
The Achilles’ Heel of 3D Printing - aniijbod
http://www.iijiij.com/?p=15281&preview=true
======
recurrie
I happened to be reading Make magazine's 3d printing guide, and I was struck
the similarity to late 70s/early 80s personal computers. Lots of different
technologies. Kits. (Mostly) terrible cases, even wooden ones. All sorts of
"solution looking for problem" kinds of examples - 3d printing a coat hook is
the "key all your recipes into a computer" of this decade.

To outsiders, 1970s computing looked like a bunch of kooky hobbyists, and it
wasn't far off. I think in 10 or 20 years, 3d printing is going to be the
solution to lots of problems we haven't considered yet.

~~~
thrownaway2424
The difference is that 3D printing is already 20 years old. It's maturing a
bit more slowly than did software.

~~~
frabcus
That's very misleading. In the late 1970s computers were already 30 years old.

Yes, the "PC" was new. And that's the whole point - we now have cheap (but
rubbish) desktop 3D printers. It's the equivalent of the transition from
mainframe to minicomputer to PC.

~~~
nickpinkston
While you're right that both were old technologies. 3DP is noticeably slower
in many variables. If we look at the "quality" of output from the mainframes
-> Apple II, we see that the calculations would of course be the same and the
programming largely the same - the discrete nature of programming being what
it is.

However, the dimension of cost for 3DP (which is what the personal 3D printer
movement is excited about) is only one dimension of many, and I'd argue not
the biggest limitation.

3DP materials and process quality have certainly improved over time, but all
of the current technologies are dead-ends in regards to competing with
traditional processes - i.e. FDM/SLA/ProJet/PolyJet don't physically seem
able, ever, to produce parts as nice as injection molding can for a myriad of
reasons - even without cost as a concern. The situation for SLM/ProMetal
processes is little better.

Perhaps the recent investment in 3DP will increase R&D spend on quality, but
it doesn't seem to be the case if you look at the major or "maker" players.

------
sown
That list of criticisms isn't really so harsh but rather honest constructive
suggestions and realistic assessments of where 3D printing is now.

That being said, there are a lot of comparisons to 70s era computers and it
seems to be a valid observation. However, past performance is not indicative
of future results.

In 10-20-30 years after the 70s hobby home computing club, applications are
obvious.

So, maybe this is hard to ask, but what applications do you think are going to
be obvious in 30 years time? What is the Visicalc of 3D printing going to be?
What if there is no killer app?

~~~
gallerytungsten
The killer app is "just in time" manufacturing of single parts from a gigantic
library. This will create a "long tail" type business that can offer a huge
line of obscure parts that otherwise aren't available, as the original
manufacturing lines will have been closed down long ago.

Someday, 3D printing will probably be fast enough and improved enough to
displace a variety of low-volume manufacturing applications. "Improved enough"
to my mind would be manufacturing in metal with much more precise tolerance.

~~~
zeteo
>The killer app is "just in time" manufacturing of single parts from a
gigantic library. This will create a "long tail" type business that can offer
a huge line of obscure parts that otherwise aren't available

Have you ever held a McMaster-Carr catalog?

~~~
heriC
I have. That is where I order parts for my 3d printer. Interestingly, you are
making op's point because I frequently have to order from other places because
as long a tail as Mcmaster-Carr can cover, it doesn't come close to being all
that I need. It is essentially a comparison of a long, but finite tail vs. a
practicaly infinite one (ie, anything I can create in a cad file).

~~~
zeteo
> That is where I order parts for my 3d printer.

And you make my point :)

~~~
heriC
_some_ of my parts :)

------
zeteo
>if we suddenly discovered a way to do 3D printing (probably using 3D
technologies other than those in current use) that was anywhere near as fast
as conventional manufacturing, the resulting revolution could [...]

And that is 3D printing hype in a nutshell: yes, the technology and its
conceivable developments are not good enough to replace any significant part
of mass production. But if some miraculous new development happened, if only
this technology could develop at a pace as fast as some incredible outlier
such as integrated circuits, then it would be a revolution!

In fact there is nothing that revolutionary about 3D printing, and it is very
closely related to manufacturing technologies that were simply developed
earlier because they held more economic potential. At its core, a 3D printer
is a working head that is computer-controlled to move in three dimensions with
an attached tool that _deposits_ small amounts of material. A CNC milling
machine is also a 3D-moving working head with an attached tool that _removes_
small amounts of material. This is far more useful because you can work with
any kind of material you want.

