9 ms·

How 3D Printing Will Save American Manufacturing

20 points by pittsburgh 15y ago

alexhaefner 15y ago
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?
- illumen 15y ago
  Take those little 3d printers and then make it the side of a 4 story house. Now make it print using sand/glass/metal all in one pass. Now increase the resolution up to 5000dpi or so.
  - tonye 15y ago
    There is some research going on the UK (I can't remember the University now) to do with printing buildings. The potential for reducing raw material and labour costs must be huge.
    - pittsburgh 15y ago
      I believe you're thinking of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfbhdZKPHro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfbhdZKPHro Also related: http://inhabitat.com/3-d-printer-creates-entire-buildings-from-solid-rock/ http://inhabitat.com/3-d-printer-creates-entire-buildings-fr...
- pittsburgh 15y ago
  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 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-Compatible/ http://www.objet.com/3D-Printing-Materials/Overview/Bio-Comp... * 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-feet/ http://www.objetblog.com/2011/09/21/a-table-of-3d-printed-fe... * 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/ 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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVQq9joOS_4 * Hearing aids: http://i.materialise.com/blog/entry/3d-printing-in-medicine-what-is-happening-right-now-in-patients http://i.materialise.com/blog/entry/3d-printing-in-medicine-... * Jewelry: http://www.summerized.com/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 15y ago
    You forgot http://thingiverse.com/ 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.
shareme 15y ago
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..
tjmc 15y ago
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.
- extension 15y ago
  "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" - former IBM president Thomas J. Watson (it's a misquote, incidentally, but you get the point)
- pittsburgh 15y ago
  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.pdf http://www.dsm.com/en_US/downloads/dsms/NanoTooleng_10.09.pd... ) 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!
  - oelewapperke 15y ago
    Well I have two comments to this: 1) there's still very serious limits to what even extremely expensive 3d printers can achieve. Printing a part for a vacuum cleaner that lasts, say, a year ... not in the cards even for expensive devices. (I do agree at some point they may improve to the point of being useful for something other than super mario figurines, but we're talking in 10 years maybe) 2) while this may bring manufacturing back to America, it will actually destroy manufacturing jobs in America, and transport jobs.
jayfuerstenberg 15y ago
This could put IKEA out of business. I wonder how long it'll be until companies start suing.
- dagw 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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 15y ago
        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-Subfloor/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbqm7/R-100091344/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053 http://www.homedepot.com/Lumber-Composites-Plywood-Sheathing...
chubs 15y ago
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!
dolbz 15y ago
> 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.
- meow 15y ago
  So is this statement : "Creative and industrious Americans will no longer be challenged by the low-cost assembly line workers of Southeast Asia and third world countries." It almost feels like political speech.
  - seclorum 15y ago
    Whatever it feels like, the fact remains that the economy is being crippled by cheap plastic crap made on the other side of the planet and shipped - with much cost - to consumers who only play with it for 0.0000001% of the time that most of these things will be sitting there, forever, out in some landfill somewhere. I say, bring on the 3D printing revolution. First order for my 3D printer: make me a 3D component shredder that spits out more reusable pellets for my printer!
- xiaoma 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    I'm sympathetic to the thrust of your argument, but you might like to rethink the airplane, the car, and the Web.
jbarham 15y ago
Forget AutoCAD, use Tinkercad (http://www.tinkercad.com/ 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 15y ago
  Forget Tinkercad; use OpenSCAD! (http://www.openscad.org/ 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/ http://thingiverse.com/ ftw!)
aoporto 15y ago
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.
- oelewapperke 15y ago
  3d printing doesn't have to match current manufacturing costs to be effective. 3d printing can be done on location, with local materials, 90% unattended. So while materials are going to be more expensive for 3d printers, everything else will be way cheaper : no transport costs tiny labour costs much cheaper design costs (because it will open machine design to massive competition) much less taxes (no export, import taxes) much less administration
koushikn 15y ago
When will a 3D printer print itself?
- nicpottier 15y ago
  I believe you are looking for this: http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page

