3D printing will probably become the main method of how many products will be produced in the near future. There’s plenty of 3D printing companies competing for customers; from small-scale ones to huge corporations. The initial focus was on the private consumer market but when that didn’t catch on, the focus was diverted towards businesses. And it caught on.
Just to enlighten some of you who’ve never been interested in this technology, I’ll briefly explain few of the methods of 3D printing.
Starting with the most basic one - FDM, which stands for Fused Deposition Modelling. The idea is very simple. Usually, some kind of plastic gets heated up to its melting point and then,
pushed through a small nozzle, layer by layer it’s laid into the desired shape.
This method is the cheapest and simplest of all known. While you can achieve pretty good quality with it, it doesn’t allow for high scale production runs. But you can make some (usually useless, but not always!) things, like those:
The second method is SLA - Stereolithography. The idea here is to point a laser into a vat of light-sensitive resin. This one is a bit faster (although it almost always requires some post-processing work on the print), quite more expensive and sometimes precise enough to be used in prototyping.
The last one I want to introduce to you is SLS - Selective Laser Sintering. It works similar to the previous one. A laser is shot on very fine dust of plastic, metal or other material. This method allows for much greater print volumes than any other. And while it’s the most expensive one (in terms of upfront investment) it allows producing objects with very good detail and at a reasonable price.
With 3D printing technology, we’ll change the way we make new products. “If you can dream it, you can print it,” says Thorbjoern Fors, CEO of Siemens’ Distributed Generation Service. Designers are now “allowed” to fail because it won’t cost the company huge amounts of money to make a new iteration of the product. They could just print it.
Questions:
1. If you had a printer, what would you print? ("I'd print another 3D printer" - this answer is not allowed ;) )
2. How do you think products will change with help of 3D printers?
3. Have you heard of some other use of 3D printing other than household items or production?
Sources:
Comments
I am inclined to believe that they're going to be cheaper and more available.
I think that when 3D printers will be very popular and everyone will have one at home, we won't need to buy many products at all. We will only need to buy a file with a product's plan and resources needed to print it.
I've heard that researchers successfully printed some kind of a human organ or human part but I don't remember the details.
I think 3d printer in the future will be larger in size for creating some house for people or will be better in the configuration for creating some organs in medical.
I think that 3D printers are going to be for everyone. It's easy to use it.
Unforetunately i think that popularity of 3D printers wil be a bad thing for us -> We might see companies starting to send us a schemes to print a replacement part instead of actually caring about customer service(Here you go go print that part yourself)
I saw a 3D"printed" House, it was printed with concrete in less than 2 days.
2. I have no idea.
3. Nope sorry.
A link to the article: Spanish Surgeons Use Patient-Specific 3D Printed Surgical Instruments
As for the price of 3D printers, yes they're getting cheaper and more advanced every year!
I think, it will become much easier and cheap for regular people or small companies to produce different products.
I heard that there are "3d printed" houses and someone managed to build a gun using 3d printer.
Maybe it's a good thing though. You'll get a file that you can just print at home or 3D printing facility and use it instead of waiting for the spare part to arrive.
The first thing I would to is a Bluetooth Headphone stand because I cannot find the right one for me. The second one would be a some could shaped furniture or car accesories. Have played for a while with 3D creator so maybe it would be a good time for a print.
2. How do you think products will change with help of 3D printers?
We will have the possibility to "buy" architecture of a product and just print it in our own house - that can make a lot of business out of work.
3. Have you heard of some other use of 3D printing other than household items or production?
Sunglasses clip, Web Camera Cover, Headphone stand :)))
As for prining buildings, check this out: Apis Cor. This company 3D prints building with minimal human help. That's pretty cool!
I think that the main change that this technology would introduce is that the final products would be more suited for the individual use. Everyone would be able to have his/her own limited edition of a product that probably exists somewhere. If it doesn't though - it will.
I don't know what's the current state of all of these 3D projects that I've read about a long time ago, but yes - I've heard about some other uses. One of the most interesting out of all of them is printing food. It could be cheaper and pretty at the same time.
I can't answer the second questions because I don't know much about materials used in 3D printing. Are they safe? There is a picture with a vase in the article. But can we print a cup or spoon and use it in everyday life? Or the materials are not supposed to be used in the way when we eat with this/when kids will play with this?
I've heard doctors want to print organs with 3D printers. But again, which materials should they use and where to get them?
I don't think they will. It's nice technology for personal usage but too expensive for massive production. Also, it's quite limited and there are things it cannot print.
I heard it's commonly used by many small companies for printing prototypes for their products.
I think I could use it as a business for example some architects model projects or other prototypes. Or I could print some interesting project from internet.
How do you think products will change with help of 3D printers?
I think products could have better design.
If I had a 3d printer, I would print various types of toys and various accessories used in everyday use. The use of a 3d printer is virtually unlimited. You can do anything from simple, one-piece projects to working mechanisms.