"Ah," the 3D printing evangelists will say, "but that is so wasteful! We need
an accretive process to economize material." Except we already have another
widely-successful industrial process that also works by adding material:
industrial robotics. An industrial robot arm is a computer-controlled 3D
moving working head (notice a pattern here?) that can add new parts to an
existing workpiece. The parts are standardized and mass-produced separately,
at a ridiculously low price, out of ridiculously strong materials.

So between CNC milling and industrial robotics, which are basically the same
technology with different working heads, there is just not that much of a
niche for 3D printing to make a dent into. Yes, that could change tomorrow if
aliens came down from heaven and brought us a miraculously advanced 3D
printer. But at that point the discussion reaches ground previously reserved
for messianic religions, a discussion that I'd rather stay out of right now.

~~~
jacquesm
You nailed it other than the bit about robot arms adding parts. 3D printing
and reductive fabrication methods both make parts, it's not about assembly.

Still, 3D printing is in its infancy, already the food industry is getting
more and more of them, they're being used in different parts of the process
(for instance: mould making, which is a very delicate art) and they're getting
more precise, faster and cheaper. Let's give it a few years before we declare
it a failure, the camera obscura wasn't a very good DSLR either.

~~~
zeteo
You can sometimes make the same product by either shaping it directly or by
making smaller, simple parts and binding them with e.g. screws. That's why I
feel industrial robotics should be part of the discussion.

I do actually agree that 3D printing has pretty convincing use cases: food
industry, small aluminum parts for airplane engines, customized cartilage
replacement etc. I just think these are relatively small and non-revolutionary
niches.

------
slacka
My company has over a dozen 3D printers in the our design office in SF and our
manufacturing facility in Shenzhen. They range from $250K professional units
to $1K consumer models. I've seen the progression from old 2001 models to the
the state of the art models purchased this year.

12 years later, and the latest printers are good for 1 purpose.

 __PROTOTYPING __

Sure, a hobbyist may find this tech somewhat useful. For example to print a
case for his raspberry PI. Even that takes 4 hours to print, and if he drops
it, it will shatter. Oh and finish is TERRIBLE. If a mass produced version is
available it will always be better in every way.

I've never held any 3D printed part in my hand that compares to a nice soft
touch painted part, or even an injected molded piece.

This tech is like where the semiconductor industry was in the 50s. 60 years
from now, we'll be printing some cool shit. But in a few years time, we're not
going to be printing out shoes, headphones, and furniture like people here are
dreaming about here.

------
forgottenpaswrd
Look at this picture: [http://www.reprap.org/wiki/File:2012-12-15-clone-wars-
geneal...](http://www.reprap.org/wiki/File:2012-12-15-clone-wars-
genealogy-90-clones-peq.png)

It is about a project that started 1 year ago in Spain making 3d printers and
now have more than 100 of them(the graph gets outdated fast).

There is today more new people coming to this technology every single year
than the entire population dedicated to them before.

3D printer is not about what could be done with it today, but about what these
people is going to do in the future from that.

E.g Inexpensive(1/10 the price of filament) plastic printing from pellets:
<http://makibox.com/details/product/makibox_a6_ramen_bundle>

PS:I have a 3d printer and love it.

~~~
gonzo
I have a 3d printer (makerbot), and I love it.

But I also produce low-volume injection-molded plastic parts.

and building the molds and then producing the parts is still faster.

~~~
jacquesm
I'd love to read a post on your mold making and injection molding adventures.

~~~
gonzo
Well, the product is a LEGO-compatible case for iPhone 4/4S and iPhone 5,
available at smallworks.com. It was my then 12 year-old son's idea.

The first mold, for the iPhone 4/4S) were made in China. The second was for
the iPod Touch (4th gen). We've modified the second here in Austin for the
iPhone 5.

We use Solidworks to design the part, and then outsource the actual mold
design. If it was a two plate mold (just cavity & core), then we would
probably do it ourselves, but all three (actually, 2.5, I guess) molds have 3
sliders as well. These require a semi-complex mechanism, and need to be hand
fit (with bluing, very old-school/traditional) in order to hold the pressure
of the injection molding process.

The pieces for the third mold were all done with EDM, rather than traditional
CNC machining.

We do the injection-molding just outside Austin, though I'm considering moving
it to Houston.

Duplicating LEGO is about as difficult as it gets in the injection molding
world.

Though my degree was in ME, I'm really more of a software guy.

(We're about the same age, btw.)