20 points by pittsburgh 15y ago

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?

illumen 15y ago
Take those little 3d printers and then make it the side of a 4 story house. Now make it print using sand/glass/metal all in one pass. Now increase the resolution up to 5000dpi or so.
- tonye 15y ago
  There is some research going on the UK (I can't remember the University now) to do with printing buildings. The potential for reducing raw material and labour costs must be huge.
  - pittsburgh 15y ago
    I believe you're thinking of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfbhdZKPHro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfbhdZKPHro Also related: http://inhabitat.com/3-d-printer-creates-entire-buildings-from-solid-rock/ http://inhabitat.com/3-d-printer-creates-entire-buildings-fr...
pittsburgh 15y ago
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 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-Compatible/ http://www.objet.com/3D-Printing-Materials/Overview/Bio-Comp... * 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-feet/ http://www.objetblog.com/2011/09/21/a-table-of-3d-printed-fe... * 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/ 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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVQq9joOS_4 * Hearing aids: http://i.materialise.com/blog/entry/3d-printing-in-medicine-what-is-happening-right-now-in-patients http://i.materialise.com/blog/entry/3d-printing-in-medicine-... * Jewelry: http://www.summerized.com/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 15y ago
  You forgot http://thingiverse.com/ 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.

shareme 15y ago

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..

tjmc 15y ago

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.

extension 15y ago
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" - former IBM president Thomas J. Watson (it's a misquote, incidentally, but you get the point)
pittsburgh 15y ago
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.pdf http://www.dsm.com/en_US/downloads/dsms/NanoTooleng_10.09.pd... ) 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!
- oelewapperke 15y ago
  Well I have two comments to this: 1) there's still very serious limits to what even extremely expensive 3d printers can achieve. Printing a part for a vacuum cleaner that lasts, say, a year ... not in the cards even for expensive devices. (I do agree at some point they may improve to the point of being useful for something other than super mario figurines, but we're talking in 10 years maybe) 2) while this may bring manufacturing back to America, it will actually destroy manufacturing jobs in America, and transport jobs.

jayfuerstenberg 15y ago

This could put IKEA out of business. I wonder how long it'll be until companies start suing.

dagw 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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-Subfloor/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbqm7/R-100091344/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053 http://www.homedepot.com/Lumber-Composites-Plywood-Sheathing...

chubs 15y ago

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!

dolbz 15y ago

> 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.

meow 15y ago
So is this statement : "Creative and industrious Americans will no longer be challenged by the low-cost assembly line workers of Southeast Asia and third world countries." It almost feels like political speech.
- seclorum 15y ago
  Whatever it feels like, the fact remains that the economy is being crippled by cheap plastic crap made on the other side of the planet and shipped - with much cost - to consumers who only play with it for 0.0000001% of the time that most of these things will be sitting there, forever, out in some landfill somewhere. I say, bring on the 3D printing revolution. First order for my 3D printer: make me a 3D component shredder that spits out more reusable pellets for my printer!
xiaoma 15y ago
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 15y ago
  I'm sympathetic to the thrust of your argument, but you might like to rethink the airplane, the car, and the Web.

jbarham 15y ago

Forget AutoCAD, use Tinkercad (http://www.tinkercad.com/ 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 15y ago
Forget Tinkercad; use OpenSCAD! (http://www.openscad.org/ 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/ http://thingiverse.com/ ftw!)

aoporto 15y ago

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.

oelewapperke 15y ago
3d printing doesn't have to match current manufacturing costs to be effective. 3d printing can be done on location, with local materials, 90% unattended. So while materials are going to be more expensive for 3d printers, everything else will be way cheaper : no transport costs tiny labour costs much cheaper design costs (because it will open machine design to massive competition) much less taxes (no export, import taxes) much less administration

koushikn 15y ago

When will a 3D printer print itself?

nicpottier 15y ago
I believe you are looking for this: http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page