Apart from that I would print a lot of toys to poor children.
2. Personally I have a lot of hope to use 3D printers in medicine. It could be amazing to produce every kind of implants. That would help many people to exist in better way they used to, if it would be also cheaper than traditional production process.
3. Unfortunately, not yet. But I am sure usage of 3D printers will be developed in the future. I hope for medicine market in particular, but also it could be used to produce clothes and other necessary staff, what could protect money and environment in fact.
Products have already changed with the help of 3d printers. First of all, this is a cheap way of making one-off prototypes. Not having to buy big machines or ordering models manufactured in those (where making a form for a big quanitity is profitable, but definitely not for a one-off) if a huge saving, which makes it possible for more people to actually try making their idea true. Actual products which were changed by 3D printing (which is actually pretty cool) is PC components, which can be customised by the owner with 3d-printed parts. For example, ASUS offers a lot of 3D-printed accessories and modules for downloading that go well with their products, like cable covers, cable combs or SLI bridges.
Also related to households (but as I imagine not covered by your question) are actual 3D printers that print... houses. This is something that is really impressive for me, 3D printers able to print a house out of concrete - and yes, they are already a thing!
3d printers have great potential in a fields like medicine - I bealive it is possible to print some organs nowadays. Despite that, I think that countries like China are using 3d printing in building industry.
Yea, the ability to 3D print a part before sending it to mass production is amazing, such a time and money save if something doesn't work as intended.
I haven't heard about ASUS allowing you to customize your case, I have to check it out!
"I'd get b& if I said what would I print >:D", but nah- if it were some high-quality printouts, with metals included (not some ABS weave), then I'd print stuff that broke, or that I need a cheap replacement for.
>How do you think products will change with help of 3D printers?
Assuming it wont be killed by giant companies with copyright claims for anything? Things will get cheaper, especially the ones made on request, also there should be more "inventors" as you would be able to start small series of products without great production costs.
3. Have you heard of some other use of 3D printing other than household items or production?
I've heard that someone has already printed, or at least tried to make a gun. I think it even fired once. Well, that's the other threat for 3D printing- "madmans printing guns". While it seems dumb and surreal, it's still possible.
The price of a decent quality printer that doesn't break every print is around 3000-4000PLN and the prices are going down every year. So the dream of 3D printer in every household is getting closer and closer.
You're right, a lot of creative people now have the ability to share their projects and ideas more easily.
As for the guns. They exist, you might have to do some digging to find ones that don't break after (or before) use.
I believe huge change in everyday lives is that products can become very easily customized.
I think medicine could be revolutionized by 3D printing. I heard that it’s already possible to print prosthetics, bones and even tissues with blood vessels.
There's plenty of available materials, some safe some not so much. There's a big push towards making more and more safe materials though, so you don't have to worry :)
So yes, you could print things like cutlery for everyday use.
As for the printed organs the materials they use are some polymers that exist in algae or our blood. It won't be avalible to a normal person but for laboratories and hospitals for sure.
We're still quite a way from the Star Gate like machine, but maybe some day it could become a reality for us.
I think I would print a mug in 3D. Coffee mug! I think that these printers will help in many aspects of everyday life. I hope in the future everyone will be able to have their own 3D printer.
Many printing spots in the US have been offering 3D printing for years now. Some libraries are also equipped with such printers. All you need is the right shape recorded on a flash drive.
We live in the times of Apple's domination of the electronic gadget market. The next generation won't need Apple, they'll be able to download, print and assemble a smartphone in their garage in a matter of minutes. Imagine the possibilities. And while you do try not to think to much about the fact that you can already print fully functional and totally untraceable and undetectable to metal detectors various size firearms :D
Until we get better technology and ability to 3d print complex materials, printers are just a gimmick and I don't think they have much use for a regular person.
I think that they may be cheaper - by substituting a whole technical process by printers it may be cheaper for produces to produce, so product may be cheaper.
I've heard about printing pawns for game (can you imagine, for example game of thrones themed chess made in your garage?)
3D modeling now used for a very wide range of fields:
1. Construction - the creation of a whole house in which it will be comfortable to live just in one day.
2. Medicine - complex program for printing cells, bones and even internal organs.
3. Production - modeling and production of complex parts that person can't create.
4. Substances - discovery and creation of new materials not known to mankind before.
5. Architecture - the creation of models of buildings, structures and even entire microdistricts.
6. Education - visual aids for studying various branches of science
7. Manufacture of clothing - clothing printed with a 3d printer has long covered fashion shows.
8. Jewelry - the joy of every woman, even the most insane forms can be realized.
9. Printing toys and souvenirs - new monsters for children, and even possibility to create a mini copy of himself.
This list can go on and on :)
They could be more flexible and adjusted to be available to print out. They could also be less complex in their functionality.
Medicine sector is using them to produce bones, cells and rest of our junk.