~~~
jacquesm
Super stuff man, really. And that's a great idea, your son really got that one
right. Amazing story.

I took the liberty of sending out a tweet about this, hope it will get you
some sales.

I've worked with a professional moldmaker where we had molds made for the
casting of the base/table for a CNC rig (very hard to make a stable rig, lots
of interesting postprocessing for hardening).

Molds are fascinating, especially molds for high pressure/high speed
injection, the precision and the amount of trickery to deal with warp and
cooling are a lifetime of study.

I never quite realized just how much work goes into making molds until I saw
it up close, those are very complex devices, far more complex than I ever
imagined. Part of the reasons for using EDM rather than regular machining is
probably the finish, the precision and the hardness scale of the materials
used.

You might enjoy this:

    
    
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnRRDIFNxoM
    

I worked for a company that built CNC conversion rigs and I never really lost
the bug for metalworking.

------
ChuckMcM
It is mis-titled, its a survey of what 3D printing is currently good for vs
what it isn't good for. It notes that it's not good for punching out billions
of simple parts.

The article is written for investors who are looking for the 'next big thing'
and gives some interesting metrics for when 3D printing is worth investing in,
vs now when it is a niche. Similar to other stories we've talked about here,
the 3D revolution is coming in 2020 not today.

------
hsmyers
Sounds like the same old saw that the computer cognoscenti said about desktop
computers. From my point of view, I don't give a damn about any of their
quibbles---they are either no longer a problem or subject to on-going R&D.
What I want is something that allows me to proto-type my ideas. Plastic of any
sort is just fine for testing. If it works, I can consider small production
runs in the material of my choice. Good heavens, I can even have it cast in
gold or sterling silver if I want :) This technology allows me to move from
day-dream to reality. If the 'industry' scoffs let them, I'll be busy hacking
away...

~~~
TheAmazingIdiot
I've been talking to Josef Prusa and Kliment about going from print to cast.
There's a few other guys who exactly that. The 2 makers' suggestions are to
cast using natural PLA. It burns off the cleanest of all the current plastics.

Along with that, I am very interested in Prusa's print head. It will be able
to print PEEK, nylon, polycarbonate, and other hotter (and noxious outgassing)
plastics.

------
martythemaniak
Perhaps 3D printing will never be quite as fast, but it won't end up mattering
very much? The article did alude to one possibility - that demand for mass
customizability would alleviate any speed disadvantages.

A practical example might be: Let's say I need some chairs. I can go down to
Ikea and pick up one of 5 mass produced chairs they have and be done with it
in half a day. Or I could browse through designs and reviews online, pick
something I like and have it arrive a week and a half later when it's done
printing (or have my neighbourhood or home printer take that long...)

~~~
hosh
A bigger advantage for 3D printing has more to do with onsite, personal
manufacturing, of which "mass customization" is a secondary benefit.

Many of the objections the industry insiders use to describe additive printing
are more or less the same arguments people have made about homebrew computing,
back before the Steve Wozniac showed off the Apple I and IBM got into the
game. Why would you use personal computer? They are slower than the
minicomputers and mainframes. They are "craft" machines for hobbyists.

Ideally, we are moving to a future economy where you "buy" a product by
purchasing a license to a design, and then having your household printer
produce the product. If it is for something larger or requires more exotic
materials, you might place a print order at the neighborhood Kinko's, Ace's
Hardware, or print co-opt.

~~~
CamperBob2
_Ideally, we are moving to a future economy where you "buy" a product by
purchasing a license to a design, and then having your household printer
produce the product._

Speaking for myself, I don't want to live in a future where you've done what
it's going to take to enforce those licenses.

~~~
hosh
Generally, I think ubiquitous, cheap, personal manufacturing is a good thing.
_If_ we have a number of Open Source products we can print out. That will
substantially lower the cost of living for everyone. Hopefully, the vast
majority of retailers will turn into service providers.

There may still be folks who want to license designs out.

Nobody trusts a corporation to enforce their DRM mechanism because they get to
be the final arbiter of what is "fair". What is fair is always good for the
corporation, never mind the user. They may die and kill off access to those
goods. The other extreme is hypocritical, simply because we run our digital
goods through hardware -- all resting on the notion of allocation of
resources. Besides, content creators want to eat, too.

