med610 which just came out last week: [http://www.objet.com/3D-Printing-Materials/Overview/Bio-Comp...](http://www.objet.com/3D-Printing-Materials/Overview/Bio-Compatible/)

* The ability to print in more than one material at a time, as shown in these human feet: [http://www.objetblog.com/2011/09/21/a-table-of-3d-printed-fe...](http://www.objetblog.com/2011/09/21/a-table-of-3d-printed-feet/)

* Higher resolution printing, such as the Objet Eden500V which can print detail as small as 0.0006”: <http://www.objet.com/3D-Printer/Objet_Eden500V/>

Examples of consumer products currently being made with the help of 3D
printers include:

* Invisalign braces: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVQq9joOS_4>

* Hearing aids: [http://i.materialise.com/blog/entry/3d-printing-in-medicine-...](http://i.materialise.com/blog/entry/3d-printing-in-medicine-what-is-happening-right-now-in-patients)

* Jewelry: <http://www.summerized.com/jewelry/>

Things will really take off for 3D printing when printers can simultaneously
print in multiple materials like plastic, metal, and rubber, and in multiple
colors per part. Until then, you're right that 3D printers will continue to be
used primarily for rapid prototyping, but this will change within a few years
as the technology continues to improve and the cost continues to fall.

~~~
seclorum
You forgot <http://thingiverse.com/> .. spend an hour browsing that site and
you'll see exactly why 3D printing is a concept whose time has definitely
come.

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aoporto
The big question: how long will it take for this form of manufacturing to
achieve the cost effectiveness of current methods? The bottom line for
everyone, including consumers, is cost. Don't forget about quality control.

Let's also not assume that we will always be the most innovative. We have to
make sure that the current and next generation of students get the quality
education they need in math and science to keep us dominant in Tech.
Interesting article but lots of assumptions and unanswered questions.

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jbarham
Forget AutoCAD, use Tinkercad (<http://www.tinkercad.com/>) which lets you do
solid modelling in your browser using WebGL.

(I have no association w/ Tinkercad; just think it's very cool technology w/
WebGL in the front end and Go in the back end.)

~~~
seclorum
Forget Tinkercad; use OpenSCAD! (<http://www.openscad.org/>)

Its the Programmers Solid 3D CAD Modeller! :)

(Disclaimer: I'm a huge fan of the OpenSCAD team, and daily watch their
efforts to subvert 3D printing - i.e. make it available to all and sundry for
a good price using Open Source methods .. <http://thingiverse.com/> ftw!)

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chubs
First cab off the rank is affordable laser cutting. I've got several projects
i'd love to do once that becomes feasible. Then CNC mills, and 3d printing...
the future is bright!

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jayfuerstenberg
This could put IKEA out of business.

I wonder how long it'll be until companies start suing.

~~~
dagw
The cost, per unit, of printing a chair will be orders of magnitude higher
than the cost of making millions of the same chair in huge factories
specifically tooled for the job. IKEA has nothing to worry about.

~~~
ovi256
What you cite is the manufacturing cost. Then you have distribution and retail
cost. The huge factories and stores need capital, so financing cost as well.

~~~
biot
Even ignoring all that, it cost me more to build my own bookshelf from lumber
and materials at Home Depot than it would have cost to buy a nice, pre-made
bookshelf from Ikea. Presumably Ikea has factored their costs into the
resulting price.

~~~
lsc
I'm not sure that home depot sells the laminated? particle board used in ikea
furniture. If you used unlaminated particle board, you'd certainly come out a
lot cheaper at home depot. heck, most ikea desks could be made out of one 4x8
sheet, so even if you used slightly higher quality plywood, you'd probably
come out ahead in terms of materials cost.

Yup, for less than USD$8 you get a 4x8 sheet of OSB[1]; I'd bet money that
stuff is stronger than the stuff ikea makes desks out of. Now, I dono how much
it takes to laminate that stuff nicely like ikea does, but the raw materials
for cheap 'engineered wood products' are incredibly inexpensive. Heck, for $2
you can get an 8' long 2x4 that is actual wood. buy two of those and you can
build something much stronger than the standard ikea desk.

Now, I'm sure it costs ikea less to build the desk than it would cost you to
buy the materials, but just like amazon isn't going to sell you compute nodes
for less than the cost of buying and co-locating servers even though it costs
them less, ikea isn't going to sell to you at those prices.

[1][http://www.homedepot.com/Lumber-Composites-Plywood-
Sheathing...](http://www.homedepot.com/Lumber-Composites-Plywood-Sheathing-
Subfloor/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbqm7/R-100091344/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053)

~~~
dagw
The cheapest desktop at Ikea costs $6[1], and that's pre-laminated and
everything. I've bought stuff at Ikea before to cut up and use in other
products because it was cheaper than going out and buying the raw materials.

[1](<http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50071170/>)

~~~
lsc
Ah. I was thinking you wanted to make a desk, not just the top, which you
could do with the 4x8 sheet, some screws, and maybe a two by four. (Am I
imagining things? or did you edit your original post to say bookshelf rather
than desk? it's okay, I edit my posts too; you could also make a bookshelf out
of that 4x8 sheet, if your time was free and you had the carpentry skills.)

Even so, the 3' x 2' bit of 'wood product' from ikea costs almost as much as a
4'x8' piece of 'wood product' from home depot. That's more than 5 ikea tables
worth of wood.

I think the dramatically increased price (percentage wise, of course, not
dollar wise) of the ikea part is in the addition of the laminate on top and on
the sides; you can't really cut the laminated particle board to size once you
get it, unless you want exposed sawdust-wood, so we are back to manu

I mean, I'm not saying the ikea stuff isn't good; I'm just saying that they,
generally speaking, are charging considerably more (as a percentage, not in
terms of dollars, and for a $7 item, even if their markup is 4x, well, you
probably aren't going to notice.) than what materials cost.

~~~
biot
I was the one who said bookshelf (no edits were made). I made it out of planks
of wood and wood screws. The Ikea bookshelf uses wood planks but of a
lighter/less durable kind of wood. I'm sure mine might have held up cast iron
books where the Ikea version would have failed, but as a regular bookshelf for
paper books, the price/performance of the Ikea product would have met my needs
more than adequately at a decent cost savings.

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koushikn
When will a 3D printer print itself?

~~~
nicpottier
I believe you are looking for this: <http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page>

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shareme
Sorry no, the reason for the decline of American Manufacturing is due to the
miss-use of horizontal integration as opposed to vertical integration within
in manufacturing..I cite SpaceX as an example of vertical
manufacturing/engineering..

