
Iron Man 2's Secret Sauce: 3-D Printing - binarymax
http://www.fastcompany.com/1640497/ironman-2s-secret-sauce-3-d-printing
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thefool
I'm a little skeptical about the magnitude of the increase in time from
concept to realization.

Four hours is the printing stage, but laying out something like that in cad is
fairly time consuming, on top of that every piece surely went through numerous
iterations. Additionally, the medium seems hard to fiddle with, so if the part
didn't turn out, you have to scrap it completely.

Plus given that it is some sort of plastic, your only finishing options are
probably powder coat, some sort of vapor deposition (which that photo looks
like), or possibly some sort of plating if people have figured out how to do
it.

While I'm sure that the tech will make some people's lives easier, this is one
of those things that seems like it could easily be over hyped.

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steveklabnik
> laying out something like that in cad is fairly time consuming, on top of
> that every piece surely went through numerous iterations.

"Regular" design would still go through iterations.

> Plus given that it is some sort of plastic, your only finishing options are
> probably powder coat, some sort of vapor deposition (which that photo looks
> like), or possibly some sort of plating if people have figured out how to do
> it.

In this case, they're using plastic, but you can also print in metal, wax,
rubber, nylon, paper, and resin. (And yes, you can plate the plastic. This is
how Aston Martin makes headlamps for their vehicles.)

> While I'm sure that the tech will make some people's lives easier, this is
> one of those things that seems like it could easily be over hyped.

It's true. People get really, really excited about all of this, and start
talking about "When everyone owns a 3D printer..." It's such a sexy technology
that people get irrationally excited. It certainly has downsides as well as
upsides.

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eru
Yes. Normal printers haven't made everyone an artist, either.

~~~
steveklabnik
It's sort of an imperfect analogy, though. The people who say things like that
are thinking of it in the "You wouldn't download a car?" sense. You can
already download 3D models from a place like Thingiverse, so if everyone had a
printer, we could just print new household items rather than purchase them.
It's a functional thing, not an aesthetic one.

The issue with this is that just because they make things doesn't mean they
make them _from nothing_. Are you going to keep not just a printer, but large
vats of materials hanging around your house? I don't really think so.

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derefr
I tend to imagine the large vat of materials becoming part of the corner
convenience store/gas station. "Hi, I'd like $50 of gas, $38 of aluminum
composite solid #3D2, and this bag of chips."

Alternatively, it could coincide with the one-hour photo lab: "plug in your
USB drive to begin uploading model." _prints out receipt_

~~~
steveklabnik
You still need a volume of stuff that's larger than the thing you want to
build. A convenience store sized package would only provide enough material to
fab something smaller than the package itself.

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alanh
Mass is more appropriate than volume here, but point taken.

~~~
steveklabnik
Sort of. You still need support materials if you were making something hollow.

But anyway, this is pedantic details. We both get where each other is coming
from.

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eru
How about getting the raw materials like tap water?

~~~
steveklabnik
It'd be kind of possible. Not all of them use liquid materials, but even then,
the ones that do look like this:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwQ5HA8sE-k>

Right now, you load the material into the machine with a small crane-like
thing. So theoretically, I guess you could hook up piping instead. But that's
still a honking big machine, and you'd need a machine that'd be larger than
the things you're building with it, really.

I think eventually, it could happen. It's just not going to happen any time
soon.

My favorite theoretical material supply scheme is grabbing carbon out of the
air and re-configuring it into whatever you're printing with ;)

~~~
eru
How about grabbing stuff out of the ground?

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btucker
This made me curious about the economics for a 3D printing on demand service.
Looks like there are already some players in the space making it work:

<http://www.shapeways.com/>

<http://www.buildparts.com/>

<http://www.zoomrp.com/>

~~~
steveklabnik
This is actually what my startup does.

<http://cloudfab.com/>

We actually offer more processes and materials than anyone else on the web.

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Flemlord
I don't see prices on the web site. Would you mind giving me a rough idea of
what it costs to print/create various items? (Not a serious prospect, just
curious.)

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steveklabnik
The reason that there aren't prices is that just like the objects, they're all
custom!

The cost to make something depends entirely on the exact geometry of the
object, the material it's made out of, and various other bits of overhead of
the shop that makes it. Sometimes, the orientation of the part in the printer
can matter!

Generally, on average, something that an industrial designer would be making
would end up costing between $200 and $500.

But again, this is incredibly price sensitive. There's also a trend lately of
people making knock-off materials that cost a tenth of the 'real' ones, and
some people use those...

I've literally seen orders of magnitude between sellers on the same part. Some
people specialize in getting stuff done really quickly, and charge a premium!

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rauljara
Open source 3d printing machine: <http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page> It can
make many of its own components so is at least partially capable of self
replicating.

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mattbauer
I own a uPrint and run it all the time. In the same day we can print a new
version, test it out on the bike, make some changes with a Dremel, measure the
changes, redesign in Solidworks and repeat. Once you add time into the cost
savings equation it's really a no brainer. We are looking at a much larger one
that has almost a cubic meter envelope. BTW the reliability of the Stratasys
printers is unbelievable.

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diziet
I wonder if the same thing will happen to 3d printing as what has happened to
normal printing: using high ink prices to subsidize the actual units. I sure
hope not: if industries actually build goods using this process the demand
will bring the "ink" cost down.

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steveklabnik
That's exactly how the industry works. If you look at the manufacturers' 10Ks,
it's very much the 'razor and blade' model.

And you're also right, it's a real problem when other people make knock-off
materials. Lots of people are doing it, and the manufacturers are trying to
stop it by making the cartridges super proprietary and making unauthorized
materials void your warranty, but that's not stopping everyone...

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sp332
New (awesome) line of merchandising: put the 3D models up for sale on
<http://www.Shapeways.com/> and let people order them in various materials &
colors.

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thomasfl
Home fabrication is very inspirational to read about. The fabrication process
maybe extremely time consuming at the moment, but it's a glimpse of what to
come. Video on the internet was ridiculously slow once, now it's becoming our
main source of video. You saw this video on YouTube, not on your telly. The
advantages of 3d printers are so many, that it will only be a question of time
before the'll get cheaper, faster and better enough to go mainstream. Amen.

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anotherperson
> Maybe the best example are the gloves that Downey wore--which were no
> thicker than a dime, and could be worn for hours without getting so hot that
> the dude needed some Colombian Marching Powder to take the edge off

Really?

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wmeredith
Indeed. That was quite a non-sequitur in the middle of what was a pretty cool
tech article.

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wizard_2
Its a reference to his old dug habits that he was pretty famous for. I agree
it didn't need to be mentioned.

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beagle3
obligatory mention: MakerBot makes $750 3D printer kits that cost pennies to
operate. While the results are not comparable to what is shown in the article,
the age of the 3D printer in every home is almost here.

It's already priced low enough that every designer of 3D objects can own one.

Not affiliated with MakerBot. (And they are good guys -- all the plans and
source code are available for you to download and build yourself).

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francoisdevlin
We use this things at my job all the time. Amazingly useful when you need a
fast engineering prototype, or something to get your head around.

~~~
steveklabnik
As the costs come down, you'll see a continued move towards 'rapid
manufacturing': actually using these technologies to build the final goods.