A reasonable compromise is to have the DRM enforced by someone other than the
seller. An escrow service is an improvement, but is not much better. And no
one wants to depend on the government to host DRM servers. A peer-to-peer DRM
might work. Bitcoin is an example of a technology that can be modified for
this: [http://codinginmysleep.com/exotic-transaction-types-with-
bit...](http://codinginmysleep.com/exotic-transaction-types-with-bitcoin/)

The mediation is done peer-to-peer. You can, for example, sign a bitcoin
contract saying you are lending an ebook to a friend, and have it published
elsewhere. Granted, this would all be on an honor system -- if you can play
back media, then you have access to the content, no amount of clever
algorithms or coding can change that -- but so is much of the enforcement for
civilized interaction. A small group will "cheat", the same way there are
breakage in a retail store. If the voluntary participation of such a scheme
benefits everyone involved and is not too inconvenient (centralized DRM
servers that crash or gets taken down when the company dies, or requires a
constant internet connection), I think most people will go for it.

It's best we experiment this kind of transaction with digital products,
_before_ 3D technologies get good enough that people start buying design
licenses for goods.

Better yet, we make sure we have Open Source versions of products that people
can download and print out.

------
Tloewald
I dont think this article, which is interesting, is about what it says it is
about. I don't think anyone seriously expects 3d printing to replace mass
production any time soon, but i do see it as part of a series of related
trends:

We need fewer, smaller physical things, and less stuff, to enjoy life. My new
TV is has a larger screen and weighs less than its predecessor, and even so is
largely redundant given i have an ipad. I used to need a laptop and a desktop
computer, a games console, and so forth. Most or these now gather dust. I dont
need a dedicated "movie" room, so i need less space and less furniture. And so
on.

When we do want things, we often want them highly customized. Consider the
insane variety of phone cases selling in popup stores all over the place.

I suggest to the author that anyone poo-pooing 3d printing today is in the
exact same boat as, say, hot metal typesetters looking down on photo-
typesetting and laser printers for their comparatively low quality back in,
say, 1985. First they lost their low end customers, then all their customers,
and then the people who had replaced them lost most of their customers (ok
that's in progress).

~~~
derleth
> We need fewer, smaller physical things, and less stuff, to enjoy life.

This isn't an axiom. It's a personal preference. Don't imagine it applies to
everyone else.

~~~
Tloewald
I don't think it's an axiom, i think it's a consequence of convergence. I used
to own a camera, a video camera, a personal organizer, a landline phone, a
cell phone, a discman, a gameboy, etc. I now have all these things in one
device that's smaller and lighter than any of them used to be.

~~~
derleth
> I used to own a camera, a video camera, a personal organizer, a landline
> phone, a cell phone, a discman, a gameboy, etc. I now have all these things
> in one device that's smaller and lighter than any of them used to be.

And it isn't as good of a camera as a modern dedicated camera is. In fact, it
might not even be as good as the camera you replaced it with, especially when
it comes to ergonomics. Similarly, a dedicated gaming device often has better
ergonomics for gaming than trying to play the same games on a phone.

I understand convergence. I understand satisficing. I also understand why
people still make SLRs, and it isn't just to keep dust out of the various
lenses. If you really want a good camera, you aren't going to be fully
satisfied with a phone that has a megapixel count. The gaming world is more
fluid because games themselves can adapt to new hardware and interface styles,
but specific games often really do go better when you have buttons as opposed
to a touch screen.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing>

And, finally, my little quirk: I refuse to believe that decluttering is a
valid end in itself. Having a closet full of stuff I enjoy owning isn't a
personal failing or a personality flaw.

------
evincarofautumn
This seems obvious. A generic solution can _do_ everything, but there's no
reason to expect it would be the _best_ at anything; a specialised, single-
function machine can always beat a 3D printer for performance, for the simple
reason that printers have traded away performance for versatility. And in
software, abstraction gives you flexibility while _degeneralisation_ gives you
efficiency. It's the same old story.

~~~
forgottenpaswrd
" a specialised, single-function machine can always beat a 3D printer for
performance"

But there is no more specialized thing than a 3d printer. You can print
glasses for your face, not for a general model of faces but for your unique
face, your specific sizes in all dimensions.

Getting to performance on the big machines is cost prohibitive for lots of
things because you need big runs.

~~~
evincarofautumn
You misunderstand my use of the term "specialised". A 3D printer can print
_anything_ , barring some of the limitations outlined in the article. Most
machines are intended to serve much more specific functions, and do so with
great efficiency: I can print a hole in any shape I like, but if all I want is
a hole, why shouldn't I just use a drill press?

------
ricolicious
The primary objection to 3D printing in the article seems to be about speed in
transforming raw materials into a finished product, but that's not the only
thing that needs to happen to sell a product.

The entire process is:

1\. Transform raw materials into a finished product

2\. Transport product from factory to store or warehouse

3\. Transport product from store or warehouse to customer's home

Looking at it like this, it seems to me that the speed of 3D printing relative
to other ways to transform raw materials into a finished product is
irrelevant.

What really matters is the speed of 3D printing relative to other ways to
transport the product from the store or warehouse to the customer's home. In
other words, how long does UPS/FedEx take to deliver or how long does it take
to visit the local mall?

------
6ren
3D printing is disruptive, not to industrial manufacturing, but to the retail
value-chain. As mail-order is currently disrupting retail, 3D printing will
disrupt both retail and mail-order.

"Ink" will be sold as a commodity at supermarkets/gas stations (perhaps
eventually piped directly as a utility, like gas or water - though our
consumption would need to increase dramatically to justify that).

Profits will be made on product design, and the industry will look just like
the downloadable information-based industries of today:
software/games/music/movies/education/news. Some business models will be a
service related to the product, not the product itself. Although long-tail
diversification will be possible, it mostly will be be dominated by a few
products and corporations (due to the same factors as today: concentration of
resources, quality assurance of trademarks, wish for community support (e.g.
SO questions), marketing reach and herd mentality). Although initially
suppliers will be diverse, the industry will soon consolidate - the same
pattern as every other new technology.

Components that can't be 3D printed - e.g. silicon - will become addable
modules (a cheap commodity, bought like screws/nails/pet-food pellets that you
add to the hopper). Designs will modularize around this interface.

There'll be open source versions too - also consolidated, for the above
reasons, as they are today.

------
dccoolgai
All of these "bullet points" about 3d printing sound suspiciously like people
30 years ago talking about why personal computing wasn't going to be a big
deal. Makes me believe in it even more.

------
waterlesscloud
Looking at the bigger picture, it's fun to see the Hype Curve in action. 3D
Printing is just passing the peak of the first hill of the curve. So we should
expect the hype/expectations to drop quickly for a while, bottom out and stay
low for a couple of years, then recover to a useful level where it will stay.

All part of the cycle.

------
jkat
As a layman, I thought the main issue with 3D printing was the material (the
article only briefly mentions this). Plastic goes a long way, but still, when
I look at almost non-trivial thing around me, I tend to see more-than-just-
plastic.

------
cjmagee
Same comments were made by printshop owners when Apple introduced the first
Laserwriter. Sure indication of the big guys well on their way to being
referred to as dinosaurs.

------
rottyguy
Wonder if there will be elemental composites akin to RGB with 3d printing
(e.g. rubber/metal/plastic -- layman's thinking) to which [most] all things
can be created?

------
zxcdw
I consider 3D printing to be mature technology once a 3D printer can clone
itself! I bet at that point von Neumann smiles in his grave for self-
replicating systems.

~~~
alanctgardner2
I may be wrong, but there are a few problems with a self-replicating printer
of this type:

\- The size of the stage determines the largest size of part that can be
printed. The stage is necessarily smaller than the largest part of the
printer.

\- The print head has to have a melting point greater than the material being
printed. Meaning it can't be made of the material being printed.

RepRap is a project with the state goal of creating a self-printing machine
like this. But looking at the current designs, they mostly stick together
common materials with some 3-D printed bits. This is much more attainable and
useful than really being able to recursively print a new machine, because the
common parts are produced at scale through existing channels and are
stronger/cheaper than the machine-printed parts.

------
WalterSear
The Achille's Heel of 3D printing: it isn't tomorrow yet.

------
InclinedPlane
Few of these downsides are actually fundamental, most of them will change
dramatically as technology changes.

Will 3D printing be the foundation of 21st century manufacturing? Almost
certainly not. But will the fundamental techniques drive a revolution in
manufacturing and become key elements in next-generation fully automated,
fast-turnaround, fully configurable manufacturing? Probably.

~~~
dasil003
The list is also padded pretty heavily. In reality, something has a killer app
or it doesn't. 3D printing's weaknesses in speed and materials don't seem
likely to go away any time soon, and in fact they seem intertwined in a
way—faster printing would seem to require ever more specialized materials.
It's obviously an exciting technology that will carve out a few niches, but I
don't see what all the hype is about.

